Effects of Long-Term Aerial Pollution on Soil Seed Banks in Drained Pine Mires in Southern Finland

The effects of pollution on thecomposition of soil seed banks in four drained pinemires located along a pollution gradient in southernFinland were studied using the emergence method. Thespecies composition of the seed bank was compared withthe above ground vegetation. Dominant species in theseed banks were Calluna vulgaris, Betulaspp. and Ledum palustre. Seeds seemed to beviable despite a heavy pollution load. Especially inthe vicinity of the pollution source, seed bank andabove ground vegetation were weakly correlated.     

Cadmium contents of oats (Avena sativa L.) in official variety,organic cultivation,and nitrogen fertilization trials during 1997-1999

The cadmium (Cd) contents of oats (Avena sativa L.) in Finland were examined over a 3 year period in three types of trials: official variety, organic vs conventional cultivation, and nitrogen fertilization trials. Large seasonal and regional variations were found in the Cd concentrations. In official variety trials, the mean Cd contents in 1997, 1998, and 1999 were 0.046, 0.029, and 0.052 mg kg(-1) dry weight (dw), respectively, ranging from 0.008 to 0.120 mg kg(-1) dw. The concentrations were generally well below the maximum permitted level of 0.100 mg kg(-1) fresh weight. No significant differences were found between the organic and the conventional cultivation techniques. Nitrogen (N) fertilization increased the Cd contents of oats especially at high nitrogen rates (160 kg N hectare(-1) (ha)). Significant cultivar differences (p < 0.001) were determined in all trials. Cultivars Salo and Kolbu had consistently higher contents, and Belinda and Roope had lower Cd contents among the different growing conditions. Hence, it is possible to cultivate and develop oat cultivars less likely to accumulate Cd.     

Areal activities and stratification of hydrolytic enzymes involved in the biochemical cycles of carbon, nitrogen, sulphur and phosphorus in podsolized boreal forest soils

A novel approach allowing on-site high throughput enzyme activity measurements by fluorogenic model substrates was applied to study the functioning of enzymes involved in biochemical cycling of nutrients in boreal forest soil ecosystems. The examined enzymes comprised α-glucosidase, β-glucosidase, β-xylosidase, β-cellobiosidase, N-acetyl-glucosamidase, acetate-esterase, butyrate-esterase, phosphomonoesterase, sulphatase and aminopeptidase, whereby spatial and seasonal variation of their activity was investigated over nine seasons in 2 years. The studied sites of boreal podzolized soil of Pinus sylvestris and Picea abies forest were located in central Finland. Activity of all enzymes except sulphatase was highest in the humus layer in all seasons. Maximum sulphatase activity was located below the humus layer in the soil column. Annual activities of acetate-esterase, butyrate-esterase, β-glucosidase and phosphomonosterase calculated to in situ temperature during the year were 480-700, 690-950, 110-190 and 110-200 mol m⁻² year⁻¹, respectively. They were up to 100 fold higher than the other six measured activities. The overall turnover capacity of the enzymes was >1000 mol of ester linked carbon, >700 mols carbon from different carbohydrates, 100-200 mol of ester linked phosphate, 10-40 mol of ester linked sulphate m⁻² year⁻¹. Winter time (November-April) contributed from 7 to 32% to the annual turnover capacity indicating important enzyme activities also during a cold period of the year. Clear-cutting of the tree stand did not adversely affect enzyme activities related to the cycling of carbon, nitrogen, sulphur and phosphorus during the year. The pH optimum for hemicellulose and cellulose hydrolysing enzymes was pH 3-4 and the pH optimum of phosphomonoesterase, sulphatase, aminopeptidase and N-acetyl-glucosamidase was 4-5. This shows that the hydrolytic activities were adapted to the acid pH-values of the soils. The soil hydrolytic potential was many fold higher as compared to the actual amount of litter it received in the P. sylvestris and P. abies forests.     

