Browsing by Subject "landscape"
Now showing items 1-17 of 17
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A soft clustering approach to detect socio-ecological landscape boundaries using bayesian networks (MDPI AG, 2021)Agronomy 11(4), 740Detecting socio-ecological boundaries in traditional rural landscapes is very important for the planning and sustainability of these landscapes. Most of the traditional methods to detect ecological boundaries have two major shortcomings: they are unable to include uncertainty, and they often exclude socio-economic information. This paper presents a new approach, based on unsupervised Bayesian network classifiers, to find spatial clusters and their boundaries in socio-ecological systems. As a case study, a Mediterranean cultural landscape was used. As a result, six socio-ecological sectors, following both longitudinal and altitudinal gradients, were identified. In addition, different socio-ecological boundaries were detected using a probability threshold. Thanks to its probabilistic nature, the proposed method allows experts and stakeholders to distinguish between different levels of uncertainty in landscape management. The inherent complexity and heterogeneity of the natural landscape is easily handled by Bayesian networks. Moreover, variables from different sources and characteristics can be simultaneously included. These features confer an advantage over other traditional techniques.
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Agricultural land use disrupts biodiversity mediation of virus infections in wild plant populations (2021)Human alteration of natural habitats may change the processes governing species interactions in wild communities. Wild populations are increasingly impacted by agricultural intensification, yet it is unknown whether this alters biodiversity mediation of disease dynamics. We investigated the association between plant diversity (species richness, diversity) and infection risk (virus richness, prevalence) in populations of Plantago lanceolata in natural landscapes as well as those occurring at the edges of cultivated fields. Altogether, 27 P. lanceolata populations were surveyed for population characteristics and sampled for PCR detection of five recently characterized viruses. We find that plant species richness and diversity correlated negatively with virus infection prevalence. Virus species richness declined with increasing plant diversity and richness in natural populations while in agricultural edge populations species richness was moderately higher, and not associated with plant richness. This difference was not explained by changes in host richness between these two habitats, suggesting potential pathogen spill-over and increased transmission of viruses across the agro-ecological interface. Host population connectivity significantly decreased virus infection prevalence. We conclude that human use of landscapes may change the ecological laws by which natural communities are formed with far reaching implications for ecosystem functioning and disease.
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(IOP Science, 2020)Environmental Research Letters 15 9 (2020)Beavers (Castor sp.) are ecosystem engineers that cause significant changes to their physical environment and alter the availability of resources to other species. We studied flood dynamics created by American beaver (C. canadensis K.) in a southern boreal landscape in Finland in 1970–2018. We present for the first time, to our knowledge, a temporally continuous long-term study of beaver-induced flood disturbances starting from the appearance of beaver in the area. During the 49 years, the emergence of new sites flooded by beaver and repeated floods (61% of the sites) formed a dynamic mosaic characterized by clustered patterns of beaver sites. As beaver dispersal proceeded, connectivity of beaver sites increased significantly. The mean flood duration was approximately three years, which highlights the importance of datasets with high-temporal resolution in detecting beaver-induced disturbances. An individual site was often part of the active flood mosaic over several decades, although the duration and the number of repeated floods at different sites varied considerably. Variation of flood-inundated and post-flood phases at individual sites resulted in a cumulative number of unique patches that contribute to environmental heterogeneity in space and time. A disturbance mosaic consisting of patches differing by successional age and flood history is likely to support species richness and abundance of different taxa and facilitate whole species communities. Beavers are thus a suitable means to be used in restoration of riparian habitat due to their strong and dynamic influence on abiotic environment and its biotic consequences.
