Impacts of land cover data selection and trait parameterisation on dynamic modelling of species' range expansion

Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Utilizing prior information in environmental inventory design - experiences from forest inventories

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Suomen metsät 2004–2008 ja niiden kehitys 1921–2008

MetsävaratTässä julkaisusssa esitetään valtakunnan metsien 10. inventointiin (VMI10) perustuvat tiedot Suomen metsävaroista ja metsien tilasta. Maastotiedot on kerätty vuosina 1996–2004. Tulokset esitetään metsäkeskusalueittain, osa tuloksista myös puuntuotannon rajoitusten ja metsänomistajaryhmän mukaan jaoteltuna. Metsien kehitystä tarkastellaan vertailemalla tuloksia aiempien inventointien tuloksiin 1920-luvun alun VMI1:stä lähtien. Julkaisussa esitetään myös VMI10:ssä käytetyt mittaus- ja laskentamenetelmät. Suomen metsien puumäärä on jatkanut lisäystään. Puuston kokonaistilavuus on 2,2 miljardia kuutiometriä, kun 1920-luvun alussa nykyisen Suomen puuston määrä oli 1,4 miljardia kuutiometriä. Puuston vuotuinen kasvu oli inventointia edeltäneillä 5 vuoden mittausjaksoilla lähes 100 miljoonaa kuutiometriä. Suomen metsissä nuorien metsien osuus on suuri, mikä selittää puumäärän lisäystä ja puuston lisääntyvää kasvua. Soiden ojitus on lisännyt metsämaan alaa noin 1,5 miljoonaa hehtaaria, mikä myös selittää puuston määrän ja kasvun lisäystä. Edelliseen inventointiin verrattuna metsämaan ala on kuitenkin pienentynyt maanrakennustoiminnan vaikutuksesta. Metsien terveydentila on hyvä, vakavia tuhoja havaittiin inventoinnissa vain noin 4 %:lla metsä maan alasta. Metsähoidollinen tila on tyydyttävä – 73 % puuntuotannon metsämaan metsistä on metsänhoidolliselta tilataan hyviä tai tyydyttäviä. Nuorissa metsissä on kuitenkin aiempaa enemmän kiireelliä taimikonhoito- ja ensiharvennustarpeita. Metsä-, kitu- ja joutomaan alasta noin 2 %:lla on arvokkaita biotooppeja, jotka VMI:n maasto arvion mukaan todennäköisesti täyttävät metsälain 10 pykälän kriteerit lukuun alueellista yleisyyttä, johon VMI:n arvioinnissa ei ole otettu kantaa. Arvokkaat elinympäristöt on otettu hyvin huomioon metsien käsittelyssä. Lahopuuston määrä on edelliseen inventointiin verrattuna lisääntynyt Etelä-Suomessa, mutta näyttäisi hieman pienentyneen Pohjois-Suomessa

A new method for estimating carbon dioxide emissions from drained peatland forest soils for the greenhouse gas inventory of Finland

Reporting the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from the LULUCF sector in the GHG inventory requires sound methods for estimating both the inputs and outputs of carbon (C) in managed ecosystems. Soil CO2 balance of forests consists of the CO2 released from decomposing soil organic matter (SOM) and the C entering the soil through aboveground and belowground plant litter input. Peatlands drained for forestry release soil C as CO2 because the drainage deepens the oxic peat layer prone to SOM decomposition. IPCC Guidelines provide default CO2 emission factors for different climatic zones and the defaults or locally adapted static emission factors are commonly in use in GHG inventory reporting for drained peatlands. In this paper, we describe a new dynamic method to estimate the CO2 balance of drained peatland forest soils in Finland. Contrary to static emission factors, the annual CO2 release from soil is in our method estimated using empirical regression models driven by time series of tree basal area (BA), derived from the national forest inventories in Finland, time series of air temperature and the drained peatland forest site type. Aboveground and belowground litter input is also estimated using empirical models with newly acquired turnover rates for tree fine roots and BA as a dynamic driver. All major components of litter input from ground vegetation and live, harvested and naturally died trees are included. Our method produces an increasing trend of emissions from 1.4 to 7.9 Mt CO2 for drained peatland forest soils in Finland for the period 1990&ndash;2021, with a statistically significant difference between years 1990 and 2021. Across the period 1990&ndash;2021, annual emissions are on average 3.4 Mt and &minus;0.3 Mt in southern and northern parts of Finland, respectively. When combined with data of the CO2 sink created by trees, it appears that in 2021 drained peatland forest ecosystems were a source of 2.3 Mt CO2 in southern Finland and a sink of 2.5 Mt CO2 in northern Finland. We compare the emissions produced by the new method with those produced by the old GHGI method of Finland and discuss the strengths and vulnerabilities of our method in comparison to static emission factors.</p

