This paper presents data on the distribution of Ventanata dubia in Slovakia. I recorded the species in 145 quadrants of the Central European mapping grid. The majority of these records occurred in ...the Pannonian region, especially in the phytogeographical districts of Podunajská nížina, Burda and Ipeľsko-rimavská brázda Region of southern Slovakia. In the Carpathian region, the species has a scattered to rare distribution pattern and is only found in the area associated with the pre-Carpathian flora, especially in the Štiavnické vrchy Mountains. Ventenata dubia most often occupies dry grassland habitats, but also frequently occurs in human-modified habitats (quarries, unpaved roads through agricultural fields and grasslands, vineyards). It rarely occurs on forest edges or in open forests. The grass was recorded on loessal, saline, quartzite, and limestone soils, but most often on shallow soils with high basalt (volcanic) rock content. At present, it is among the less threatened plant species of the Slovak flora (NT). URL: https://www.upjs.sk/pracoviska/botanicka-zahrada/odborne-aktivity/contents-abstracts/
The Jews of Modern France explores the endlessly complex
encounter of France and its Jews from just before the Revolution to
the eve of the twenty-first century. In the late eighteenth
century, some ...forty thousand Jews lived in scattered communities on
the peripheries of the French state, not considered French by
others or by themselves. Two hundred years later, in 1989, France
celebrated the anniversary of the Revolution with the largest, most
vital Jewish population in western and central Europe. Paula Hyman
looks closely at the period that began when France's Jews were
offered citizenship during the Revolution. She shows how they and
succeeding generations embraced the opportunities of integration
and acculturation, redefined their identities, adapted their
Judaism to the pragmatic and ideological demands of the time, and
participated fully in French culture and politics. Within this same
period, Jews in France fell victim to a secular political
antisemitism that mocked the gains of emancipation, culminating
first in the Dreyfus Affair and later in the murder of one-fourth
of them in the Holocaust. Yet up to the present day, through
successive waves of immigration, Jews have asserted the
compatibility of their French identity with various versions of
Jewish particularity, including Zionism. This remarkable view in
microcosm of the modern Jewish experience will interest general
readers and scholars alike.
Isotopic analysis of specific compounds in aerosols can be a useful tool when studying atmospheric processes. Here, we present the results of stable carbon isotope ratio (δ13C) measurements performed ...on a one-year set (n = 96, Sep. 2013–Aug. 2014) of dicarboxylic acids and related compounds in PM1 at a rural Central European background site, Košetice (Czech Republic).
The most 13C enriched acid was oxalic (C2, annual average = −16.6 ± 5.0‰) followed by malonic (C3, avg. = −19.9 ± 6.6‰) and succinic (C4, avg. = −21.3 ± 4.6‰) acids. Thus, δ13C values decreased with an increase in carbon numbers. Azelaic acid (C9, avg. = −27.2 ± 3.6‰) was found to be the least 13C enriched.
A comparison of δ13C of dicarboxylic acids from other background sites, especially in Asia, shows similar values to those from the European site. This comparison also showed that C2 is more 13C enriched at background sites than at urban ones. In general, we did not observe significant seasonal differences in δ13C values of dicarboxylic acids at the Central European station. We observed statistically significant differences (p value < 0.05) between winter and summer δ13C values solely for C4, glyoxylic acid (ωC2), glutaric acid (C5) and suberic acid (C8).
The only significant correlations between δ13C of C2 and δ13C of C3 were found in spring and summer, suggesting that the oxidation of C3 to C2 is significant in these months with a strong contribution from biogenic aerosols. The strongest season-independent annual correlation was observed in δ13C values between C2 and C4, the two dominant dicarboxylic acids. Therefore, C4 appears to be the main intermediate precursor of C2 throughout the whole year.
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•Seasonal differences (winter vs. summer) are significant for C4, ωC2, C5 and C8.•Strong correlation was found between δ13C of oxalic and succinic acids.•Correlation between δ13C of C2 and C3 was significant in spring and summer.•δ13C values of dicarboxylic acids are similar to those from Southeast Asia.•Background aerosols provide more 13C enriched C2 compared to urban aerosols.
•Reduced forest rotation length can reduce wind and bark beetle disturbance.•Efficiency of this measure decreases under climate change.•Short-term collateral effects on forest carbon and biodiversity ...are severe.
