Modelling non-wood forest products in Europe: a review.

Non-wood forest products (NWFP) like cork, edible mushrooms, pine nuts, acorns, resins, medicinal plants, and floral greens, among others, provide important recreational and commercial activities in the rural forested areas of the world, being in certain regions more profitable than traditional timber harvesting. Despite the importance of non-wood forest products and services, forest management and planning methods and models in Europe have been traditionally wood oriented, leading to a lack for tools helping forest management based on optimizing these products. In the present work we’ll show and discuss the main factors and challenges limiting the development of classical empirical models for NWFP, and we will review the existing models for the main NWFP in Europe: cork, pine nuts, berries, mushrooms and resins.Los productos forestales no maderables (PFNM), como el corcho, los hongos coemstibles, piñones, bellotas, resinas y plantas medicinales u ornamentales, entre otros, son fuente tanto de servicios recreativos como de actividad económica en una parte importante de los bosques del mundo. En muchas de estas zonas, el aprovechamiento de estos productos supone un ingreso superior al obtenido en el aprovechamiento maderable tradicional. Sin embargo, y pese a la importancia de estos productos y servicios no maderables, la gestión forestal, las herramientas de apoyo y los modelos forestales existentes en Europa han sido normalmente desarrollados desde una perspectiva centrada en la producción de madera. Esto se ha traducido en la escasez de herramientas de apoyo a la decisión de la gestión basadas en la optimización de la producción no maderable. En el presente trabajo se exponen y discuten los principales factores que limitan el desarrollo de los modelos para productos no maderables, y se revisan los modelos existentes para los principales productos no maderables en Europa: corcho, piñones, frutos del bosque, hongos y resina

Modelización de productos forestales no maderables en Europa: revisión

Non-wood forest products (NWFP) like cork, edible mushrooms, pine nuts, acorns, resins, medicinal plants, and floral greens, among others, provide important recreational and commercial activities in the rural forested areas of the world, being in certain regions more profitable than traditional timber harvesting. Despite the importance of non-wood forest products and services, forest management and planning methods and models in Europe have been traditionally wood oriented, leading to a lack for tools helping forest management based on optimizing these products. In the present work we’ll show and discuss the main factors and challenges limiting the development of classical empirical models for NWFP, and we will review the existing models for the main NWFP in Europe: cork, pine nuts, berries, mushrooms and resins.Los productos forestales no maderables (PFNM), como el corcho, los hongos coemstibles, piñones, bellotas, resinas y plantas medicinales u ornamentales, entre otros, son fuente tanto de servicios recreativos como de actividad económica en una parte importante de los bosques del mundo. En muchas de estas zonas, el aprovechamiento de estos productos supone un ingreso superior al obtenido en el aprovechamiento maderable tradicional. Sin embargo, y pese a la importancia de estos productos y servicios no maderables, la gestión forestal, las herramientas de apoyo y los modelos forestales existentes en Europa han sido normalmente desarrollados desde una perspectiva centrada en la producción de madera. Esto se ha traducido en la escasez de herramientas de apoyo a la decisión de la gestión basadas en la optimización de la producción no maderable. En el presente trabajo se exponen y discuten los principales factores que limitan el desarrollo de los modelos para productos no maderables, y se revisan los modelos existentes para los principales productos no maderables en Europa: corcho, piñones, frutos del bosque, hongos y resina

Modelling Pinus pinea forest management to attain natural regeneration under present and future climatic scenarios

Natural regeneration-based silviculture has been increasingly regarded as a reliable option in sustainable forest management. However, successful natural regeneration is not always easy to achieve. Recently, new concerns have arisen because of changing future climate. To date, regeneration models have proved helpful in decision-making concerning natural regeneration. The implementation of such models into optimization routines is a promising approach in providing forest managers with accurate tools for forest planning. In the present study, we present a stochastic multistage regeneration model for Pinus pinea L. managed woodlands in Central Spain, where regeneration has been historically unsuccessful. The model is able to quantify recruitment under different silviculture alternatives and varying climatic scenarios, with further application to optimize management scheduling. The regeneration process in the species showed high between-year variation, with all subprocesses (seed production, dispersal, germination, predation, and seedling survival) having the potential to become bottlenecks. However, model simulations demonstrate that current intensive management is responsible for regeneration failure in the long term. Specifically, stand densities at rotation age are too low to guarantee adequate dispersal, the optimal density of seed-producing trees being around 150 stems·ha−1. In addition, rotation length needs to be extended up to 120 years to benefit from the higher seed production of older trees. Stochastic optimization confirms these results. Regeneration does not appear to worsen under climate change conditions; the species exhibiting resilience worthy of broader consideration in Mediterranean silviculture

Is wetter better? Exploring agriculturally-relevant rainfall characteristics over four decades in the Sahel

