Contrasting forest management strategies: Impacts on biodiversity and ecosystem services under changing climate and disturbance regimes.

Natural disturbances may compromise the past and ongoing efforts to increase carbon sequestration and halt biodiversity loss in boreal forests. Measures to minimize the effects of forest disturbances i.e.

Patterns of tropical forest understory temperatures.

Temperature is a fundamental driver of species distribution and ecosystem functioning. Yet, our knowledge of the microclimatic conditions experienced by organisms inside tropical forests remains limited. This is because ecological studies often rely on coarse-gridded temperature estimates representing the conditions at 2 m height in an open-air environment (i.

Bioclimate change across the protected area network of Finland.

Protected areas (PAs) are crucial in conserving biodiversity under climate change. In boreal regions, trends of biologically relevant climate variables (i.e.

ForestClim-Bioclimatic variables for microclimate temperatures of European forests.

Microclimate research gained renewed interest over the last decade and its importance for many ecological processes is increasingly being recognized. Consequently, the call for high-resolution microclimatic temperature grids across broad spatial extents is becoming more pressing to improve ecological models. Here, we provide a new set of open-access bioclimatic variables for microclimate temperatures of European forests at 25 × 25 m resolution.

Predicting habitat suitability for Ixodes ricinus and Ixodes persulcatus ticks in Finland.

Background: Ticks are responsible for transmitting several notable pathogens worldwide. Finland lies in a zone where two human-biting tick species co-occur: Ixodes ricinus and Ixodes persulcatus. Tick densities have increased in boreal regions worldwide during past decades, and tick-borne pathogens have been identified as one of the major threats to public health in the face of climate change.

Maintaining forest cover to enhance temperature buffering under future climate change.

Forest canopies buffer macroclimatic temperature fluctuations. However, we do not know if and how the capacity of canopies to buffer understorey temperature will change with accelerating climate change. Here we map the difference (offset) between temperatures inside and outside forests in the recent past and project these into the future in boreal, temperate and tropical forests.

ForestTemp - Sub-canopy microclimate temperatures of European forests.

Ecological research heavily relies on coarse-gridded climate data based on standardized temperature measurements recorded at 2 m height in open landscapes. However, many organisms experience environmental conditions that differ substantially from those captured by these macroclimatic (i.e.

Predicting Spatial Patterns of Sindbis Virus (SINV) Infection Risk in Finland Using Vector, Host and Environmental Data.

Pogosta disease is a mosquito-borne infection, caused by Sindbis virus (SINV), which causes epidemics of febrile rash and arthritis in Northern Europe and South Africa. Resident grouse and migratory birds play a significant role as amplifying hosts and various mosquito species, including , , and are documented vectors. As specific treatments are not available for SINV infections, and joint symptoms may persist, the public health burden is considerable in endemic areas.

Statistical upscaling of ecosystem CO fluxes across the terrestrial tundra and boreal domain: Regional patterns and uncertainties.

The regional variability in tundra and boreal carbon dioxide (CO ) fluxes can be high, complicating efforts to quantify sink-source patterns across the entire region. Statistical models are increasingly used to predict (i.e.

Forest microclimates and climate change: Importance, drivers and future research agenda.

Forest microclimates contrast strongly with the climate outside forests. To fully understand and better predict how forests' biodiversity and functions relate to climate and climate change, microclimates need to be integrated into ecological research. Despite the potentially broad impact of microclimates on the response of forest ecosystems to global change, our understanding of how microclimates within and below tree canopies modulate biotic responses to global change at the species, community and ecosystem level is still limited.

Consistent trait-environment relationships within and across tundra plant communities.

A fundamental assumption in trait-based ecology is that relationships between traits and environmental conditions are globally consistent. We use field-quantified microclimate and soil data to explore if trait-environment relationships are generalizable across plant communities and spatial scales. We collected data from 6,720 plots and 217 species across four distinct tundra regions from both hemispheres.

Climate mediates continental scale patterns of stream microbial functional diversity.

Background: Understanding the large-scale patterns of microbial functional diversity is essential for anticipating climate change impacts on ecosystems worldwide. However, studies of functional biogeography remain scarce for microorganisms, especially in freshwater ecosystems. Here we study 15,289 functional genes of stream biofilm microbes along three elevational gradients in Norway, Spain and China.

SoilTemp: A global database of near-surface temperature.

Current analyses and predictions of spatially explicit patterns and processes in ecology most often rely on climate data interpolated from standardized weather stations. This interpolated climate data represents long-term average thermal conditions at coarse spatial resolutions only. Hence, many climate-forcing factors that operate at fine spatiotemporal resolutions are overlooked.

Fine-grained climate velocities reveal vulnerability of protected areas to climate change.