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(Finnish Forest Research Institute (Metla), 2002)
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(MDPI, 2019)Sustainability 2019, 11, 421The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization’s (UNESCO’s) Biosphere Reserves aim to be flagships of sustainable landscapes. Many of them are important locations for tourism and leisure activities. We explored the perceptions of short-term visitors and summer residents on ecosystem services (ESs) tied to characteristic habitats of the Archipelago Sea Biosphere Reserve in Finland. During holiday season, we conducted structured on-field interviews with 74 Biosphere Reserve visitors. From these data, we gained information on the visitors’ appreciation of different ESs and the selected habitats. We also derived habitat-specific ES profiles. Excluding the reedbeds, most habitats were both highly valued and considered as important producers of the listed ESs. The derived ES profiles were partially overlapping and inclined towards appreciation of cultural services, and the importance of scenery was highlighted. Provisioning services were not particularly appreciated. We discovered several linkages among biodiversity, ESs, and recreational land uses. Certain habitats were found to be in need of protection under high recreational land-use pressure, but also potential synergies were found. Our method introduces an important socio-cultural perspective into the region’s land management that aims to find a balance between the protection of the Biosphere Reserve’s unique biodiversity and the need to support sustainable local livelihoods and tourism.
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(Helsingfors universitet, 2016)The main aim of this thesis was to study the ecosystem services provided by large-scale industrial eucalypt plantations of UPM in Paysandú region, Uruguay. In the landscape, natural pastures and forests are combined with rows of planted trees. The second aim was to study how various stakeholder groups use ecosystem services from the plantation landscape, and to what extent the rights and expectations related to their use vary among these groups. The third aim was to study the best ways to combine the production of ecosystem services with large-scale industrial tree plantations in the study area. The data used in this study consisted of 55 semi-structured interviews, which were recorded in Uruguay during summer of 2015. Among the persons interviewed, 15 people were classified as key-informants with a broad view on plantation industry in the study area. They were from educational institutions, companies, ministries and from non-governmental organizations. Based on results of the key-informants interviews, a total of 40 persons were selected for stakeholder interviews. They represented four groups; 1) cattle ranchers, 2) honey producers, 3) tree growers and 4) general public from the surrounding communities. With stakeholder interviews, the aim was to collect quantitative data with structured questionnaires. The key-informants and stakeholders were asked about the same issues, but the key-informant interviews had open questions for collecting both qualitative and quantitative data. The results of this study show that industrial tree plantation landscapes provide a plenitude of ecosystem services. However, the perceived changes in the landscape during the past ten years were in some cases more negative than positive. According to the key-informants, the most important ecosystem services provided included industrial wood, animal shelter, fodder and foods. This indicates that local livelihoods can be combined with industrial plantations and the stakeholders benefit from them in many ways. The cattle ranchers obtained mainly animal shelter and fodder. For them, also the regulation of natural hazards was important. The honey producers valued foods, pollination and biodiversity services. The tree growers valued industrial wood and, similarly as the cattle ranchers, animal shelter and fodder. For the general community, educational information was the most important service. Food, honey and mushrooms, and fuel wood were also highly valued ecosystem services. Industrial tree plantations create a wealth of ecosystem services, often with low or no cost. UPM Uruguay considers local stakeholders and their livelihoods in many ways. According to the company, the best ways to integrate industrial tree plantations and ecosystem services are already used in many parts, although there was no data disclosed about all of them. However, it seems that UPM is well aware of the local conditions. In the future, there is a need to study the monetary value and benefit sharing of ecosystem services e.g. through payments of ecosystem services schemes.