The semi-arid Sahel is a global hotspot for poverty and malnutrition. Rainfed agriculture is the main source of food and income, making the well-being of rural population highly sensitive to rainfall variability. Studies have reported an upward trend in annual precipitation in the Sahel since the drought of the 1970s and early ‘80s, yet farmers have questioned improvements in conditions for agriculture, suggesting that intraseasonal dynamics play a crucial role. Using high-resolution daily precipitation data spanning 1981–2017 and focusing on agriculturally-relevant areas of the Sahel, we re-examined the extent of rainfall increase and investigated whether the increases have been accompanied by changes in two aspects of intraseasonal variability that have relevance for agriculture: rainy season duration and occurrence of prolonged dry spells during vulnerable crop growth stages. We found that annual rainfall increased across 56% of the region, but remained largely the same elsewhere. Rainy season duration increased almost exclusively in areas with upward trends in annual precipitation (23% of them). Association between annual rain and dry spell occurrence was less clear: increasing and decreasing frequencies of false starts (dry spells after first rains) and post-floral dry spells (towards the end of the season) were found to almost equal extent both in areas with positive and those with no significant trend in annual precipitation. Overall, improvements in at least two of the three intraseasonal variables (and no declines in any) were found in 10% of the region, while over a half of the area experienced declines in at least one intraseasonal variable, or no improvement in any. We conclude that rainfall conditions for agriculture have improved overall only in scattered areas across the Sahel since the 1980s, and increased annual rainfall is only weakly, if at all, associated with changes in the agriculturally-relevant intraseasonal rainfall characteristics

Simulating the Cascading Effects of an Extreme Agricultural Production Shock: Global Implications of a Contemporary US Dust Bowl Event

Higher temperatures expected by midcentury increase the risk of shocks to crop production, while the interconnected nature of the current global food system functions to spread the impact of localized production shocks throughout the world. In this study, we analyze the global potential impact of a present-day event of equivalent magnitude to the US Dust Bowl, modeling the ways in which a sudden decline in US wheat production could cascade through the global network of agricultural trade. We use observations of country-level production, reserves, and trade data in a Food Shock Cascade model to explore trade adjustments and country-level inventory changes in response to a major, multiyear production decline. We find that a 4-year decline in wheat production of the same proportional magnitude as occurred during the Dust Bowl greatly reduces both wheat supply and reserves in the United States and propagates through the global trade network. By year 4 of the event, US wheat exports fall from 90.5 trillion kcal before the drought to 48 trillion to 52 trillion kcal, and the United States exhausts 94% of its reserves. As a result of reduced US exports, other countries meet their needs by leveraging their own reserves, leading to a 31% decline in wheat reserves globally. These findings demonstrate that an extreme production decline would lead to substantial supply shortfalls in both the United States and in other countries, where impacts outside the United States strongly depend on a country's reserves and on its relative position in the global trade network

Non-wood forest products boosting the North Karelian bioeconomy

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Luonnontuotteista potkua Pohjois-Karjalan biotalouteen

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Associations of Alcohol Consumption With Epigenome-Wide DNA Methylation and Epigenetic Age Acceleration : Individual-Level and Co-twin Comparison Analyses

Background DNA methylation may play a role in the progression from normative to problematic drinking and underlie adverse health outcomes associated with alcohol misuse. We examined the association between alcohol consumption and DNA methylation patterns using 3 approaches: a conventional epigenome-wide association study (EWAS); a co-twin comparison design, which controls for genetic and environmental influences that twins share; and a regression of age acceleration, defined as a discrepancy between chronological age and DNA methylation age, on alcohol consumption. Methods Participants came from the Finnish Twin Cohorts (FinnTwin12/FinnTwin16; N = 1,004; 55% female; average age = 23 years). Individuals reported the number of alcoholic beverages consumed in the past week, and epigenome-wide DNA methylation was assessed in whole blood using the Infinium HumanMethylation450 BeadChip. Results In the EWAS, alcohol consumption was significantly related to methylation at 24 CpG sites. When evaluating whether differences between twin siblings (185 monozygotic pairs) in alcohol consumption predicted differences in DNA methylation, co-twin comparisons replicated 4 CpG sites from the EWAS and identified 23 additional sites. However, when we examined qualitative differences in drinking patterns between twins (heavy drinker vs. light drinker/abstainer or moderate drinker vs. abstainer; 44 pairs), methylation patterns did not significantly differ within twin pairs. Finally, individuals who reported higher alcohol consumption also exhibited greater age acceleration, though results were no longer significant after controlling for genetic and environmental influences shared by co-twins. Conclusions Our analyses offer insight into the associations between epigenetic variation and levels of alcohol consumption in young adulthood.Peer reviewe

Membraneâ Tethered Metalloproteinase Expressed by Vascular Smooth Muscle Cells Limits the Progression of Proliferative Atherosclerotic Lesions

Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/142430/1/jah32412-sup-0001-TableS1-FigS1-S2.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/142430/2/jah32412.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/142430/3/jah32412_am.pd