Suomen metsät 2009–2013 ja niiden kehitys 1921–2013

Tässä julkaisussa esitetään valtakunnan metsien 11. inventoinnin (VMI11) tulokset Suomen metsävaroista ja metsien tilasta. Maastotiedot on kerätty vuosina 2009–2013. Metsien kehitystä tarkastellaan 1920-luvulta lähtien vertailemalla VMI11:n tuloksia aiempien inventointien (VMI1–VMI10) tuloksiin. Julkaisussa esitetään myös VMI11:n menetelmät maastomittausten ja laskentamenetelmien osalta. Puuston määrä on 2,4 miljardia kuutiometriä. Edelliseen inventointiin verrattuna lisäystä on 150 miljoonaa kuutiometriä ja 1920-luvun puumäärään verrattuna noin miljardi kuutiometriä. Puuston määrästä 50 % on mäntyä, 30 % kuusta, 20 % koivua. 1920-lukuun verrattuna kaikkien em. puulajiryhmien kokonaistilavuus on lisääntynyt selvästi, esimerkiksi lehtipuun määrä on lisääntynyt puolitoistakertaiseksi. Puuston vuotuinen kasvu inventoinnin mittausvuosia edeltäneinä 5 vuotena on ollut keskimäärin 105,5 miljoonaa kuutiometriä. Puuntuotannon metsämaan metsistä 36 % on nuoria kasvatusmetsiä, 30 % varttuneita kasvatusmetsiä, 19 % taimikoita ja 13 % uudistuskypsiä metsiä. Puuttomia uudistusaloja sekä siemen- ja suojuspuustoja on yhteensä vajaat 2 % puuntuotannon metsämaan alasta. Mäntyvaltaisia metsiä on 64 % koko Suomen metsämaan alasta, kuusivaltaisia 25 % ja lehtipuuvaltaisia 10 %. Etelä-Suomen nuorissa metsissä kuusivaltaiset metsät ovat yleistymässä, mikä kertoo siitä, että kuusta suositaan metsän uudistamisessa. Metsikön laatua alentavia tuhoja on 25 %:lla puuntuotannon metsämaan alasta. Kuusivaltaisissa metsissä yleisimpiä tuhonaiheuttajia ovat tuuli ja lumi, mäntyvaltaisissa metsissä lumi ja hirvi, lehtipuuvaltaissa metsissä lahottajasienet ja hirvi. Metsien terveydentila on hyvä, sillä vakavia tuhoja esiintyy vain 3 %:lla puuntuotannon metsämaan alasta. Puuntuotannon metsämaan metsistä 28 % on metsänhoidolliselta tilaltaan hyviä ja 44 % tyydyttäviä. Vajaatuottoisia metsiä on 7 %. Vajaatuottoisten metsien määrä on pienentynyt edelliseen inventointiin verrattuna hieman ja aiempiin inventointeihin verrattuna selvästi. Tulevana 10-vuotiskautena metsänhoidollisia ensiharvennustarpeita on 1,9-kertaisesti ja taimikonhoitotarpeita 1,5-kertaisesti menneen 10-vuotiskauden suoritemääriin verrattuna. Metsien monimuotoisuudelle tärkeän lahopuuston määrän lisääntyminen on Etelä-Suomessa jatkunut. Pohjois-Suomessa lahopuuston määrä on vähentynyt. Pohjois-Suomessa lahopuuston keskitilavuus metsämaalla (8,0 m³/ha) on kuitenkin edelleen yli kaksinkertainen Etelä-Suomeen (3,8 m³/ha) verrattuna. Pysyvien koealojen avulla laskettu puuston vuotuinen luonnonpoistuma on 6,5 miljoonaa kuutiometriä. Tästä 0,9 miljoonaa kuutiometriä on korjattu hakkuissa. Puuston rakenteen ja lahopuuston sekä ihmisen vaikutuksen suhteen luonnontilaisen kaltaisia metsiä on 517 000 hehtaaria.201

