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Background: Recent declines of honeybees and simplifications of wild bee communities, at least partly attributed to changes of agricultural landscapes, have worried both the public and the scientific community. To understand how wild and managed bees respond to landscape structure it is essential to investigate their spatial use of foraging habitats. However, such studies are challenging since the
“Urban Sharing in Toronto” explores the landscape of the sharing economy in the city context. This research is a result of a Mobile Research Lab conducted by 8 researchers from Lund university in 2019. Specific focus is on three sectors: sharing of space, mobility and physical goods. For each sector, we discuss the drivers and barriers to the sharing economy, the associated sustainability impacts,
OBJECTIVES: To describe the outcome of growth-restricted fetuses with absent or reversed end-diastolic flow (ARED) in the umbilical artery delivered on fetal indication before 30 gestational weeks.METHODS: Between 1998 and 2004, 42 fetuses with intrauterine growth restriction (IUGR) and ARED in the umbilical artery were delivered liveborn by Cesarean section on fetal indication before 30 gestation
Bumble bee abundance in agricultural landscapes is known to decrease with increasing distance from seminatural grasslands, but whether the pollination of bumble-bee-pollinated wild plants shows a similar pattern is less well known. In addition, the relative effects of landscape composition (landscape heterogeneity) and landscape configuration (distance from seminatural grassland) on wild plant pol
Ectomycorrhizal fungi are thought to have a key role in mobilizing organic nitrogen that is trapped in soil organic matter (SOM). However, the extent to which ectomycorrhizal fungi decompose SOM and the mechanism by which they do so remain unclear, considering that they have lost many genes encoding lignocellulose-degrading enzymes that are present in their saprotrophic ancestors. Spectroscopic an
Spatiotemporal resource continuity promotes persistence of mobile animal populations. Current agricultural landscapes are poor in flowers resources for bumble bees. Available forage crops are predominantly early-season mass-flowering crops (MFC). It has been suggested, but not tested, that scarcity of late-season flower resources are limiting bumble bee populations. We examined whether addition of
Effects of landscape heterogeneity and farming practice on species composition are less well known than those on species richness, in spite of the fact that community composition can be at least as important for ecosystem services, such as pollination. Here, we assessed the effect of organic farming and landscape heterogeneity on pollinator communities, focusing on multivariate patterns in species
Ectomycorrhizal fungi play a key role in mobilizing nutrients embedded in recalcitrant organic matter complexes, thereby increasing nutrient accessibility to the host plant. Recent study have shown that during assimilation of nutrients, the ectomycorrhizal fungus Paxillus involutus decomposes organic matter using an oxidative mechanism involving Fenton chemistry (Fe(2+) + H2O2 + H(+) → Fe(3+) + •O
Growing evidence for declines in wild bees calls for the development and implementation of effective mitigation measures. Enhancing floral resources is a widely accepted measure for promoting bees in agricultural landscapes, but effectiveness varies considerably between landscapes and regions. We hypothesize that this variation is mainly driven by a combination of the direct effects of measures on
The predominant forms of arsenic (As) in anoxic and oxic environments are As(III) and As(V), respectively, and the fate of these forms is influenced by interactions with mineral surfaces and organic matter (OM). Interactions between As(V) and OM are believed to occur mainly via iron(Fe)-bridges in ternary Fe-arsenate complexes, but direct evidence for these interactions are scarce. Furthermore, si
Aluminum (Al) is the most common metal in the Earth's crust, and exists mainly in the form of silicates, oxides and hydroxides, or in complexes with natural organic matter (NOM) or inorganic ligands. Since speciation is a key factor for understanding the environmental impact of Al, it is important to determine the chemical forms of Al that predominate in different natural media and under varying g
Organic farming is promoted as a sustainable alternative to conventional farming, with positive effects on the diversity of plants and selected animal taxa. Here, we used a literature survey to collect presence/absence data on the composition of farmland bird, ground beetle, spider as well as butterfly and moth communities from 28 independent studies to identify genera and (sub-)families that had
To assess ecological consequences of bushmeat hunting in African lowland rainforests, we compared paired sites, with high and low hunting pressure, in three areas of southeastern Nigeria. In hunted sites, populations of important seed dispersers-both small and large primates (including the Cross River gorilla, Gorilla gorilla diehli)-were drastically reduced. Large rodents were more abundant in hu
Agri-environment schemes (AES) have been introduced to mitigate negative environmental effects caused by increased agricultural intensification in Europe. However, there is still debate on whether currently available incentives are efficiently enhancing farmland biodiversity. Moreover, agri-environment schemes often lead to a yield reduction, which has been argued to potentially increase pressure
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
The concentration of colored dissolved organic matter (CDOM) in lakes is strongly influenced by climate, land cover, and topographic settings, but it is not known how drought may affect the relative importance of these controls. Here, we evaluate the controls of CDOM during two summers with strongly contrasting values of the Palmer drought index (PDI), indicating wet vs. dry conditions. We hypothe
Conservation biological control in agricultural landscapes aims to promote natural enemy populations to mitigate short and long-term pest damage on crops. However, natural enemy populations in agricultural landscapes typically rely on crop pests and non-pest prey populations resulting in complex trait- dependent ecological interactions. Such communities, of pests, non-pest prey, and natural enemie
One of the most important challenges for modern society is how to feed the world in a sustainable manner. Agriculture is an essential part of food production, but at the same time it has many negative impacts on the environment, through for example pollution, nutrient leaching, and greenhouse gas emissions, and it is a big driver of biodiversity loss. Organic farming is a farming system that in ma
