Temperature and leaf nitrogen affect performance of plant species at range overlap

Plant growth and survival near range limits are likely sensitive to small changes in environmental conditions. Warming temperatures are causing range shifts and thus changes in species composition within range-edge ecotones; however, it is often not clear how temperature alters performance. Through an observational field study, we assessed temperature and nitrogen effects on survival and growth of co-occurring temperate (Acer saccharum) and boreal (Abies balsamea) saplings across their overlapping range limits in the Great Lakes region, USA. Across sampled ranges of soil texture, soil pH, and precipitation, it appears that temperature affects leaf nitrogen for A. saccharum near its northern range limit (R2=0.64), whereas there was no significant leaf N ~ temperature relationship for A. balsamea. Higher A. saccharum leaf N at warm sites was associated with increased survival and growth. Abies balsamea survival and growth were best modeled with summer temperature (negative relationship); performance at warm sites depended upon light availability, suggesting the shade-tolerance of this species near its southern range limits may be mediated by temperature. The ranges of these two tree species overlap across millions of hectares, and temperature and temperature-mediated nitrogen likely play important roles in their relative performance

Critical media literacy in action

The goal of the paper is to present the effects of the course development resulting in changes in critical media literacy. The first part of the paper outlines the academic sources supporting the course development of media studies in the context of intercultural teaching. After this section, details of perceptual feedback research and its mixed methodology are available. According to the findings, critical media literacy of students has been improved due to the academic social media sources in analysis, regional case studies in an intercultural context, and fact check techniques in news consumption. The ultimate result was a deeper understanding of the values behind media freedom. Moreover, the level of knowledge in historical and political fields has increased, and the ethnocentric perspective has collapsed as the interculturalenvironment. The closing section of the paper summarizes the key findings and the contribution to the course developments with recommendations. The main message of the study is the importance of the case study based on the intercultural and historical approach in media studies to improve critical media literacy in higher education.Celem artykułu jest przedstawienie efektów rozwoju kursu, które zaowocowały zmianami w zakresie krytycznej umiejętności korzystania z mediów. W pierwszej części artykułu przedstawione zostały źródła naukowe wspierające rozwój kursu medioznawstwa w kontekście nauczania międzykulturowego. Po tej części dostępne są szczegóły dotyczące badania percepcyjnego sprzężenia zwrotnego i jego mieszanej metodologii. Zgodnie z wynikami, krytyczna umiejętność korzystania z mediów przez studentów została poprawiona dzięki naukowym źródłom mediów społecznościowych w analizie, regionalnym studiom przypadków w kontekście międzykulturowym, oraz technikom sprawdzania faktów w konsumpcji wiadomości. Ostatecznym rezultatem było głębsze zrozumienie wartości stojących za wolnością mediów. Ponadto, poziom wiedzy w dziedzinie historii i polityki wzrósł, a etnocentryczna perspektywa załamała się w międzykulturowym środowisku. W końcowej części artykułu podsumowano kluczowe ustalenia oraz wkład w rozwój kursu wraz z rekomendacjami. Głównym przesłaniem badania jest znaczenie studium przypadku opartego na międzykulturowym i historycznym podejściu w studiach nad mediami dla poprawy krytycznej umiejętności korzystania z mediów w szkolnictwie wyższym

Patterns of belowground overyielding and fine-root biomass in native and exotic angiosperms and gymnosperms

Mixing tree species can lead to more productive forests, but how belowground productivity is affected by mixtures of trees of diverse phylogenetic and eco-evolutionary histories is unclear. Here, we examine how species origin and phylogeny affect belowground productivity in tree communities of varied richness and functional diversity. We measured standing fine-root biomass and annual fine-root production across 41 assemblages of 12 tree species, representing both angiosperms and gymnosperms originating from North America and Europe. Increasing functional diversity of mixtures stimulated overyielding of annual production but did not affect standing biomass. In general, annual productivity of mixtures of species that were less productive in monoculture had neutral (angiosperms) to positive (North American species: +16%) responses to mixing, whereas annual productivity of mixtures of species that were more productive in monoculture had neutral (European species) to negative (gymnosperms: −6%) responses to mixing. These differences translated into angiosperm mixtures overyielding in standing biomass by 16% but no effects of mixing on gymnosperm mixtures. The trends we observed between North American and European species annual production were reversed when considering standing biomass. European mixtures had 14% more standing biomass and North American mixtures had 10% less standing biomass than expected from monocultures. Our study offers a rare examination of the combined roles of origin and phylogeny in forest fine-root productivity, and suggests varied consequences of biodiversity change for forest belowground productivity based on composition. In North America, belowground productivity of young forests composed of angiosperms and native tree species may be more tightly linked to diversity than that of forests dominated by gymnosperms or European species. This suggests that increased diversity may lead to the greatest enhancement of belowground productivity in native, North American forests dominated by angiosperms, but also that declines in diversity may be felt most strongly in these forests as well

Warming shifts 'worming': effects of experimental warming on invasive earthworms in northern North America

Climate change causes species range shifts and potentially alters biological invasions. The invasion of European earthworm species across northern North America has severe impacts on native ecosystems. Given the long and cold winters in that region that to date supposedly have slowed earthworm invasion, future warming is hypothesized to accelerate earthworm invasions into yet non-invaded regions. Alternatively, warming-induced reductions in soil water content (SWC) can also decrease earthworm performance. We tested these hypotheses in a field warming experiment at two sites in Minnesota, USA by sampling earthworms in closed and open canopy in three temperature treatments in 2010 and 2012. Structural equation modeling revealed that detrimental warming effects on earthworm densities and biomass could indeed be partly explained by warming-induced reductions in SWC. The direction of warming effects depended on the current average SWC: warming had neutral to positive effects at high SWC, whereas the opposite was true at low SWC. Our results suggest that warming limits the invasion of earthworms in northern North America by causing less favorable soil abiotic conditions, unless warming is accompanied by increased and temporally even distributions of rainfall sufficient to offset greater water losses from higher evapotranspiration

