Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research

About: Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research is a facility organization based out in Birmensdorf, Switzerland. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Climate change & Soil water. The organization has 1256 authors who have published 3222 publications receiving 161639 citations. The organization is also known as: WSL.

Differential responses of canopy nutrients to experimental drought along a natural aridity gradient.

Abstract: The allocation and stoichiometry of plant nutrients in leaves reflect fundamental ecosystem processes, biotic interactions, and environmental drivers such as water availability Climate change will lead to increases in drought severity and frequency, but how canopy nutrients will respond to drought, and how these responses may vary with community composition along aridity gradients is poorly understood We experimentally addressed this issue by reducing precipitation amounts by 66% during two consecutive growing seasons at three sites located along a natural aridity gradient This allowed us to assess drought effects on canopy nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) concentrations in arid and semiarid grasslands of northern China Along the aridity gradient, canopy nutrient concentrations were positively related to aridity, with this pattern was driven primarily by species turnover (ie, an increase in the relative biomass of N- and P-rich species with increasing aridity) In contrast, drought imposed experimentally increased N but decreased P concentrations in plant canopies These changes were driven by the combined effects of species turnover and intraspecific variation in leaf nutrient concentrations In addition, the sensitivity of canopy N and P concentrations to drought varied across the three sites Canopy nutrient concentrations were less affected by drought at drier than wetter sites, because of the opposing effects of species turnover and intraspecific variation, as well as greater drought tolerance for nutrient-rich species These contrasting effects of long-term aridity vs short-term drought on canopy nutrient concentrations, as well as differing sensitivities among sites in the same grassland biome, highlight the challenge of predicting ecosystem responses to future climate change

Chrysoperla lucasina (Lacroix): a distinct species of green lacewing, confirmed by acoustical analysis (Neuroptera: Chrysopidae)

Abstract: The existence of cryptic, sibling species, distinguished principally by vibrational courtship songs, has been confirmed for the carnea-group of Chrysoperla green lacewings in Europe and western Asia. One member of this species-group, C.lucasina (Lacroix), is characterized by several morphological traits as well, but its taxonomic validity has been considered uncertain due to the subtle and variable nature of those traits. Here, we describe the calling and courtship songs of C.lucasina, which uniquely distinguish that taxon from all other members of the carnea-group in Europe. The male of C.lucasina produces two slightly but consistently different types of songs, one while calling and the other while dueting with a female. The female produces just one type of song, identical to the male’s calling song, which is used for both calling and dueting. Measured features of the songs of C.lucasina are nearly invariant over a broad geographical area, from the Canary Islands to Cyprus and from northern Africa to the U.K. Similarly, at least one morphological feature, the presence of a dark stripe on the pleuron of the second abdominal segment, characterizes all adult individuals identified acoustically as C.lucasina. Furthermore, larval head markings vary little among different populations of the song species. We conclude that C.lucasina is a valid biological species, which can also be recognized in museum collections by a suite of morphological attributes. We also briefly compare the songs and adult morphology of C.lucasina with five other currently unnamed song species of the carnea-group whose geographic ranges overlap extensively with it.

Risks of global warming on montane and subalpine forests in Switzerland - a modeling study

Abstract: In this study, we assess the risks of global warming on distributions of individual tree species in Switzerland. Applying a spatially explicit model, tree occurrence is predicted as a function of high resolution and physiologically relevant biophysical variables. The study shows that warming only slightly alters the overall abundance of tree species. However, the preferred temperature regimes are unevenly distributed along an elevational gradient, and the sensitivity to temperature varies considerably between the species. As a result, major reorganizations of forests in montane and subalpine belts are expected, i.e., a segregation of the core distributions of Fagus sylvatica and Picea abies is observed. Tree distribution potentials near timberlines, however, remain roughly the same.