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(Suomen metsätieteellinen seura, 1975)
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(2020)Abstract Estimates of regional and global freshwater N2O emissions have remained inaccurate due to scarce data and complexity of the multiple processes driving N2O fluxes the focus predominantly being on summer time measurements from emission hot spots, agricultural streams. Here we present four-season data of N2O concentrations in the water columns of randomly selected boreal lakes covering a large variation in latitude, lake type, area, depth, water chemistry and land use cover. Nitrate was the key driver for N2O dynamics, explaining as much as 78% of the variation of the seasonal mean N2O concentrations across all lakes. Nitrate concentrations varied among seasons being highest in winter and lowest in summer. Of the surface water samples 71% were oversaturated with N2O relative to the atmosphere. Largest oversaturation was measured in winter and lowest in summer stressing the importance to include full year N2O measurements in annual emission estimates. Including winter data resulted in four-fold annual N2O emission estimates compared to summer only measurements. Nutrient rich calcareous and large humic lakes had the highest annual N2O emissions. Our emission estimates for Finnish and boreal lakes are 0.6 Gg and 29 Gg N2O-N y-1, respectively. The Global Warming Potential (GWP) of N2O cannot be neglected in the boreal landscape, being 35% of that of diffusive CH4 emission in Finnish lakes.
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(Suomalaisen Kirjallisuuden Seura, 2019)Studia Fennica Anthropologica
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(Suomen metsätieteellinen seura, 1988)
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(Suomen metsätieteellinen seura, 1981)
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(2019)Sedimentary pollen offers excellent opportunities to reconstruct vegetation changes over past millennia. Number of different pollen taxa or pollen richness is used to characterise past plant richness. To improve the interpretation of sedimentary pollen richness, it is essential to understand the relationship between pollen and plant richness in contemporary landscapes. This study presents a regional-scale comparison of pollen and plant richness from northern Europe and evaluates the importance of environmental variables on pollen and plant richness. We use a pollen dataset of 511 lake-surface pollen samples ranging through temperate, boreal and tundra biomes. To characterise plant diversity, we use a dataset formulated from the two largest plant atlases available in Europe. We compare pollen and plant richness estimates in different groups of taxa (wind-pollinated vs. non-wind-pollinated, trees and shrubs vs. herbs and grasses) and test their relationships with climate and landscape variables. Pollen richness is significantly positively correlated with plant richness (r = 0.53). The pollen plant richness correlation improves (r = 0.63) when high pollen producers are downweighted prior to estimating richness minimising the influence of pollen production on the pollen richness estimate. This suggests that methods accommodating pollen-production differences in richness estimates deserve further attention and should become more widely used in Quaternary pollen diversity studies. The highest correlations are found between pollen and plant richness of trees and shrubs (r = 0.83) and of wind-pollinated taxa (r = 0.75) suggesting that these are the best measures of broad-scale plant richness over several thousands of square kilometres. Mean annual temperature is the strongest predictor of both pollen and plant richness. Landscape openness is positively associated with pollen richness but not with plant richness. Pollen richness values from extremely open and/or cold areas where pollen production is low should be interpreted with caution because low local pollen production increases the proportion of extra-regional pollen. Synthesis. Our results confirm that pollen data can provide insights into past plant richness changes in northern Europe, and with careful consideration of pollen-production differences and spatial scale represented, pollen data make it possible to investigate vegetation diversity trends over long time-scales and under changing climatic and habitat conditions.