BII-Implementation: The causes and consequences of plant biodiversity across scales in a rapidly changing world

The proposed Biology Integration Institute will bring together two major research institutions in the Upper Midwest—the University of Minnesota (UMN) and University of Wisconsin-Madison (UW)—to investigate the causes and consequences of plant biodiversity across scales in a rapidly changing world—from genes and molecules within cells and tissues to communities, ecosystems, landscapes and the biosphere. The Institute focuses on plant biodiversity, defined broadly to encompass the heterogeneity within life that occurs from the smallest to the largest biological scales. A premise of the Institute is that life is envisioned as occurring at different scales nested within several contrasting conceptions of biological hierarchies, defined by the separate but related fields of physiology, evolutionary biology and ecology. The Institute will emphasize the use of ‘spectral biology’—detection of biological properties based on the interaction of light energy with matter—and process-oriented predictive models to investigate the processes by which biological components at one scale give rise to emergent properties at higher scales. Through an iterative process that harnesses cutting edge technologies to observe a suite of carefully designed empirical systems—including the National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON) and some of the world’s longest running and state-of-the-art global change experiments—the Institute will advance biological understanding and theory of the causes and consequences of changes in biodiversity and at the interface of plant physiology, ecology and evolution. INTELLECTUAL MERIT The Institute brings together a diverse, gender-balanced and highly productive team with significant leadership experience that spans biological disciplines and career stages and is poised to integrate biology in new ways. Together, the team will harness the potential of spectral biology, experiments, observations and synthetic modeling in a manner never before possible to transform understanding of how variation within and among biological scales drives plant and ecosystem responses to global change over diurnal, seasonal and millennial time scales. In doing so, it will use and advance state-of-the-art theory. The institute team posits that the designed projects will unearth transformative understanding and biological rules at each of the various scales that will enable an unprecedented capacity to discern the linkages between physiological, ecological and evolutionary processes in relation to the multi-dimensional nature of biodiversity in this time of massive planetary change. A strength of the proposed Institute is that it leverages prior federal investments in research and formalizes partnerships with foreign institutions heavily invested in related biodiversity research. Most of the planned projects leverage existing research initiatives, infrastructure, working groups, experiments, training programs, and public outreach infrastructure, all of which are already highly synergistic and collaborative, and will bring together members of the overall research and training team. BROADER IMPACTS A central goal of the proposed Institute is to train the next generation of diverse integrative biologists. Post-doctoral, graduate student and undergraduate trainees, recruited from non-traditional and underrepresented groups, including through formal engagement with Native American communities, will receive a range of mentoring and training opportunities. Annual summer training workshops will be offered at UMN and UW as well as training experiences with the Global Change and Biodiversity Research Priority Program (URPP-GCB) at the University of Zurich (UZH) and through the Canadian Airborne Biodiversity Observatory (CABO). The Institute will engage diverse K-12 audiences, the general public and Native American communities through Market Science modules, Minute Earth videos, a museum exhibit and public engagement and educational activities through the Bell Museum of Natural History, the Cedar Creek Ecosystem Science Reserve (CCESR) and the Wisconsin Tribal Conservation Association

Temperature and leaf nitrogen affect performance of plant species at range overlap

Plant growth and survival near range limits are likely sensitive to small changes in environmental conditions. Warming temperatures are causing range shifts and thus changes in species composition within range-edge ecotones; however, it is often not clear how temperature alters performance. Through an observational field study, we assessed temperature and nitrogen effects on survival and growth of co-occurring temperate (Acer saccharum) and boreal (Abies balsamea) saplings across their overlapping range limits in the Great Lakes region, USA. Across sampled ranges of soil texture, soil pH, and precipitation, it appears that temperature affects leaf nitrogen for A. saccharum near its northern range limit (R2=0.64), whereas there was no significant leaf N ~ temperature relationship for A. balsamea. Higher A. saccharum leaf N at warm sites was associated with increased survival and growth. Abies balsamea survival and growth were best modeled with summer temperature (negative relationship); performance at warm sites depended upon light availability, suggesting the shade-tolerance of this species near its southern range limits may be mediated by temperature. The ranges of these two tree species overlap across millions of hectares, and temperature and temperature-mediated nitrogen likely play important roles in their relative performance

Dilemmas of Bank Activities Under Economic Uncertainty -Selected Examples from the Polish Market from the Pandemic Period

The paper discusses the issue of identifying selected aspects of banking sector activity in Poland under conditions of economic uncertainty. In terms of time scope, the conditions of the pandemic were taken into account, including the years 2018-2020. In an attempt to identify the most important business dilemmas of banking, the case study of PKO BP bank has been selected for analysis. Based on its own research, it was noted that the year 2020, precisely because of the coronavirus pandemic, somehow forced sectoral changes in the financial enterprise management. The study verified the hypothesis that the bank’s overall financial performance is affected not only by management decisions, but also by external factors that are difficult to predict. Institutional decisions of the central bank and the government are also a consequence of macroeconomic uncertainty. It was noted that as a result of the National Bank of Poland’s monetary policy in 2020, the evaluated bank PKO BP reported, compared to 2019, a financial loss (almost PLN -3.0 billion), including: a decrease in general revenues (-9.05%), as well as a decrease in interest income due (-6.90%). Finally, based on the descriptive analysis and the discussion of the study results, the most important conclusions and recommendations were formulated