Sustainable peatland management is a global environmental governance challenge given peat’s carbon storage. Peatlands worldwide are sites of contested demands between stakeholders with distinct ...management priorities. In the United Kingdom, peatland management is a focus of political interest for nature-based solutions (NBS), causing tensions with land managers who feel their traditional knowledge is undervalued. Using Q-method (a semi-quantitative method for clarifying distinct viewpoints) with estate managers, gamekeepers, farmers, and employees of land-owning organisations, we explored perceptions around changing upland management in the Yorkshire Dales. Land managers hold strong values of ownership, aesthetics, and stewardship. The prospect of changing management causes fears of losing these relational values alongside instrumental values. Yorkshire Dales stakeholders agreed on NBS aims (reducing flooding, limiting wildfires, protecting wild birds), but disagreed on methods to achieve these. Our research supports engaging local stakeholders at all stages of peatland protection schemes to minimise resentment towards top-down management.
Peatlands provide important ecosystem services including carbon storage and biodiversity conservation. Remote sensing shows potential for monitoring peatlands, but most off-the-shelf data products ...are developed for unsaturated environments and it is unclear how well they can perform in peatland ecosystems. Sphagnum moss is an important peatland genus with specific characteristics which can affect spectral reflectance, and we hypothesized that the prevalence of Sphagnum in a peatland could affect the spectral signature of the area. This article combines results from both laboratory and field experiments to assess the relationship between spectral indices and the moisture content and gross primary productivity (GPP) of peatland (blanket bog) vegetation species. The aim was to consider how well the selected indices perform under a range of conditions, and whether Sphagnum has a significant impact on the relationships tested. We found that both water indices tested normalized difference water index (NDWI) and floating water band index (fWBI) were sensitive to the water content changes in Sphagnum moss in the laboratory, and there was little difference between them. Most of the vegetation indices tested the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI), enhanced vegetation index (EVI), structure insensitive pigment index (SIPI), and chlorophyll index (CIm) were found to have a strong relationship with GPP both in the laboratory and in the field. The NDVI and EVI are useful for large-scale estimation of GPP, but are sensitive to the proportion of Sphagnum present. The CIm is less affected by different species proportions and might therefore be the best to use in areas where vegetation species cover is unknown. The photochemical reflectance index (PRI) is shown to be best suited to small-scale studies of single species.
Estimates of peatland carbon fluxes based on remote sensing data are a useful addition to monitoring methods in these remote and precious ecosystems, but there are questions as to whether large-scale ...estimates are reliable given the small-scale heterogeneity of many peatlands. Our objective was to consider the reliability of models based on Earth Observations for estimating ecosystem photosynthesis at different scales using the Forsinard Flows RSPB reserve in Northern Scotland as our study site. Three sites across the reserve were monitored during the growing season of 2017. One site is near-natural blanket bog, and the other two are at different stages of the restoration process after removal of commercial conifer forestry. At each site we measured small (flux chamber) and landscape scale (eddy covariance) CO2 fluxes, small scale spectral data using a handheld spectrometer, and obtained corresponding satellite data from MODIS. The variables influencing GPP at small scale, including microforms and dominant vegetation species, were assessed using exploratory factor analysis. A GPP model using land surface temperature and a measure of greenness from remote sensing data was tested and compared to chamber and eddy covariance CO2 fluxes; this model returned good results at all scales (Pearson's correlations of 0.57 to 0.71 at small scale, 0.76 to 0.86 at large scale). We found that the effect of microtopography on GPP fluxes at the study sites was spatially and temporally inconsistent, although connected to water content and vegetation species. The GPP fluxes measured using EC were larger than those using chambers at all sites, and the reliability of the TG model at different scales was dependent on the measurement methods used for calibration and validation. This suggests that GPP measurements from remote sensing are robust at all scales, but that the methods used for calibration and validation will impact accuracy.
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•Peatlands have heterogeneous microtopography that challenges large-scale monitoring.•Remote sensing has the potential to monitor peatland GPP over large areas.•Flux chambers and eddy covariance were compared to spectrometer and satellite data.•A Temperature and Greenness model correlated with GPP at small and large scales.•Microtopography had minimal influence, model calibration was important.
Patterning of vegetation in drylands is a consequence of localized feedback mechanisms. Such feedbacks also determine ecosystem resilience—i.e. the ability to recover from perturbation. Hence, the ...patterning of vegetation has been hypothesized to be an indicator of resilience, that is, spots are less resilient than labyrinths. Previous studies have made this qualitative link and used models to quantitatively explore it, but few have quantitatively analysed available data to test the hypothesis. Here we provide methods for quantitatively monitoring the resilience of patterned vegetation, applied to 40 sites in the Sahel (a mix of previously identified and new ones). We show that an existing quantification of vegetation patterns in terms of a feature vector metric can effectively distinguish gaps, labyrinths, spots, and a novel category of spot–labyrinths at their maximum extent, whereas NDVI does not. The feature vector pattern metric correlates with mean precipitation. We then explored two approaches to measuring resilience. First we treated the rainy season as a perturbation and examined the subsequent rate of decay of patterns and NDVI as possible measures of resilience. This showed faster decay rates—conventionally interpreted as greater resilience—associated with wetter, more vegetated sites. Second we detrended the seasonal cycle and examined temporal autocorrelation and variance of the residuals as possible measures of resilience. Autocorrelation and variance of our pattern metric increase with declining mean precipitation, consistent with loss of resilience. Thus, drier sites appear less resilient, but we find no significant correlation between the mean or maximum value of the pattern metric (and associated morphological pattern types) and either of our measures of resilience.