Influence of resource quality on the composition of soil decomposer community in fragmented and continuous habitat

The aim of this field experiment was to explore the combined effects of two factors potentially affecting the local composition of soil decomposer community: resource quality and habitat fragmentation. We created humus (habitat) patches with three different resource quality: (1) pure homogenised humus; (2) humus enriched with needle litter; and (3) humus enriched with needle and leaf litter. These patches were embedded either in a mineral soil matrix, thus representing fragmented habitat, or in natural forest soil, representing continuous (non-fragmented) habitat. The development of faunal (colonisations/extinctions of soil animal populations) and microbial communities in the patches was followed for 12 months. Our results partly supported the hypothesized strong influence of resource quality on the structure of local soil food webs: the abundances of practically all groups of soil fauna, together with biomass of fungi, were higher in the litter-enriched patches than in the pure humus patches. The manifestation and magnitude of the responses of fauna were, however, strongly affected by complex interactions between the characteristics (especially colonisation capacity) of the faunal group in question, habitat quality and time of sampling. In microarthropods and nematodes, the effect of resource quality cascaded up to the predatory level, rendering further support to the existence of strong bottom-up control in soil food webs. Contrary to our expectations, species richness of the communities was not unanimously affected by resource quality. Habitat fragmentation affected the communities only through different number and identity of patch-colonising species in the fragmented and continuous habitat: fragmentation induced no extinctions of species during the experiment at any resource quality level. Consequently, the results indicate that resource quality is more important factor than habitat fragmentation in determining the local structure of communities in soils. On the other hand, colonisation capacities of soil organisms appear to set limits to the exploitation of local resources.     

Searching for DNA introgressed from wheat and for wheat-like grain proteins in a rice x wheat hybridization derivative

The DNA of a putative rice x wheat hybridization derivative (X Oryticum oryzoides) from China, the DNA of its parental rice cultivar and the DNA of a wheat line were digested with ten different restriction endonucleases, resolved by agarose electrophoresis, Southern blotted and hybridized using genomic wheat DNA as a probe. Phenol extracted, ethanol and cetyltrimethylammonium bromide precipitated DNA of the putative hybrid showed a restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) different from that of the parental rice. When the DNA was further purified by Qiagen chromatography, the RFLP differences were not detected. Hence the apparent RFLP differences were probably due partial digestion of the less pure DNA preparations by the restriction endonucleases. No real introgressed fragments from wheat genome could be shown. The HpaII/MspI sites were more frequently digested with MspI than with HpaII in rice and hybridization derivative DNA, but the sites were evidently more frequently methylated in wheat DNA. Thus, in terms of methylation of the DNA, the hybridization derivative was much more like the rice parent than the wheat parent. The hybridization derivative showed a single endospermal protein (mass 19 kg mol^-1) not detected in the parental rice cultivar. This minor protein was soluble in buffered 50% isopropanol and precipitable with methanol. The results indicate that there are no or only short introgressed sequences from wheat in the rice/wheat derivative, a result which might be considered in breeding efforts with the hybrid derivative.     

Pressurized hot water extraction of Norway spruce hemicelluloses using a flow-through system

Norway spruce saw meal was extracted with pressurized hot water at 120–240°C using a flow-through system. Only small amounts of hemicelluloses were extracted at 120–160°C, but dissolution was significantly enhanced when higher extraction temperatures were applied. All hemicelluloses but only 15% of lignin were removed from wood at 220°C, and even less lignin was extracted at lower temperatures. Partial degradation of cellulose seemed to take place only at 240°C. Of the total amount of extracted hemicelluloses, 4–22% was hydrolyzed to monosaccharides. Although the average molar masses of extracted hemicelluloses decreased with increasing extraction temperature, even at 240°C the extracted carbohydrates occurred, on average, as polysaccharides. Polysaccharides with an average molar mass of 31 kDa were obtained at 170°C. The molecular-mass characteristics and yield of carbohydrates depend on the extraction temperature, which should be chosen based on the end use of the isolated hemicelluloses.     

Site elevation differences in frost damage to scots pine (Pinus sylvestris)

This investigation deals with the external symptoms and occurrence of frost damage in Scots pine seedlings (Pinus sylvestris) growing on a dry, barren mineral soil site.