Climate change velocity is an increasingly used metric to assess the broad-scale climatic exposure and climate change induced risks to terrestrial and marine ecosystems. However, the utility of this metric in conservation planning can be enhanced by determining the velocities of multiple climatic drivers in real protected area (PA) networks on ecologically relevant scales. Here we investigate the velocities of three key bioclimatic variables across a nation-wide reserve network, and the consequences of including fine-grained topoclimatic data in velocity assessments.

Snow is an important control of plant community functional composition in oroarctic tundra.

The functional composition of plant communities is a critical modulator of climate change impacts on ecosystems, but it is not a simple function of regional climate. In the Arctic tundra, where climate change is proceeding the most rapidly, communities have not shifted their trait composition as predicted by spatial temperature-trait relationships. Important causal pathways are thus missing from models of trait composition change.

Circumpolar permafrost maps and geohazard indices for near-future infrastructure risk assessments.

Ongoing climate change is causing fundamental changes in the Arctic, some of which can be hazardous to nature and human activity. In the context of Earth surface systems, warming climate may lead to rising ground temperatures and thaw of permafrost. This Data Descriptor presents circumpolar permafrost maps and geohazard indices depicting zones of varying potential for development of hazards related to near-surface permafrost degradation, such as ground subsidence.

Degrading permafrost puts Arctic infrastructure at risk by mid-century.

Degradation of near-surface permafrost can pose a serious threat to the utilization of natural resources, and to the sustainable development of Arctic communities. Here we identify at unprecedentedly high spatial resolution infrastructure hazard areas in the Northern Hemisphere's permafrost regions under projected climatic changes and quantify fundamental engineering structures at risk by 2050. We show that nearly four million people and 70% of current infrastructure in the permafrost domain are in areas with high potential for thaw of near-surface permafrost.

Statistical modelling predicts almost complete loss of major periglacial processes in Northern Europe by 2100.

The periglacial realm is a major part of the cryosphere, covering a quarter of Earth's land surface. Cryogenic land surface processes (LSPs) control landscape development, ecosystem functioning and climate through biogeochemical feedbacks, but their response to contemporary climate change is unclear. Here, by statistically modelling the current and future distributions of four major LSPs unique to periglacial regions at fine scale, we show fundamental changes in the periglacial climate realm are inevitable with future climate change.

Mapping monthly rainfall erosivity in Europe.

Rainfall erosivity as a dynamic factor of soil loss by water erosion is modelled intra-annually for the first time at European scale. The development of Rainfall Erosivity Database at European Scale (REDES) and its 2015 update with the extension to monthly component allowed to develop monthly and seasonal R-factor maps and assess rainfall erosivity both spatially and temporally. During winter months, significant rainfall erosivity is present only in part of the Mediterranean countries.

Reply to the comment on "Rainfall erosivity in Europe" by Auerswald et al.

Recently, in the Auerswald et al. (2015) comment on "Rainfall erosivity in Europe", 5 criticisms were addressed: i) the neglect of seasonal erosion indices, ii) the neglect of published studies and data, iii) the low temporal resolution of the data, especially of the maximum rain intensity, iv) the use of precipitation data instead of rain data and the subsequent deviation of the R-factor in Germany and Austria compared with previous studies, and v) the differences in considered time periods between countries. We reply as follows: (i) An evaluation of the seasonal erosion index at the European scale is, to our knowledge, not achievable at present with the available data but would be a future goal.

Rainfall erosivity in Europe.

Rainfall is one the main drivers of soil erosion. The erosive force of rainfall is expressed as rainfall erosivity. Rainfall erosivity considers the rainfall amount and intensity, and is most commonly expressed as the R-factor in the USLE model and its revised version, RUSLE.

Soil moisture's underestimated role in climate change impact modelling in low-energy systems.

Shifts in precipitation regimes are an inherent component of climate change, but in low-energy systems are often assumed to be less important than changes in temperature. Because soil moisture is the hydrological variable most proximally linked to plant performance during the growing season in arctic-alpine habitats, it may offer the most useful perspective on the influence of changes in precipitation on vegetation. Here we quantify the influence of soil moisture for multiple vegetation properties at fine spatial scales, to determine the potential importance of soil moisture under changing climatic conditions.

Identification of amino acid residues at the active site of endosialidase that dissociate the polysialic acid binding and cleaving activities in Escherichia coli K1 bacteriophages.

Endosialidase (endo-N-acetylneuraminidase) is a tailspike enzyme of bacteriophages specific for human pathogenic Escherichia coli K1, which specifically recognizes and degrades polySia (polysialic acid). polySia is also a polysaccharide of the capsules of other meningitis- and sepsis-causing bacteria, and a post-translational modification of the NCAM (neural cell-adhesion molecule). We have cloned and sequenced three spontaneously mutated endosialidases of the PK1A bacteriophage and one of the PK1E bacteriophage which display lost or residual enzyme activity but retain the binding activity to polySia.