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(2022)Peatlands, with high spatial variability in ecotypes and microforms, constitute a significant part of the boreal landscape and play an important role in the global carbon (C) cycle. However, the effects of this peatland heterogeneity within the boreal landscape are rarely quantified. Here, we use field-based measurements, high-resolution land cover classification, and biogeochemical and atmospheric models to estimate the atmosphere-ecosystem C fluxes and the corresponding radiative effect (RE) for a boreal landscape (Kaamanen) in northern Finland. Our result shows that the Kaamanen catchment currently functioned as a sink of carbon dioxide (CO2) and a source of methane (CH4). Peatlands (26% of the area) contributed 22% of the total CO2 uptake and 89% of CH4 emissions; forests (61%) accounted for 78% of CO2 uptake and offset 6% of CH4 emissions; water bodies (13%) offset 7% of CO2 uptake and contributed 11% of CH4 emissions. The heterogeneity of peatlands accounted for 11%, 88%, and 75% of the area-weighted variability (deviation from the area-weighted mean among different land cover types (LCTs) within the catchment) in CO2 flux, CH4 flux, and the combined RE of CO2 and CH4 exchanges over the 25-year time horizon, respectively. Aggregating peatland LCTs or misclassifying them as nonpeatland LCTs can significantly (p < 0.05) bias the regional CH4 exchange and RE estimates, while differentiating between drier noninundated and wetter inundated peatlands can effectively reduce the bias. Current land cover products lack such details in peatland heterogeneity, which would be needed to better constrain boreal C budgets and global C-climate feedbacks. Plain Language Summary Peatlands form part of the boreal landscapes exhibiting diverse types and microforms that have different characteristics of topography, hydrology, vegetation, and soil. Our understanding is still limited concerning how boreal peatlands, especially their inherent heterogeneities, affect the regional biosphere-atmosphere exchange of carbon and related climate effects, and what level of detail is needed to characterize them in land cover maps. By combining remote sensing information, field measurements, and biogeochemical modeling, we showed that, among different land cover types, peatlands played a dominant role in the variability of methane (CH4) flux (88%) and the combined radiative climate effect due to carbon dioxide and CH4 exchanges (75% over the 25-year time horizon). Possible aggregation and misclassification of peatland types could induce significant biases in the regional CH4 balances and radiative effect estimates, but the distinction of noninundated drier and inundated wetter peatland types could reduce these biases effectively.
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(2022)Urban greenspace provides citizens with important cultural ecosystem services (CES). Identifying landscape features and land use contexts that facilitate CES delivery is critical for guiding urban greenspace management. However, how landscape features and urban context interact with each other in influencing the CES of greenspaces remains unclear. Studies on the CES of patchy urban forests are needed as they are essential urban CES providers, but vulnerable under urban land use pressure. To address these concerns, we compared the CES of 20 urban forest patches in Helsinki, Finland, with five different combinations of landscape features (i.e. size and connectivity) and land use contexts (i.e. surrounding construction density). CES were assessed through an on-site survey on visitors' use, perceptions of CES experience and overall satisfaction, to capture the possible disparities among CES measurements. In larger (>20 ha) forests, visitors were highly satisfied with CES, particularly appreciating the experience of physical health improvement and inspiration through longer and more intense physical uses. Visitors of urban forests in a low construction density context appreciated experiences of cultural heritage, psychological restoration and physical health improvement. Urban forests deliver unique CES characterised by physical use and the benefit of restoration, aesthetics and contact with nature. We suggest that maintaining large urban forests is more effective in promoting CES in high-density areas. In low-density areas, maintaining small forests with open greenspace in the surroundings can also promote CES experiences. We identify management gaps caused by a mismatch between use intensity and CES experiences of urban forests, while both are important in determining people's overall satisfaction. Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog.