Forest disturbance regimes are intensifying in many parts of the globe. In order to mitigate disturbance impacts a number of management responses have been proposed, yet their effectiveness in addressing changing disturbance regimes remains largely unknown. The strong positive relationship between forest age and the vulnerability to disturbances such as windthrows and bark beetle infestations suggests that a reduced rotation length can be a potent means for mitigating the impacts of natural disturbances. However, disturbance mitigation measures such as shortened rotation lengths (SRL) can also have undesired consequences on ecosystem services and biodiversity, which need to be considered in their application.
Here, we used the process-based landscape and disturbance model iLand to investigate the effects of SRL on the vulnerability of a 16,000 ha forest landscape in Central Europe to wind and bark beetle disturbances. We experimentally reduced the current rotation length (between 100 and 115 years) by up to −40% in 10% increments, and studied effects on disturbance dynamics under current and future climate conditions over a 200-year simulation period. Simultaneously, we quantified the collateral effects of SRL on forest carbon stocks and indicators of biodiversity. Shortening the rotation length by 40% decreased disturbances by 14%. This effect was strongly diminished under future climate change, reducing the mitigating effect of shortened rotation to <6%. Collateral effects were severe in the initial decades after implementation: Reducing the rotation length by 40% caused a spike in harvested timber volume (+92%), decreased total forest carbon storage by 6% and reduced the number of large trees on the landscape by 20%. The long-term effects of SRL were less pronounced. At the same time, SRL caused an increase in tree species diversity. Shortening rotation length can reduce the impact of wind and bark beetle disturbances, but the overall efficiency of the measure is limited and decreases under climate change. Given the potential for undesired collateral effects we conclude that a reduction of the rotation length is no panacea for managing increasing disturbances, and should be applied in combination with other management measures reducing risks and fostering resilience.
Due to the Chernobyl nuclear power plant accident, contaminated air masses, containing 137Cs, were widely propagated across all of Europe. Cesium-137 is easily adsorbed on aerosol particles as it ...returns to the lithosphere/pedosphere/via wet and dry deposition in the form of a radioactive fallout component. Following the nuclear accident, primary attention was paid to agricultural areas and less to urban environments. Our 137Cs activity study using undisturbed attic dust samples has been carried out from two residential areas (city of Salgótarján and Ózd) in northern Hungary, approx. 1000 km away from Chernobyl. A total of 61 attic dust samples were collected in 2016 and 2018 from houses (>30 years) functioning as family house, kindergarten, blockhouse and church. Activity concentration of 137Cs was determined for 1–2 g homogenized (<125 μm) attic dust samples in a low background iron chamber with a well-type HPGe detector. The mean 137Cs activity concentrations in attic dust samples are 88.5 ± 5.1 Bq kg−1 and 87.8 ± 4.5 Bq kg−1 in Salgótarján and Ózd, respectively. The dependence between 137Cs activities and the age of the houses was found to be significant (p=0.02), which could be explained by Chernobyl nuclear accident-causing elevated activity concentrations in location built prior to the accident. Three outliers in Ózd (>223 Bq kg−1), are probably related to the first rainfall event after the Chernobyl accident. Isotopic landscapes (isoscapes) of 137Cs were derived for both cities by means of kriging interpolation. In Salgótarján the 137Cs activity concentrations were higher than in Ózd which might have been due to redistribution loadings and local topographical features. We concluded that components of attic dust are highly useful indicators of home exposure to pollution events and remain detectable after several decades.
•The long-term accumulation of dust preserves high activity concentration of 137Cs in attic area.•The 137Cs activity concentration in >10% of the attic dust samples exceeded 100 Bq kg−1, reaches up to 272 Bq kg−1.•The meteorological simulations illustrated obvious differences in 137Cs deposition in the studied two cities.•Geostatistical analysis for pre-1950 built houses prove influence of topographical feature in 137Cs deposition rate.
The paper presents new records of
Taraxacum parnassicum
, the most common member of
Taraxacum
section
Erythrosperma
in Slovakia. The species has been recorded in most of the 31 phytogeographical ...districts of Slovakia. At least 25 new localities were discovered, and many old ones were confirmed.
T. parnassicum
prefers natural and semi-ruderal sites on limestone, rarely on volcanic and sandy soils, predominantly not shaded. The majority of populations occur from the lowland to supracolline vegetation belt, mainly at elevations of 140–700 m a.s.l., with the altitudinal maximum at 1,410 m a.s.l. A distribution map is given with the list of localities from the whole territory of Slovakia as well as short discussion about its taxonomy and ploidy level.
