Luonnon monimuotoisuuden turvaaminen osaksi metsätaloutta – institutionaalisen sopeutumisen empiirinen tarkastelu

Tieteen tori: Metsäluonnon monimuotoisuus ja suojel

Creating a Relational Distributed Object Store

In and of itself, data storage has apparent business utility. But when we can convert data to information, the utility of stored data increases dramatically. It is the layering of relation atop the data mass that is the engine for such conversion. Frank relation amongst discrete objects sporadically ingested is rare, making the process of synthesizing such relation all the more challenging, but the challenge must be met if we are ever to see an equivalent business value for unstructured data as we already have with structured data. This paper describes a novel construct, referred to as a relational distributed object store (RDOS), that seeks to solve the twin problems of how to persistently and reliably store petabytes of unstructured data while simultaneously creating and persisting relations amongst billions of objects.Comment: 12 pages, 5 figure

Yhteistoimintaverkostot - Etelä-Suomen metsien monimuotoisuusohjelman kokeiluhanke

Yhteistoimintaverkostot ovat yksi Etelä-Suomen metsien monimuotoisuusohjelman (METSO) pilottihakkeista, joita on kokeiltu eri puolilla Suomea. Neljä verkostohanketta ovat Hämeen METSO, Keski-Karjalan lehtoverkosto, Lohjan seudun MetsäVasu ja Merestä metsäksi -hankkeet. Niissä erilaiset organisaatiokokoonpanot ovat toteuttaneet hanketta hyödyntäen laajaa suojelun keinovalikoimaa. Suomen ympäristökeskuksessa on arvioitu yhteistoimintaverkostohankkeita niiden toteutuksen aikana vuosina 2004-2006. Tämä raportti esittelee arvioinnin ja sen pohjalta tehdyt havainnot verkostohankkeiden toteutuksesta sekä niiden vahvuuksista ja haasteista. Yhteistoimintaverkostohankkeita toteuttaneiden organisaatioiden yhteydenpito on tiivistynyt ja keskinäinen hyväksyntä lisääntynyt. Eri tahojen vahvuuksia on voitu onnistuneesti hyödyntää verkostotoiminnassa. Osaamista on kehitetty sekä koulutuksen avulla että työn ohessa. Ympäristö-organisaatiot ovat välittäneet biodiversiteettiosaamista metsäalan ammattialisille. Toisaalta metsä-alan organisaatioiden yhteydet metsänomistajiin ja niiden lähestymistapa metsiin monikäytön näkökulmasta ovat luoneet pohjaa maanomistajien luottamukselle suojelutyössä. Yhteys hankkeiden tekemien suojelusopimusten ja tiedonvälityksen välillä on selkeä. Rajallisen hankeaikataulun puitteissa suojelutuloksia saadaan nimenomaan investoimalla koulutukseen, tiedotukseen ja neuvontaan. Tiedotus on tärkeää laajan metsänomistajajoukon tavoittamisessa, ja koulutus tukee sitä mahdollistamalla biodiversiteettiasioiden sisällyttämisen normaaliin neuvontatoimintaan. Suojelun volyymin nostaminen selkeästi korkeammalle tasolle vaatii lisää resursseja, ja mahdollisesti verkostohankkeiden käytettävissä olevaa valikoimaa täydentäviä suojelukeinoja

Simple Mathematical Model Of Pathologic Microsatellite Expansions: When Self-Reparation Does Not Work

We propose a simple model of pathologic microsatellite expansion, and describe an inherent self-repairing mechanism working against expansion. We prove that if the probabilities of elementary expansions and contractions are equal, microsatellite expansions are always self-repairing. If these probabilities are different, self-reparation does not work. Mosaicism, anticipation and reverse mutation cases are discussed in the framework of the model. We explain these phenomena and provide some theoretical evidence for their properties, for example the rarity of reverse mutations

Modularity Facilitates Flexible Tuning of Plastic and Evolutionary Gene Expression Responses during Early Divergence

Gene expression changes have been recognized as important drivers of adaptation to changing environmental conditions. Little is known about the relative roles of plastic and evolutionary responses in complex gene expression networks during the early stages of divergence. Large gene expression data sets coupled with in silico methods for identifying coexpressed modules now enable systems genetics approaches also in nonmodel species for better understanding of gene expression responses during early divergence. Here, we combined gene coexpression analyses with population genetics to separate plastic and population (evolutionary) effects in expression networks using small salmonid populations as a model system. We show that plastic and population effects were highly variable among the six identified modules and that the plastic effects explained larger proportion of the total eigengene expression than population effects. A more detailed analysis of the population effects using a QST - FST comparison across 16,622 annotated transcripts revealed that gene expression followed neutral expectations within modules and at the global level. Furthermore, two modules showed enrichment for genes coding for early developmental traits that have been previously identified as important phenotypic traits in thermal responses in the same model system indicating that coexpression analysis can capture expression patterns underlying ecologically important traits. We suggest that module-specific responses may facilitate the flexible tuning of expression levels to local thermal conditions. Overall, our study indicates that plasticity and neutral evolution are the main drivers of gene expression variance in the early stages of thermal adaptation in this system.Peer reviewe

Reliability assessment of null allele detection: inconsistencies between and within different methods

Microsatellite loci are widely used in population genetic studies, but the presence of null alleles may lead to biased results. Here we assessed five methods that indirectly detect null alleles, and found large inconsistencies among them. Our analysis was based on 20 microsatellite loci genotyped in a natural population of Microtus oeconomus sampled during 8 years, together with 1200 simulated populations without null alleles, but experiencing bottlenecks of varying duration and intensity, and 120 simulated populations with known null alleles. In the natural population, 29% of positive results were consistent between the methods in pairwise comparisons, and in the simulated dataset this proportion was 14%. The positive results were also inconsistent between different years in the natural population. In the null-allele-free simulated dataset, the number of false positives increased with increased bottleneck intensity and duration. We also found a low concordance in null allele detection between the original simulated populations and their 20% random subsets. In the populations simulated to include null alleles, between 22% and 42% of true null alleles remained undetected, which highlighted that detection errors are not restricted to false positives. None of the evaluated methods clearly outperformed the others when both false positive and false negative rates were considered. Accepting only the positive results consistent between at least two methods should considerably reduce the false positive rate, but this approach may increase the false negative rate. Our study demonstrates the need for novel null allele detection methods that could be reliably applied to natural population