The results suggest that the annual shoots of pine are sensitive to frost at the end of their height growth period. The mosaic-like occurrence of the damage indicated that even a slight variation in topography gives quite significant differences under extreme growing conditions. The difference in height between the highest and lowest sample plot was 244 cm. The largest number of seedlings grew on the flat areas and the smallest on the slope. The tallest seedlings grew on the upper part of the slope. Severe frost damage in live seedlings occurred more frequently on low-lying sites. Moreover, the results show that low temperatures during the growing season may be part of the cause of multiple leaders.     

Mapping of urban roadside trees – A case study in the tree register update process in Helsinki City

This case study describes a method for utilizing leaf-off airborne laser scanning (ALS) data for mapping characteristics of urban trees. ALS data were utilized to detect and update all street trees in the tree inventory of the City of Helsinki, Finland. The inventory consists of roughly 20,000 street trees with mean diameter at breast height (DBH) of 24 cm and mean height of 10.6 m. The large number of trees makes the manual updating process very laborious. The automatic mapping procedure presented in this paper detected 88.8% of all trees in the inventory. Tree height was predicted with root mean square error (RMSE) of 1.27 meters and tree DBH with RMSE of 6.9 cm. The presented method provides a practical and cost–effective tool for the mapping of urban tree characteristics. The cost–efficiency was further enhanced because the used ALS data were originally collected for other urban planning purposes.     

Summer temperature affects the ratio of radial and height growth of Scots pine in northern Finland

? Radial and height growth chronologies from 150-year-old and 50-year old Scots pine stands, both located near to the northern timberline in Laanila, Finland (68° 30′ N, 27° 28′ E), were cross-correlated with each other and with mean temperatures of various temperature periods defined as months, days or growing-degree-days.

? The height-growth chronology correlates significantly with radial growth at lags 1 and 2, and radial growth with height growth at lag 2 when the effect of temperature is omitted. On average, low and high growth years represent cool and warm average growing seasons. The summer temperatures (June, July and August) affect most on growth, but height and radial growth do have a different set of effective temperature periods. Furthermore, July temperature variation affects stronger height than radial growth.

? Those years with low height/radial-growth ratio, i.e. relatively higher current year’s radial than next year’s height growth, do have lower growth and cooler-than-average July temperature whereas those years with high height/radial-growth ratio do have clearly warmer mid-summer temperatures.

     

Density-dependent vole damage in silviculture and associated economic losses at a nationwide scale

Voles inflict damage to silviculture by debarking or severing tree seedlings. The large-scale impacts of vole damage to silviculture, both in terms of severity and financial losses are, however, poorly known. In autumn 2005, cyclically fluctuating vole populations were at their highest in Finland for over 15 years, which led to extensive damage to silviculture during the winter 2005/06. We carried out a nationwide assessment of the incidence, spatial extent and economic value of damage and its relation to vole abundance in privately owned forests during this winter. Damage data were obtained with a questionnaire addressed to the directors of all Forest Management Associations (FMAs) operating in Finland, and vole abundance data from 15 long-term monitoring projects across the country. Voles were confirmed to have destroyed ca. 4.7 million tree seedlings, covering a total effective damage area of ca. 2600 ha. The directors of the FMAs estimated that the actual level of damage was likely to exceed 8.5 million seedlings, or 5400 ha. Roughly 80% of all damage was inflicted on Norway spruce (Picea abies), ca. 10% on Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris) and ca. 10% on birch (Betula sp.) and other species. Considering costs of replanting alone, a most likely very conservative estimate of the financial impact of vole damage during the winter 2005/06 lies between 2.2 and 4.0 million €. The occurrence of damage during the winter was positively related to vole abundance in the previous autumn. This validates vole population monitoring as an effective tool for forecasting near-future damage to silviculture. Our results suggest that if vole populations continue to fluctuate as they currently do, levels of damage to Finnish forests will be great also in the future, far exceeding damage levels recorded in earlier decades.