The Early Miocene lacustrine sediments of the Most Basin in the Czech Republic preserve a European continental paleoenvironmental archive. A number of paleoenvironmental and magnetostratigraphic ...studies have been carried out on sediment cores from boreholes due to ongoing coal mining in the basin. However, the magnetic carriers of the studied sediments have not been identified clearly. Here, we present a detailed paleo-rock magnetic study from the Burdigalian sediments near the Bilina mining area, Most Basin. The studied clay sediments cover the period of local lakes and a basin-wide lake above the main coal seam. Our results suggest that the magnetic carriers of the studied section in the Most Basin are mixtures of authigenic greigite and magnetite magnetofossils with overlapping magnetic signatures. Greigite is formed by migration of pore water through the sediment column, where iron from siderite grains reacts with these fluids with limited H2S, which then favors greigite precipitation. The co-existence of greigite and magnetite indicates a partial dissolution of magnetofossils due to H2S deficiency. Diagenetic greigite has been problematic in paleomagnetic studies due to an unknown time lag between the depositional remanence and the chemical remanent magnetization (CRM). A ghost polarity interval reveals that greigite acquired at least ∼45 kyr delayed CRM. The revealed timing of remanence acquisition brings a new perspective to the chronostratigraphic structure of the Most Basin.
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•Co-existence of magnetite magnetofossils and diagenetic greigite is possible in environments with limited H2S.•Our results provide new and detailed information for iron sulfide-bearing sedimentary records acquiring a delayed CRM.•This new paleomagnetic record is a significant contribution to the chronostratigraphic refinement of the Most Basin.
The current transformation of many Eastern European societies is impossible to understand without comprehending the intellectual struggles surrounding nationalism in the region. Anthropologist ...Katherine Verdery shows how the example of Romania suggests that current ethnic tensions come not from a resurrection of pre-Communist Nationalism but from the strengthening of national ideologies under Communist Party rule.
Microplastic pollution within the marine environment is of pressing concern globally. Accordingly, spatial monitoring of microplastic concentrations, composition and size distribution may help to ...identify sources and entry pathways, and hence allow initiating focused mitigation. Spatial distribution patterns of microplastics were investigated in two compartments of the southern North Sea by collecting sublittoral sediment and surface water samples from 24 stations. Large microplastics (500−5000 μm) were detected visually and identified using attenuated total reflection (ATR) Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy. The remaining sample was digested enzymatically, concentrated onto filters and analyzed for small microplastics (11−500 μm) using Focal Plane Array (FPA) FTIR imaging. Microplastics were detected in all samples with concentrations ranging between 2.8 and 1188.8 particles kg−1 for sediments and 0.1–245.4 particles m−3 for surface waters. On average 98% of microplastics were <100 μm in sediments and 86% in surface waters. The most prevalent polymer types in both compartments were polypropylene, acrylates/polyurethane/varnish, and polyamide. However, polymer composition differed significantly between sediment and surface water samples as well as between the Frisian Islands and the English Channel sites. These results show that microplastics are not evenly distributed, in neither location nor size, which is illuminating regarding the development of monitoring protocols.
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•All 46 analyzed sediment and surface water samples contained microplastics.•Microplastic concentrations were higher in sediment than surface water samples.•Polymer composition differed significantly between surface waters and sediments.•Microplastics <500 μm were more abundant and divers in polymer type than large ones.•Particles smaller 100 μm dominated clearly in both environmental compartments.
Capsule: Microplastic concentrations and compositions differ significantly between environmental compartments. Geographic distribution patterns are revealed by a statistical approach. Microplastics <500 μm are more abundant and diverse than >500 μm ones, rendering the exclusive analysis of later ones insufficient for environmental risk assessment.
The author of the article examines monument trees, representing in history and culture traumatic social experiences. Using examples from Central Europe, he describes specific trees and their close ...environment (surroundings), looking for traces of dramatic events or processes from the past. On this basis, he reconstructs the biomemory of the region, which stores the “scars” of military conflicts, political violence, expulsions or cultural cleansings. The author argues that biomemory can function as an alternative history or counterhistory, preserve local tradition, inspire social practices, and conceptualize the relationship between the ideological, civilizational and organic perception of the natural environment.
