Vegetation indices are corner stones in vegetation monitoring. However, previous field studies on lichens and NDVI have been based on passive sensors. Active handheld sensors, with their own light sources, enables high- precision monitoring under variable ambient conditions. We investigated the use of handheld sensor NDVI for monitoring pale lichen cover across three study sites from boreal heathlands ...

1. Actuarial senescence, the decline of survival with age, is well documented in the wild. Rates of senescence vary widely between taxa, to some extent also between sexes, with the fastest life histories showing the highest rates of senescence. Few studies have investigated differences in senescence among populations of the same species, although such variation is expected from population-level ...

Acanthobdellida gnaw into the sides of salmonid fishes in frigid Arctic lakes and rivers, latching on with fearsome facial hooks. Sister to leeches, they are an ancient lineage with two described species. Unfortunately, Acanthobdellida are rarely collected, leading to a paucity of literature despite their unique morphology. Populations range from Eurasia to Alaska (USA), but few specimens of ...

Background: The scimitar‐horned oryx (Oryx dammah) (SHO) is a large African antelope that became extinct in the wild just over two decades ago. Conservation of the species is of prime importance, but it might face pathogen stressors.<p> <p>Methods and principal findings: Brucella melitensis biovar 1 was previously confirmed in a high‐density captive population of SHO held in Abu‐Dhabi emirate. ...

Climate change, and other human-induced impacts, are severely increasing the intensity and occurrences of algal blooms in coastal regions (IPCC, 2022). Ocean warming, marine heatwaves, and eutrophication promote suitable conditions for rapid phytoplankton growth and biomass accumulation. An increase in such primary producers provides food for marine organisms, and phytoplankton play an important ...

While numerous regional studies of bathymetric zonation of benthic fauna globally have been done, few large-scale analyses exist, and no ocean-scale studies have focused on the Arctic Ocean to date. In the present work we, hence, examined bathymetric zonation of macro- and megabenthos over a depth range spanning from the shelf to the abyssal plain (14 – 5416 m) and regionally extending from the Fram ...

Back in 2021, we wrote an article defining the Astolfo Effect. That is what happens when a pop culture representation of a character (fictional or otherwise) becomes more popular than the original. We named it after Astolfo, one of Charlemagne’s paladins and arguably an obscure character in the works that make up the Matter of France and in later literature related to it (such as Orlando ...

Conservation of wildlife depends on precise and unbiased knowledge on the abundance and distribution of species. It is challenging to choose appropriate methods to obtain a sufficiently high detectability and spatial coverage matching the species characteristics and spatiotemporal use of the landscape. In remote regions, such as in the Arctic, monitoring efforts are often resource-intensive and there ...

In 2013, Brucella melitensis biovar 1 was recovered from the stomach contents of a scimitar-horned Oryx - SHO (Oryx dammah) aborted foetus, and from the articular fluid of a sand gazelle (Gazella marica) in a captive wildlife collection near Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. Other evidence of exposure to the pathogen was collected through serological testing (Rose Bengal test) and B. melitensis-specific ...

Microbes play a critical role in plant litter decomposition and influence the fate of carbon in rivers and riparian zones. When decomposing low-nutrient plant litter, microbes acquire nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) from the environment (i.e., nutrient immobilization), and this process is potentially sensitive to nutrient loading and changing climate. Nonetheless, environmental controls on immobilization ...