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Leverage points for climate change mitigation at tourism destinations: A holistic interdisciplinary approach
No full textThis study examines strategic leverage points for climate change mitigation in small-scale tourism destinations, using an interdisciplinary approach that combines life cycle assessment (LCA) and behavioural experimentation. The purpose was to identify operational and behavioural interventions that can reduce greenhouse gas emissions while maintaining visitor satisfaction. The LCA, conducted at an animal park, revealed that heating systems in visitor facilities, particularly during off-peak seasons, represent critical infrequent decision points for emissions reduction. Although large-scale infrastructural changes, such as the adoption of renewable energy, may be beyond the reach of small businesses, targeted efficiency improvements and seasonally optimized operations can deliver meaningful climate benefits. On the demand side, a lab experiment tested a nudge + approach that combined subtle choice architecture with reflective, values-based communication. Results suggested that nudge + interventions increased the likelihood of visitors making more sustainable choices without diminishing the quality of the tourism experience. These findings suggest that combining shallow leverage points (e.g., operational efficiency, behavioural nudges) with deeper interventions (e.g., reframing goals, fostering sustainabilityoriented mindsets) offers the greatest potential for contributing to a larger systemic change. For small-scale tourism destinations, integrating bottom-up innovation with supportive governance and strategic communication can provide scalable, context-sensitive pathways towards low-carbon futures
A High-Throughput Hydroponic Assay for Rapidly Screening Drought Tolerance in Potato
Get PDFPotato (Solanum tuberosum L.) yield is highly sensitive to drought stress, yet robust phenotyping methods for drought tolerance remain scarce. To address this challenge, we present a rapid, high-throughput hydroponic assay designed as an efficient pre-screening tool for evaluating potato cultivars and CRISPR-edited lines. This protocol serves as a foundational screen, enabling researchers to identify the most promising genotypes before committing resources to more extensive soil or field trials. The system uses repurposed pipette tip boxes as low-cost, scalable hydroponic units, making the method highly accessible. Over a five-week period, plantlets are subjected to controlled 24-hr osmotic stress with polyethylene glycol (PEG-6000) and then assessed for resilience based on biomass, photosynthetic measurements, and visual recovery. This resource-efficient assay provides a controlled environment to minimize experimental noise and has been successfully applied to characterize CRISPR-edited potato lines. By providing a reproducible platform for initial evaluation, this protocol accelerates the selection pipeline for developing robust potato varieties for a changing climate. (c) 2025 The Author(s). Current Protocols published by Wiley Periodicals LLC.Basic Protocol 1: Preparation of stem explants and in vitro rootingBasic Protocol 2: Assembly and maintenance of tip-box hydroponic unitsBasic Protocol 3: PEG-induced drought treatment and recoveryBasic Protocol 4: Post-stress phenotypic, biomass, and photosynthetic analysi
Effects of rainfall exclusion on soil fungi in a boreal forest landscape
Get PDFDue to climate change, droughts are increasingly frequent and intense. Yet, their impact on boreal forest fungal communities remains unclear, especially across different fungal functional and taxonomic groups. We induced an experimental rainfall exclusion for 45 summer days, using a paired design of 1 x 1 m treatment and control plots replicated in 25 sites in a boreal forest landscape in Sweden. Immediately after the experiment, we assessed the effects on soil fungal biomass, community composition and, after 2 months, sporocarp production. We did not detect significant effects of the rainfall exclusion on soil fungal biomass, but the fungal community composition was affected. In the rainfall exclusion plots, richness of ectomycorrhizal species with extensive extramatrical mycelia and saprotrophic basidiomycetes was reduced, while richness of ascomycetes was not affected. Sporocarp production of both saprotrophic and ectomycorrhizal fungi was reduced. The clear effects of a small-scale rainfall exclusion demonstrated in our study suggest that belowground fungal communities in boreal forests may be vulnerable to drought
Insight into on-site sewage facilities as an overlooked contributor to antimicrobial resistance: Environmental impacts and existing mitigation strategies
Get PDFAntimicrobial chemicals and resistance genes (ARG) drive antimicrobial resistance (AMR) proliferation. Decentralized, on-site sewage facilities (OSSF), usually with small serving capacities, are commonly exempted from secondary treatment requirements. To date, dissemination of AMR contaminants from OSSF to the environment remains underexplored. This review aims to critically examine the environmental impacts of OSSF on AMR and the effectiveness of existing mitigation strategies, with a comprehensive synthesis of literature on the fate and mitigation of AMR contaminants in OSSF. The typical design of septic tank followed by soil infiltration often poorly remove AMR contaminants, especially in winter, with high leaching potential into groundwater and occasionally posing AMR selection and ecological risks. Additional treatments (e.g., constructed wetlands, aerobic systems) can overall