Decisive environmental characteristics for woody regrowth in forest edges:Patterns along complex environmental gradients in Southern Sweden

Early and late successional stages of forest edge development were studied across long, complex environmental gradients in order to disentangle and assess the woody species composition and functional traits’ relations to abiotic and biotic environmental characteristics at site and landscape scale. Data were sampled from 78 randomly stratified locations along a 610-km railway corridor between the cities of Stockholm and Malmö, Sweden, and subsequently analysed in multiple steps of unconstrained, con-strained and partial constrained ordination and variation partitioning. Different analytical methods were applied at each step and only the environmental characteristics that repeatedly showed significant impacts on woody species composition were selected for analysis of average weighted community traits to provide verification and a more detailed understanding. Following this approach, 10 environmental characteristics were identified as decisive for the woody species composition of the forest edges. Thevariation partitioning revealed a marked shift in the relative explanatory power of the environmental variables in relation to the succession of the forest edges. In the early successional stage, the abiotic variables related to site productivity (as reflected by field layer type and soil moisture) and climate (humidity and altitude) dominate, while in the late successional stages of forest edges more complex patterns evolved due to hierarchical and dynamic filter effects, where biotic variables reflecting structural aspectsat site (forest edge profile, canopy stratification and canopy cover) and landscape (forest continuity and the shape and contrast of edges in the surrounding landscape) level were equally important as the abiotic variables. We concluded that management efforts in early succession stages of forest edges should depart from basic abiotic gradients of site fertility and moisture; and that it is crucial to incorporate vegetation structure variables at site and landscape level into long-term management planning.Implementering och utvärdering av olika utvecklade skötselmetoder och modeller vid röjning av vegetation vid underhåll av skötselgator efter trädsäkrin

Treatment of chronic hepatitis B infection: An update of Swedish recommendations

The main goal for treatment of chronic hepatitis B is to prevent complications such as liver cirrhosis or hepatocellular carcinoma. Knowledge from population studies of the long-term risk of chronic HBV infection, as well as the recent introduction of pegylated interferon and additional nucleoside analogues has changed the therapeutic situation. Recently, a Swedish expert panel convened to update the national recommendations for treatment. The panel recommends treatment for patients with active HBV infection causing protracted liver inflammation or significant liver fibrosis, verified by liver histology. In general, pegylated interferon alpha-2a is recommended as first-line treatment, in particular for HBeAg-positive patients with HBV genotypes A or B. Among nucleoside analogues, entecavir is the first choice and adefovir or tenofovir can be used as alternatives. Lamivudine monotherapy is not recommended due to the high risk of resistance development. Combinations of nucleoside analogues such as tenofovir and lamivudine or emtricitabine are alternatives for patients with non-response or infection with resistant variants, or as first choice for patients with advanced liver disease. Nucleoside analogue treatment should be monitored to detect primary non-response and virological breakthrough. Special recommendations are given for HBV/HIV coinfected patients, immunosuppressed patients, children, and for treatment before and after liver transplantation. The present guideline is translated from Swedish, where it is published on the MPA and RAV websites (www.mpa.se and www.rav.nu.se) including 7 separate papers based on thorough literature search. The complete reference list can be received from the Medical Products Agency upon request