Influence of Aerosol Chemical Composition on Condensation Sink Efficiency and New Particle Formation in Beijing

Relatively high concentrations of preexisting particles, acting as a condensation sink (CS) of gaseous precursors, have been thought to suppress the occurrence of new particle formation (NPF) in urban environments, yet NPF still occurs frequently. Here, we aim to understand the factors promoting and inhibiting NPF events in urban Beijing by combining one-year-long measurements of particle number size distributions and PM2.5 chemical composition. Our results show that indeed the CS is an important factor controlling the occurrence of NPF events, with its chemical composition affecting the efficiency of the background particles in removing gaseous H2SO4 (effectiveness of the CS) driving NPF. During our observation period, the CS was found to be more effective for ammonium nitrate-rich (NH4NO3-rich) fine particles. On non-NPF event days, particles acting as CS contained a larger fraction of NH4NO3 compared to NPF event days under comparable CS levels. In particular, in the CS range from 0.02 to 0.03 s(-1), the nitrate fraction was 17% on NPF event days and 26% on non-NPF event days. Overall, our results highlight the importance of considering the chemical composition of preexisting particles when estimating the CS and their role in inhibiting NPF events, especially in urban environments.Peer reviewe

A genome-wide association scan on estrogen receptor-negative breast cancer.

INTRODUCTION: Breast cancer is a heterogeneous disease and may be characterized on the basis of whether estrogen receptors (ER) are expressed in the tumour cells. ER status of breast cancer is important clinically, and is used both as a prognostic indicator and treatment predictor. In this study, we focused on identifying genetic markers associated with ER-negative breast cancer risk. METHODS: We conducted a genome-wide association analysis of 285,984 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) genotyped in 617 ER-negative breast cancer cases and 4,583 controls. We also conducted a genome-wide pathway analysis on the discovery dataset using permutation-based tests on pre-defined pathways. The extent of shared polygenic variation between ER-negative and ER-positive breast cancers was assessed by relating risk scores, derived using ER-positive breast cancer samples, to disease state in independent, ER-negative breast cancer cases. RESULTS: Association with ER-negative breast cancer was not validated for any of the five most strongly associated SNPs followed up in independent studies (1,011 ER-negative breast cancer cases, 7,604 controls). However, an excess of small P-values for SNPs with known regulatory functions in cancer-related pathways was found (global P = 0.052). We found no evidence to suggest that ER-negative breast cancer shares a polygenic basis to disease with ER-positive breast cancer. CONCLUSIONS: ER-negative breast cancer is a distinct breast cancer subtype that merits independent analyses. Given the clinical importance of this phenotype and the likelihood that genetic effect sizes are small, greater sample sizes and further studies are required to understand the etiology of ER-negative breast cancers.RIGHTS : This article is licensed under the BioMed Central licence at http://www.biomedcentral.com/about/license which is similar to the 'Creative Commons Attribution Licence'. In brief you may : copy, distribute, and display the work; make derivative works; or make commercial use of the work - under the following conditions: the original author must be given credit; for any reuse or distribution, it must be made clear to others what the license terms of this work are

Size-segregated particle number and mass concentrations from different emission sources in urban Beijing