provide better mitigation. We further perform a meta-analysis of AMR selection risk, ecological risk, and environmental hazards to result in a list of priority AMR chemicals in OSSF-impacted waters, with erythromycin-H2O, ciprofloxacin, triclocarban of top concerns. Despite limited literature on ARG, those of clinical relevance are highly abundant in OSSF systems. AMR dissemination could be influenced by different factors. Particularly, chemical diversities tend to increase with OSSF serving capacities and sampling methods can influence their detection. Our review highlights the overlooked role of OSSF in environmental AMR dissemination, and the limited research suggests a poor understanding of this issue, that needs future studies, especially on ARG and broader geographical context including low-/middle-income countries. This review also urges for improving existing mitigation strategies at OSSF to better manage and control AMR dissemination globally
Using Optimization for Maximizing Future Utility of Ecosystem Services
Get PDFThis study presents a novel, structured optimization approach for incorporating multiple ecosystem services (ES) into long-term strategic and tactical forest management planning. We provide a new and improved framework for forest planning based on ecosystem values of education, aesthetics, cultural heritage, recreation, carbon, water regulation, and water supply. First, the suitability values of seven ecosystem services (ES) were estimated to produce timber harvest and store carbon under fifty potential treatment schedules over a 100-year planning horizon. Then optimization was applied to maximize future utility values derived from values of ES that can be developed with treatment schedules and using the weights of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG). Finally, the model defined ES functions that were weight-adjust-ed to select a successful scenario. Thus, we demonstrated that our approach could generate the optimal future suitability value of ES for long-term forest planning compared to the current value of ES. The results showed that the ES that is most affected when harvest demand and harvest flow constraints change is carbon. The value of other ES did not change when sched-uled timber volume changed, and as a result we suggest that standing volume and growth increment be considered as criteria used to determine the future value of other ES. We found that the development of suitable value-effective management strategies for securing forest ES values in future stand developments was possible while also achieving other goals and while also being constrained by operational considerations. Our study therefore contributes to ongoing debates about the management of ES
Sex-related gut microbiota in three geographically separated Norway lobster (Nephrops norvegicus) populations
Get PDFDespite the ecological and economic value of the Norway lobster (Nephrops norvegicus), its gut microbiota remains largely understudied. The aim of the present study was to investigate the gut bacterial microbiota in three geographically separated N. norvegicus populations from the Mediterranean and the North Seas and detect any potential sex-related microbiota differences, by high-throughput sequencing of the V3-V4 16S rRNA gene diversity of the gut tissue. Egg-bearing females from the Greek population, were also included in this analysis. A total of 2385 operational taxonomic units (OTUs) were identified and between 417 and 1290 OTUs were present in each population/sex group. The dominant OTUs belonged to the Fusobacteriia and Bacteroidia (Sweden), Bacilli and Gammaproteobacteria (Italy) and Spirochaetia and Bacilli (Greece) bacterial classes. In the eggs, the Actinobacteria, Alphaproteobacteria and Gammproteobacteria prevailed. Four OTUs related to the Oceanispirochaeta, Kordiimonas, Desulfovibrio, Carboxylicivirga genera and one unafilliated OTU were positively correlated (p values between 0.001 and 0.04) with body size, indicating their potential role in the nutrition and growth of N. norvegicus. No statistically significant differences were found between males and females in any of the three populations. However, statistically significant differences between populations for each sex, were found for all females (p values between 0.008 and 0.032) and for the males between the most distant populations, i.e. Italy-Sweden (p = 0.021) and Greece-Sweden (p = 0.015). The egg microbiota was statistically significant different from both the adult female (p = 0.027) and male (p = 0.046) gut microbiota. Overall, this study revealed that the N. norvegicus gut microbiota is differentiated between geographically distant populations and that sex-related differences are not significant
Ribosome biogenesis in plants requires the nuclear envelope and mitochondria localized OPENER complex
Get PDFEukaryotic ribosome biogenesis proceeds from nucleolus to cytosol assisted by various assembly factors. The process is evolutionarily conserved across eukaryotes but differences between the kingdoms are emerging. Here, we describe how the OPENER (OPNR) protein complex is required for 60S ribosome assembly in the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana. The complex is observed on both nuclear envelope and mitochondria, and contains OPNR, OPENER ASSOCIATED PROTEIN 1 (OAP1), OAP2, Cell Division Cycle 48 D (CDC48D) and Calmodulin-interacting protein 111 (CIP111). Depletion of the OPNR complex components results in reproductive lethality and cytoplasmic retention of assembly factors on 60S ribosomes. Subsequent biochemical analyses and structural modelling suggest that OPNR, OAP1 and OAP2 form a claw-like trimer which grabs the ribosome assembly factor RIBOSOMAL PROTEIN L24C (RPL24C) on the pre-60S ribosome. Our results reveal previously unrecognised subcellular complexity of ribosome biogenesis in plants, and point to mitochondria association as a feature to ensure sufficient translational capacity