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The Mind Grows Rings : Mindscape, Landscape and the Biotic Community in Virginia Woolf's The Waves (Helsingfors universitet, 2014)Tutkielma käsittelee mielenmaiseman ja maiseman sekä inhimillisen ja ei-inhimillisen yhteyttä Virginia Woolfin The Waves -teoksessa. Sana luonto on käsitteenä liukuva, sillä selvää rajaa ihmisen ja luonnon välillä on vaikea vetää. Ihminen on osa luontoa jatkumona, jonka rajapinta on epäselvä. Kun puhutaan luonnosta, jossa ihminen ei ole osana, sana luonto on ongelmallinen. Sen vuoksi tutkielmassa käytetään käsitettä ei-inhimillinen kun puhutaan luonnosta, joka on jatkumon vastakkaisessa päässä ihmisen suhteen. Tutkielmassa tarkastellaan Woolfin tapaa käydä ekologista dialogia ei-inhimillisen maailman kanssa ja tulkita ei-inhimillisen maailman hiljaisuutta. Woolf avaa lukijalle väylän tulla tietoiseksi tuosta hiljaisesta ekologisesta dialogista. Tarkastelen tutkielmassani The Waves -teoksen hahmojen suhdetta ei-inhimilliseen, mikä ilmenee erityisesti heidän pyrkimyksissään muodostaa bioottisia yhteisöjä ympäristönsä kanssa. Bioottinen yhteisö on luonnontieteilijä Aldo Leopoldin käyttämä ilmaisu, jolla tarkoitetaan ihmisen ja hänen ympäristönsä muodostamaa yhteisöä. Bioottisen yhteisön jäsenten eloonjääminen, elämän mielekkyys ja evoluutio ovat suorassa vuorovaikutuksessa toisiinsa. Merkittäviä teemoja, joita käsittelen tutkielmassani ovat maa, puut, lehdet ja toistuvat kuviot. Erityisesti maan merkitys on jäänyt vähemmälle huomiolle Virginia Woolfia käsittelevissä tutkielmissa. Tutkielma on lähtökohtaisesti ekokriittinen. Ekokriittisessä lähestymistavassa tarkastellaan erilaisia kulttuurin tulkintoja ihmisen ja ympäristön suhteesta. Tutkielmassa pohditaan myös, voisiko kirjallisuuden tulkinta ekokriittiseltä kannalta edistää ratkaisujen löytymistä ekologisiin kriiseihin edistämällä ekologista dialogia ihmisen ja ei-inhimillisen maailman välillä. Tutkielmassa käsitellään myös Woolfin omaa elämänfilosofiaa piilossa olevasta kuviosta, eräänlaisesta metafyysisestä rakenteesta, johon voi saada kosketuksen taiteen välityksellä, ja sen ilmenemisestä The Waves teoksessa. Woolf uskoi, että taiteet ja estetiikka muodostavat arkielämältä piilossa olevan kuvion, jonka voi hetkellisesti kokea. Woolfin mukaan Beethovenin musiikki tai Shakespearen näytelmät ovat osa kuviota, jonka muodostavat kaikki ihmiset eräänlaisena yhteisenä alitajuntana. Tutkielmassa pohdin lisäksi Woolfin ajattelun ja kirjallisen ilmaisun yhtymäkohtia niihin luonnontieteellisiin teorioihin, joissa käsitellään maaetiikkaa, bioottista yhteisöä, eri organismeissa sekä mm. musiikissa toistuvien kuvioiden merkitystä sekä biofiiliaa eli hypoteesia ihmisten sisäänrakennetusta tarpeesta olla yhteydessä muihin elollisiin organismeihin. Metodiltaan tutkielma tukeutuu lähdekirjallisuuteen, joista kirjallisuuden tutkimuksen puolelta mainittavia ovat Charlotte Zoe Walker, Diana Royer, Carrie Rohman, Avrom Fleishman, Laci Mattison, Emily M. Hinnov, Diana L. Swanson, Gillian Beer, Christina Alt, Louise Westling ja L. Elizabeth Waller. Luonnontieteellisiä lähteitä ovat Aldo Leopoldin, Edward O. Wilsonin ja Gregory Batesonin teokset. Tutkielma koostuu johdantoluvun lisäksi viidestä taustaa ja teorioita käsittelevästä luvusta sekä analyysiosiosta, jonka viidessä luvussa tarkastellaan lähemmin mielenmaiseman, maiseman, bioottisten yhteisöjen, maaetiikan ja kuoleman merkitystä The Waves -teoksen hahmoille ja kerronnan kokonaisuudelle. Keskusteluosiossa pohditaan hahmojen ja heidän ympäristönsä eli bioottisten yhteisöiden vuorovaikutussuhteita. Tutkielma osoittaa, että inhimillinen ja ei-inhimillinen ovat jatkuvassa vuorovaikutuksessa The Waves -teoksessa. Voidaan päätellä, että Woolfin hahmojen suhde ympäristöönsä ohjaa heidän elämäänsä joko positiiviseen tai negatiiviseen suuntaan. Tutkielmassa havainnoidaan myös Woolfin kirjallisen ilmaisun ja eräiden Batesonin, Wilsonin ja Leopoldin esittämien teorioiden samankaltaisuus. Tutkielmassa todetaan lopuksi, että kirjallisuuden ja luonnontieteiden yhtymäkohdat ja kirjallisuuden tulkinta ei-inhimillisestä näkökulmasta voivat tarjota tärkeitä väyliä inhimillistä ja ei-inhimillistä maailmaa uhkaavien ekologisten kriisien karikoista selviämiseen.
