Report on National ICP IM activities in Sweden 2014 – 2015

The Swedish integrated monitoring programme is run on four sites distributed from south central Sweden (SE14 Aneboda) over the middle part (SE15 Kindla), to a northerly site (SE16 Gammtratten). The long-term monitoring site SE04 Gårdsjön F1 is complementary on the inland of the West Coast and has been influenced by long-term high deposition loads. The sites are well-defined catchments with mainly coniferous forest stands dominated by bilberry spruce forests on glacial till deposited above the highest coastline. Hence, there has been no water sorting of the soil material. Both climate and deposition gradients coincide with the distribution of the sites from south to nort

Report on National ICP IM activities in Sweden in 2016

The Swedish integrated monitoring programme is run on four sites distributed from south central Sweden (SE14 Aneboda), over the middle part (SE15 Kindla), to a northerly site (SE16 Gammtratten). The long-term monitoring site SE04 Gårdsjön F1 is complementary on the inland of the West Coast and has been influenced by long-term high deposition loads. The sites are well-defined catchments with mainly coniferous forest stands dominated by bilberry spruce forests on glacial till deposited above the highest coastline. Hence, there has been no water sorting of the soil material. Both climate and deposition gradients coincide with the distribution of the sites from south to north (Table 1). The forest stands are mainly over 100 years old and at least three of them have several hundred years of natural continuity. Until the 1950’s, the woodlands were lightly grazed in restricted areas. In early 2005, a heavy storm struck the IM site Aneboda, SE14. Compared with other forests in the region, however, this site managed rather well and roughly 20–30% of the trees in the area were stormfelled. In 1996, the total number of large woody debris in the form of logs was 317 in the surveyed plots, which decreased to 257 in 2001. In 2006, after the storm, the number of logs increased to 433, corresponding to 2711 logs in the whole catchment. In later years, 2007–2010, bark beetle (Ips typographus) infestation has almost totally erased the old spruce trees. In 2011 more than 80% of the trees with a breast height over 35 cm were dead (Löfgren et al. 2014) and currently almost all spruce trees with diameter of ≥20 cm are gone. In the following, climate, hydrology, water chemistry and some ongoing work at the four Swedish IM sites in 2016 are presented (Löfgren 2017)

Exceedance of critical loads and of critical limits impacts tree nutrition across Europe

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Spatially valid data of atmospheric deposition of heavy metals and nitrogen derived by moss surveys for pollution risk assessments of ecosystems

For analysing element input into ecosystems and associated risks due to atmospheric deposition, element concentrations in moss provide complementary and time-integrated data at high spatial resolution every 5 years since 1990. The paper reviews (1) minimum sample sizes needed for reliable, statistical estimation of mean values at four different spatial scales (European and national level as well as landscape-specific level covering Europe and single countries); (2) trends of heavy metal (HM) and nitrogen (N) concentrations in moss in Europe (1990–2010); (3) correlations between concentrations of HM in moss and soil specimens collected across Norway (1990–2010); and (4) canopy drip-induced site-specific variation of N concentration in moss sampled in seven European countries (1990–2013). While the minimum sample sizes on the European and national level were achieved without exception, for some ecological land classes and elements, the coverage with sampling sites should be improved. The decline in emission and subsequent atmospheric deposition of HM across Europe has resulted in decreasing HM concentrations in moss between 1990 and 2010. In contrast, hardly any changes were observed for N in moss between 2005, when N was included into the survey for the first time, and 2010. In Norway, both, the moss and the soil survey data sets, were correlated, indicating a decrease of HM concentrations in moss and soil. At the site level, the average N deposition inside of forests was almost three times higher than the average N deposition outside of forests

Integrated genomic characterization of pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma

We performed integrated genomic, transcriptomic, and proteomic profiling of 150 pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) specimens, including samples with characteristic low neoplastic cellularity. Deep whole-exome sequencing revealed recurrent somatic mutations in KRAS, TP53, CDKN2A, SMAD4, RNF43, ARID1A, TGFβR2, GNAS, RREB1, and PBRM1. KRAS wild-type tumors harbored alterations in other oncogenic drivers, including GNAS, BRAF, CTNNB1, and additional RAS pathway genes. A subset of tumors harbored multiple KRAS mutations, with some showing evidence of biallelic mutations. Protein profiling identified a favorable prognosis subset with low epithelial-mesenchymal transition and high MTOR pathway scores. Associations of non-coding RNAs with tumor-specific mRNA subtypes were also identified. Our integrated multi-platform analysis reveals a complex molecular landscape of PDAC and provides a roadmap for precision medicine

Modelling and mapping heavy metal and nitrogen concentrations in moss in 2010 throughout Europe by applying Random Forests models

Objective: This study explores the statistical relations between the concentration of nine heavy metals(HM) (arsenic (As), cadmium (Cd), chromium (Cr), copper (Cu), mercury (Hg), nickel (Ni), lead (Pb),vanadium (V), zinc (Zn)), and nitrogen (N) in moss and potential explanatory variables (predictors)which were then used for mapping spatial patterns across Europe. Based on moss specimens collected in 2010 throughout Europe, the statistical relation between a set of potential predictors (such as the atmospheric deposition calculated by use of two chemical transport models (CTM), distance from emission sources, density of different land uses, population density, elevation, precipitation, clay content of soils) and concentrations of HMs and nitrogen (N) in moss (response variables) were evaluated by the use of Random Forests (RF) and Classification and Regression Trees (CART). Four spatial scales were regarded: Europe as a whole, ecological land classes covering Europe, single countries participating in the European Moss Survey (EMS), and moss species at sampling sites. Spatial patterns were estimated by applying a series of RF models on data on potential predictors covering Europe. Statistical values and resulting maps were used to investigate to what extent the models are specific for countries, units of the Ecological Land Classification of Europe (ELCE), and moss species. Results: Land use, atmospheric deposition and distance to technical emission sources mainly influence the element concentration in moss. The explanatory power of calculated RF models varies according to elements measured in moss specimens, country, ecological land class, and moss species. Measured and predicted medians of element concentrations agree fairly well while minima and maxima show considerable differences. The European maps derived from the RF models provide smoothed surfaces of element concentrations (As, Cd, Cr, Cu, N, Ni, Pb, Hg, V, Zn), each explained by a multivariate RF model and verified by CART, and thereby more information than the dot maps depicting the spatial patterns of measured values. Conclusions: RF is an eligible method identifying and ranking boundary conditions of element concentrations in moss and related mapping including the influence of the environmental factors