Best practice in high-frequency water quality monitoring for improved management and assessment; a novel decision workflow
Get PDFThe use of high-frequency water quality monitoring has increased over several decades. This has mostly been motivated by curiosity-driven research and has significantly improved our understanding of hydrochemical processes. Despite these scientific successes and the growth in sensor technology, the large-scale uptake of high-frequency water quality monitoring by water managers is hampered by a lack of comprehensive practical guidelines. Low-frequency hydrochemical data are still routinely used to review environmental policies but are prone to missing important event-driven processes. With a changing climate where such event-driven processes are more likely to occur and have a greater impact, the adoption of high-frequency water quality monitoring is becoming more pressing. To prepare regulators and environmental and hydrological agencies for these new challenges, this paper reviews international best practice in high-frequency data provision. As a result, we summarise the added value of high-frequency water quality monitoring, describe international best practices for sensors and analysers in the field, and evaluate the experience with high-frequency data cleaning. We propose a decision workflow that includes considerations of monitoring data needs, sensor choice, maintenance and calibration, and structured data processing. The workflow fills an important knowledge-exchange gap between research and statutory surveillance for future high-frequency water quality sensor uptake by practitioners and agencies
Cumulative and discrete effects of forest harvest and drainage on the hydrological regime and nutrient dynamics in boreal catchments
Get PDFIn boreal landscapes, forest management has the potential to become a major driver of surface water quality due to the large proportion of actively-used land areas and the intensity of forestry operations. In Fennoscandia, forest management is comprised of different operations during a single rotation, where final harvest by clear cutting and subsequent ditch cleaning to restore drainage capacity are among the most influential on water quality. Here, we analyzed the single and combined effect of these forest management operations on the concentrations and exports of dissolved organic carbon (DOC), dissolved organic nitrogen (DON), dissolved inorganic nitrogen (DIN) and dissolved inorganic phosphate (PO4) in boreal Sweden. We measured groundwater table level, stream discharge, and water chemistry data continuously following experimental clear cutting and ditch cleaning applied to a historically drained forest using a before-after-control-impact (BACI) design. We used linear mixed models to test whether DOC, DON, DIN and PO4 concentrations were affected after each individual forest management operation, and further analyzed the response of the cumulative operations. We found that after clear cutting, concentrations of organic and inorganic nutrients increased significantly. However, for catchments with ditch cleaning after clear cutting, concentrations of organic nutrients in surface water decreased to pre-disturbance levels; inorganic nutrient concentrations also decreased but less strongly than organic counterparts. Despite this effect, catchments with ditch cleaning after clear cutting still showed an increase in overall organic and inorganic nutrient exports when compared to the reference catchments and the pre-treatment period. Nevertheless, catchments without ditch cleaning showed an even higher increase in both concentration and exports of most solutes. Overall, our results suggest changes in C, N and P exports due to forest management, along with the large spatial extent of this activity, could promote biogeochemical shifts and trigger water quality deterioration in boreal streams
Perspectives on using peat records to reconstruct past atmospheric Hg levels
Get PDFAnthropogenic mercury (Hg) emissions to the atmosphere have increased the concentration of this potent neurotoxin in terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems. The magnitude of regional variation in atmospheric Hg pollution levels raises questions about the interactions between natural processes and human activities at local and regional scales that are shaping global atmospheric Hg cycling. Peatlands are potentially valuable and widespread records of past atmospheric Hg levels that could help address these questions. This perspective aims to improve the utility of peatlands as authentic Hg archives by summarizing the processes that could affect Hg cycling in peatlands. We identify the overlooked role of peat vegetation species and their primary productivity in Hg sequestration under climatic and anthropogenic activities. We provide recommendations to improve the reliability of using peat cores to reconstruct the atmospheric Hg levels from past decades to millennia. Better information from peatland archives on regional variation in atmospheric Hg levels will be of value for testing hypotheses about the processes controlling global Hg cycling. This information can also contribute to evaluating how well international efforts under the UNEP Minamata Convention are succeeding in reducing atmospheric Hg levels and deposition in different regions