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Most flowering plants depend on insect pollinators for their reproduction, yet these pollinators have been facing considerable losses in abundance and diversity in recent decades. The ongoing pollinator declines, caused by stressors including land-use and climate change, have raised concerns for species-rich plant communities such as those found in semi-natural grasslands. These communities contai

Inland port expansion requires immense investment costs often resulting in dredging and creating a new physical space for production and especially when handling Ultra Large Container Vessels (ULCVs). A floating container terminal (FCT) is an innovation that sets out to change the landscape within what is required to handle ULCV’s. The structure can be placed out at sea where no dredging is requir

The Benguela Upwelling System (BUS), located between 30 and 20°S, is one of the fundamental high-productivity systems of the world ocean. The BUS has previously been studied in terms of primary productivity and ecology over glacial-interglacial timescales; however, the response and coupling with the benthic environment have received little attention. Here, for the first time, we present a high-res

Cystatin C is a cysteine protease inhibitor, aimed for secretion, as it is produced with a signal peptide. Its target enzymes are thought to be the lysosomal cysteine cathepsins and legumain. Cystatin C has been considered to excert its enzyme inhibiting functions extracellularly, as a defense against enzymes from leaking lysosomes or invading pathogens. It was demonstrated by various techniques,

Soils are continuously exposed to cycles of drying and rewetting (D/RW), which drive pronounced fluctuations in soil carbon (C) fluxes. These C dynamics are characterized by a decoupled behavior between microbial biomass synthesis (growth) and CO2 production (respiration). In general, respiration rates peak shortly after RW and subsequently decrease, while the growth peaks lag several hours behind

Microfluidic soil chips render optical access to the naturally opaque soil systems and enable direct investigation of microbial growth and interactions in micro-structurally and chemically controlled environments. However, chemical analyses of these interactions at high spatial and temporal resolution are still lacking. Here we propose that the use of advanced microspectroscopy techniques, namely

A three stacked power amplifier implemented in 28nm fully depleted silicon-on-insulator complementary metal oxide semi-conductor technology (FDSOI CMOS) is presented. It has a differential architecture with on-chip input and output transformer baluns. The PA achieves a saturated output power level of 17.9dBm with a peak power added efficiency of 7% and an output referred gain compression point of

This chapter aims at synthesizing the knowledge presented in the chapters of the book’s three sections by addressing evolutionary compromises, dispersal, gene flow, and assisted movements. How climate change and other environmental changes at different scales may affect animal movement, migration, and dispersal in the future are also summarized here. Moreover, how the different senses are utilized

The effects of mechanical load on optical properties of Y2SiO5 / Eu:Y2SiO5 crystals are investigated through application of first principles calculations. The crystals are first relaxed to reach equilibrium ground state using plane wave density functional theory (DFT). Once application of load on desired direction is performed the optical absorption profile of aforementioned crystals are plotted w

The stable isotope of carbon, 13C, has been used in several studies for source characterization of carbonaceous aerosol since there are specific signatures for different sources. In rural areas, the influence of different sources is complex and the application of δ13C for source characterization of the total carbonaceous aerosol (TC) can therefore be difficult, especially the separation between bi

For successful climate change adaptation, the distribution of responsibility within society is an important question. While the literature highlights the need for involving both public and private actors, little is still known of how citizens perceive their own and others’ responsibility, let alone the moral groundings for such perceptions. In this paper, we report the results of a survey regardin

Microbes govern most soil functions, but investigation of these processes at the scale of their cells has been difficult to accomplish. Here we incubate microfabricated, transparent ‘soil chips’ with soil, or bury them directly in the field. Both soil microbes and minerals enter the chips, which enables us to investigate diverse community interdependences, such as inter-kingdom and food-web intera

Soil moisture is one of the most important factors controlling the activity and diversity of soil microorganisms. Soils exposed to pronounced cycles of drying and rewetting (D/RW) exhibit disconnected patterns in microbial growth and respiration at RW. These patterns differ depending on the preceding soil moisture history, leading to contrasting amounts of carbon retained in the soil as biomass ve

Coastal protection has evolved from focusing on hard solutions such as breakwaters and groynes to include soft or nature-based solutions (NbS). NbS have been pro- posed as cost-effective means to offer long-term coastal protection and at the same time strengthen coastal resilience and biodiversity. However, projects utilizing NbS for coastal protection have often focused on a single solution and t

Context: Agri-environment schemes support land management interventions that benefit biodiversity, environmental objectives, and other public goods. Process-based model simulations suggest the English scheme, as implemented in 2016, increased wild bee pollination services to pollinator-dependent crops and non-crop areas in a geographically heterogeneous manner. Objectives: We investigated which in

1. Challenging calibration of complex models can be approached by using prior knowledge on the parameters. However, the natural choice of Bayesian inference can be computationally heavy when relying on Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) sampling. When the likelihood of the data is intractable, alternative Bayesian methods have been proposed. Approximate Bayesian Computation (ABC) only requires sampli

While wild pollinators play a key role in global food production, their assessment is currently missing from the most commonly used environmental impact assessment method, Life Cycle Assessment (LCA). This is mainly due to constraints in data availability and compatibility with LCA inventories. To target this gap, relative pollinator abundance estimates were obtained with the use of a Delphi asses

Despite the importance of mineral-associated organic matter (MAOM) in long-term soil carbon (C) and nitrogen (N) persistence, and the significant contribution of fungal necromass to this pool, the factors controlling the formation of fungal-derived MAOM remain unclear. This study investigated how fungal necromass chemistry, specifically melanin, interacts with soil mineral properties and microbial