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(2022)Abstract The past decades have witnessed an increase in dissolved organic carbon (DOC) concentrations in the catchments of the Northern Hemisphere. Increasing terrestrial productivity and changing hydrology may be reasons for the increases in DOC concentration. The aim of this study is to investigate the impacts of increased terrestrial productivity and changed hydrology following climate change on DOC concentrations. We tested and quantified the effects of gross primary production (GPP), ecosystem respiration (RE) and discharge on DOC concentrations in boreal catchments over three years. As catchment characteristics can regulate the extent of rising DOC concentrations caused by the regional or global environmental changes, we selected four catchments with different sizes (small, medium and large) and landscapes (forest, mire and forest-mire mixed). We applied multiple models: Wavelet coherence analysis detected the delay-effects of terrestrial productivity and discharge on aquatic DOC variations of boreal catchments; thereafter, the distributed-lag linear models (DLMs) quantified the contributions of each factor on DOC variations. Our results showed that the combined impacts of terrestrial productivity and discharge explained 62% of aquatic DOC variations on average across all sites, whereas discharge, GPP and RE accounted for 26%, 22% and 3%, respectively. The impact of gross primary production (GPP) and discharge on DOC changes was directly related to catchment size: GPP dominated DOC fluctuations in small catchments (1 km2). The direction of the relation between GPP and discharge on DOC varied. Increasing RE always made a positive contribution to DOC concentration. This study reveals that climate change-induced terrestrial greening and shifting hydrology change the DOC export from terrestrial to aquatic ecosystems. The work improves our mechanistic understanding of surface water DOC regulation in boreal catchments and confirms the importance of DOC fluxes in regulating ecosystem C budgets.
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(2022)Biodiversity-benefits of organic farming have mostly been documented at the field scale. However, these benefits from organic farming to species diversity may not propagate to larger scales because variation in the management of different crop types and seminatural habitats in conventional farms might allow species to cope with intensive crop management. We studied flowering plant communities using a spatially replicated design in different habitats (cereal, ley and seminatural grasslands) in organic and conventional farms, distributed along a gradient in proportion of seminatural grasslands. We developed a novel method to compare the rates of species turnover within and between habitats, and between the total species pools in the two farming systems. We found that the intrahabitat species turnover did not differ between organic and conventional farms, but that organic farms had a significantly higher interhabitat turnover of flowering plant species compared with conventional ones. This was mainly driven by herbicide-sensitive species in cereal fields in organic farms, as these contained 2.5 times more species exclusive to cereal fields compared with conventional farms. The farm-scale species richness of flowering plants was higher in organic compared with conventional farms, but only in simple landscapes. At the interfarm level, we found that 36% of species were shared between the two farming systems, 37% were specific to organic farms whereas 27% were specific to conventional ones. Therefore, our results suggest that that both community nestedness and species turnover drive changes in species composition between the two farming systems. These large-scale shifts in species composition were driven by both species-specific herbicide and nitrogen sensitivity of plants. Our study demonstrates that organic farming should foster a diversity of flowering plant species from local to landscape scales, by promoting unique sets of arable-adapted species that are scarce in conventional systems. In terms of biodiversity conservation, our results call for promoting organic farming over large spatial extents, especially in simple landscapes, where such transitions would benefit plant diversity most.