Previously, dryland patterned vegetation morphology has been hypothesized to be an indicator of the resilience of the system. We provide a methodology to quantify pattern morphology using Sentinel‐2 satellite data and we apply this to 40 sites across the Sahel. Our metric, Offset50, distinguishes between pattern morphology when these patterns are at their maximum extent. We find that precipitation levels are linked to the resilience of these pattern vegetation sites; however, we do not find a link between pattern morphology and vegetation resilience.
Sphagnum is an important peat‐forming genus, which aids the carbon sequestration of peatlands. Sphagnum is sensitive to drought; however, and it is uncertain how well it can recover from long periods ...without rainfall. Spectral reflectance can be used to assess Sphagnum desiccation damage, and we also tested whether it can be used to detect recovery. Different rainfall simulations were applied to two species of Sphagnum to assess the impact of drought on carbon function. After 80 days all samples were rewetted to assess recovery. The rainfall simulations included inputs analogous to actual precipitation at the field site (Forsinard Flows reserve, Northern Scotland), potential future changes in rainfall, and extended total drought. During the experiment gross primary productivity and respiration were measured. Photosynthesis decreased after approximately 30 days of continuous drought (i.e., days without rain). Spectral reflectance was measured to assess Sphagnum bleaching. The spectral absorption feature of Sphagnum associated with red light (around 650 nm) was affected by drought and did not recover after rewetting during the experimental period. No significant difference was found between the two Sphagnum species studied with respect to their photosynthesis or respiration, but there was a significant difference in optimum water content and spectral reflectance between the two. The results from this study suggest that Sphagnum carbon function is resilient to quite long drought periods, but once damage has occurred recovery is likely to be difficult. The spectral reflectance of Sphagnum can give useful information in assessing whether significant desiccation damage has occurred.
We have generated several hundred lines of zebrafish (Danio rerio), each heterozygous for a recessive embryonic lethal mutation. Since many tumor suppressor genes are recessive lethals, we screened ...our colony for lines that display early mortality and/or gross evidence of tumors. We identified 12 lines with elevated cancer incidence. Fish from these lines develop malignant peripheral nerve sheath tumors, and in some cases also other tumor types, with moderate to very high frequencies. Surprisingly, 11 of the 12 lines were each heterozygous for a mutation in a different ribosomal protein (RP) gene, while one line was heterozygous for a mutation in a zebrafish paralog of the human and mouse tumor suppressor gene, neurofibromatosis type 2. Our findings suggest that many RP genes may act as haploinsufficient tumor suppressors in fish. Many RP genes might also be cancer genes in humans, where their role in tumorigenesis could easily have escaped detection up to now.
Celotno besedilo
Dostopno za:
DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
Mutations in the
LRRK2 gene, coding for dardarin, cause dominantly inherited Parkinson's disease (PD). Dardarin is a large protein, and mutations are found throughout the gene including the kinase ...domain. However, it is not clear if kinase activity is important for the damaging effects of pathogenic mutations. In this study, we noted two cellular phenotypes associated with mutant dardarin. First, pathogenic mutations increase the tendency of dardarin to form inclusion bodies. Secondly, neurons and neuronal cell lines undergo cell death after expression of mutant protein. Manipulating activity by replacing the kinase domain with a ‘kinase-dead’ version blocks inclusion body formation and strongly delays cell death. This predicts that kinase inhibitors will be useful therapeutic agents in patients with
LRRK2 mutations and, perhaps, in sporadic PD. We also show that dardarin protein is expressed within human midbrain neurons and that C-terminal epitopes are also found in some Lewy bodies.
The genomes of individuals with severe, undiagnosed developmental disorders are enriched in damaging de novo mutations (DNMs) in developmentally important genes. Here we have sequenced the exomes of ...4,293 families containing individuals with developmental disorders, and meta-analysed these data with data from another 3,287 individuals with similar disorders. We show that the most important factors influencing the diagnostic yield of DNMs are the sex of the affected individual, the relatedness of their parents, whether close relatives are affected and the parental ages. We identified 94 genes enriched in damaging DNMs, including 14 that previously lacked compelling evidence of involvement in developmental disorders. We have also characterized the phenotypic diversity among these disorders. We estimate that 42% of our cohort carry pathogenic DNMs in coding sequences; approximately half of these DNMs disrupt gene function and the remainder result in altered protein function. We estimate that developmental disorders caused by DNMs have an average prevalence of 1 in 213 to 1 in 448 births, depending on parental age. Given current global demographics, this equates to almost 400,000 children born per year.
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