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Climate change is increasingly posing a threat to biodiversity, both through its direct effects on organisms and through indirect effects resulting from changes in land use. Preserving biodiversity is an ethical obligation, but it is also increasingly being realised that biodiversity contributes to ecosystem services, i.e. ecosystem processes important for human needs and prosperity. In order to a
Anthropogenic nitrogen (N) deposition and fertilization in boreal forests frequently reduces decomposition and soil respiration and enhances C storage in the topsoil. This enhancement of the C sink can be as strong as the aboveground biomass response to N additions and has implications for the global C cycle, but the mechanisms remain elusive. We hypothesized that this effect would be associated w
Sustainable agriculture requires balancing crop yields with the effects of pesticides on non-target organisms, such as bees and other crop pollinators. Field studies demonstrated that agricultural use of neonicotinoid insecticides can negatively affect wild bee species 1,2, leading to restrictions on these compounds 3. However, besides neonicotinoids, field-based evidence of the effects of landsca
Approaches integrating interdisciplinary perspectives are necessary to address current and future health and environmental challenges. Many policy initiatives have embraced more holistic approaches to tackle these challenges, e.g., the One Health concept, the Farm to Fork (F2F), Biodiversity and Chemical strategies within the European Green Deal and the global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
Drought and rainfall events will become more frequent and intense with climate change. At the same time, soil moisture is one of the major factors controlling soil microbial processes such as carbon cycling. When challenged with drought there are two main growth responses microorganisms can use: (1) they can maintain growth rates during drought (i.e., resistance) and (2) they can recover growth ra
Guest editors of special issue with Ecology and Society
Traits that affect organismal fitness are often very genetically variable. This genetic variation is vital for populations to adapt to their environments, but it is also surprising given that nature (after all) “selects” the best genotypes at the expense of those that fall short. Explaining the extensive genetic variation of fitness-related traits is thus a longstanding puzzle in evolutionary biol
Since the 1987 UN report “Our Common Future”, aimed at bridging divides among various stakeholders by advocating for “sustainable development”, renewed demands for environmentally adjusted measures have emerged, calling for a future that consolidates socially just, ecologically sound, and economically viable outcomes through sustainable forest management. For Nordic forests, this means policy meas
Semi-open ecosystems, such as savannas and open woodlands, are biodiversity hotspots due largely to their heterogeneous tree cover (TC), which supports diverse habitats. However, increasing woody encroachment is altering TC heterogeneity, with unclear consequences for ecosystem stability. Using global satellite-based TC estimates (2000–2020), we reveal widespread TC homogenization (24.1%) in semi-
Forests are crucial for biodiversity, climate stability, and human well-being, yet rising pressures from climate change and conventional forestry practices threaten their resilience and sustainability. Approximately 30% of global forests are managed intensively, often as monoculture plantations, compromising biodiversity conservation, carbon sequestration, and ecosystem stability. Here, we propose
Soil organic matter (SOM) constitutes the largest terrestrial C pool. An emerging, untested, view is that oxidation and depolymerization of SOM by microorganisms promote the formation of SOM-mineral associations that is critical for SOM stabilization. To test this hypothesis, we performed laboratory-scale experiments involving one ectomycorrhizal and one saprotrophic fungus that represent the two
Nature-based adaptation planning is a challenging endeavor, not least because it requires transdisciplinary approaches to unite different actors' efforts and capacities. However, empirical knowledge on associated governance processes is scarce and fragmented. Against this background, this paper examines the integration of nature-based approaches for climate change adaptation into municipalities’ d
AIMS AND OBJECTIVES: To investigate the cancer rehabilitation experiences of working-age cancer survivors.BACKGROUND: Cancer survivors have extremely complex needs, spanning physical, vocational, and sexual domains. Although cancer rehabilitation services have been found to eliminate or reduce these strains, these services are often underutilized.DESIGN: A cross-sectional study design was employed
The study uses household level data from four villages inand around Cross River National Park (CRNP), Nigeria to assess therole of primate meat in local livelihoods and diets. Okwangwo is anenclave community within the national park, Butatong houses theCRNP headquarters. Kanyang1 and Abo Ebam are located fartheraway from the park. 149 respondents were surveyed. Sale ofbushmeat contributed 4 percen
Eukaryotic phytoplankton form the basis of aquatic food webs and play a key role in the global carbon cycle. Many of these evolutionarily diverse microalgae are also capable of feeding on other microbes, and hence simultaneously act both as primary producers and consumers. The net ecosystem impact of such mixotrophs depends on their nutritional strategy which is likely to alter with environmental
Neonicotinoids are implicated in bee declines and laboratory studies imply that they impair the bee immune system, thereby precipitating a rise in pathogen levels. To establish whether such synergisms reduce bee performance in real-world agricultural landscapes, we analysed the microbial composition of the bumblebee (Bombus terrestris) samples from our recent landscape study on the impacts of fiel
A bark beetle attack in a Norway spruce forest in southwestern Sweden killed most trees, which however mostly remained standing, and caused elevated nitrate concentrations and subsequent acidification in the soil water. Long-term monitoring showed very low nitrate concentrations in the soil water before the bark beetle attack. High nitrate concentrations remained throughout five years after the in