Although secondary particulate matter is reported to be the main contributor of PM2.5 during haze in Chinese megacities, primary particle emissions also affect particle concentrations. In order to improve estimates of the contribution of primary sources to the particle number and mass concentrations, we performed source apportionment analyses using both chemical fingerprints and particle size distributions measured at the same site in urban Beijing from April to July 2018. Both methods resolved factors related to primary emissions, including vehicular emissions and cooking emissions, which together make up 76% and 24% of total particle number and organic aerosol (OA) mass, respectively. Similar source types, including particles related to vehicular emissions (1.6 +/- 1.1 mu gm(-3); 2.4 +/- 1.8 x 10(3) cm(-3) and 5.5 +/- 2.8 x 10(3) cm(-3) for two traffic-related components), cooking emissions (2.6 +/- 1.9 mu gm(-3) and 5.5 +/- 3.3 x 10(3) cm(-3)) and secondary aerosols (51 +/- 41 mu gm(-3) and 4.2 +/- 3.0 x 10(3) cm(-3)), were resolved by both methods. Converted mass concentrations from particle size distributions components were comparable with those from chemical fingerprints. Size distribution source apportionment separated vehicular emissions into a component with a mode diameter of 20 nm ("traffic-ultrafine") and a component with a mode diameter of 100 nm ("traffic-fine"). Consistent with similar day- and nighttime diesel vehicle PM2.5 emissions estimated for the Beijing area, traffic-fine particles, hydrocarbon-like OA (HOA, traffic-related factor resulting from source apportionment using chemical fingerprints) and black carbon (BC) showed similar diurnal patterns, with higher concentrations during the night and morning than during the afternoon when the boundary layer is higher. Traffic-ultrafine particles showed the highest concentrations during the rush-hour period, suggesting a prominent role of local gasoline vehicle emissions. In the absence of new particle formation, our re-sults show that vehicular-related emissions (14% and 30% for ultrafine and fine particles, respectively) and cooking-activity-related emissions (32 %) dominate the particle number concentration, while secondary particulate matter (over 80 %) governs PM2.5 mass during the non-heating season in Beijing.Peer reviewe

Molecular Composition of Oxygenated Organic Molecules and Their Contributions to Organic Aerosol in Beijing

The understanding at a molecular level of ambient secondary organic aerosol (SOA) formation is hampered by poorly constrained formation mechanisms and insufficient analytical methods. Especially in developing countries, SOA related haze is a great concern due to its significant effects on climate and human health. We present simultaneous measurements of gas-phase volatile organic compounds (VOCs), oxygenated organic molecules (OOMs), and particle-phase SOA in Beijing. We show that condensation of the measured OOMs explains 26-39% of the organic aerosol mass growth, with the contribution of OOMs to SOA enhanced during severe haze episodes. Our novel results provide a quantitative molecular connection from anthropogenic emissions to condensable organic oxidation product vapors, their concentration in particle-phase SOA, and ultimately to haze formation.Peer reviewe

Harmonising and linking biomedical and clinical data across disparate data archives to enable integrative cross-biobank research

A wealth of biospecimen samples are stored in modern globally distributed biobanks. Biomedical researchers worldwide need to be able to combine the available resources to improve the power of large-scale studies. A prerequisite for this effort is to be able to search and access phenotypic, clinical and other information about samples that are currently stored at biobanks in an integrated manner. However, privacy issues together with heterogeneous information systems and the lack of agreed-upon vocabularies have made specimen searching across multiple biobanks extremely challenging. We describe three case studies where we have linked samples and sample descriptions in order to facilitate global searching of available samples for research. The use cases include the ENGAGE (European Network for Genetic and Genomic Epidemiology) consortium comprising at least 39 cohorts, the SUMMIT (surrogate markers for micro- and macro-vascular hard endpoints for innovative diabetes tools) consortium and a pilot for data integration between a Swedish clinical health registry and a biobank. We used the Sample avAILability (SAIL) method for data linking: first, created harmonised variables and then annotated and made searchable information on the number of specimens available in individual biobanks for various phenotypic categories. By operating on this categorised availability data we sidestep many obstacles related to privacy that arise when handling real values and show that harmonised and annotated records about data availability across disparate biomedical archives provide a key methodological advance in pre-analysis exchange of information between biobanks, that is, during the project planning phase