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Food production is a major driver of climate change and environmental degradation. There is a political will to use public procurement as a strategic tool to promote more sustainable practices in the food industry. There are many aspects of sustainable food consumption, and one aspect that is getting increased attention is locally produced food. This study aims to examine how municipalities in the
The decline of bees, such as bumblebees, over the last decades raises concerns as they are key pollinators in both agricultural and natural ecosystems. One proposed cause for the decline of wild bees is competition for food resources with managed honeybees. Detrimental effects of competition can result where co-existing species exhibit a high degree of shared resource use (i.e., niche overlap). Th
Polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDE) and hexabromocyclododecane (HBCDD) are brominated flame retardants. These compounds are lipophilic, persistent and have been shown to bioaccumulate. The Baltic grey seal (Halichoerus grypus) and the Eurasian otter (Lutra lutra) are top predators and especially exposed to high levels of lipophilic pollutant in their diet due to biomagnification. In the current
We investigated the occurrence of microplastics (size range 5,000-50 µm) in leach-ates at 11 landfills of different age and operational status in Finland, Iceland and Nor-way. Collective sampling was carried out by pumping leachate with a stainless-steel submergible pump through a custom-made, stainless-steel filter unit containing filter plates with decreasing pore sizes (5,000, 417 and 47 µm, re
English is widely recognized as the language of science, and English-language publications (ELPs) are rapidly increasing. It is often assumed that the number of non-ELPs is decreasing. This assumption contributes to the underuse of non-ELPs in conservation science, practice, and policy, especially at the international level. However, the number of conservation articles published in different langu
BackgroundThe risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is modulated by genetic and environmental factors. Early-life stress (ELS) exposure during critical periods of brain development can impact later brain function and health, including increasing the risk of developing AD. Microglial dysfunction and neuroinflammation have been implicated as playing a role in AD pathology and may be modulated
Global urbanisation, increasing population, economic growth and development have caused increase in resource consumption, and consequently, a vast volume of waste and other negative environmental impacts. In order to reduce negative environmental impact, various approaches to resource management have been suggested and implemented in the system of production, consumption and waste management. One
Spermatozoa motility in freshwater and marine fish is mainly controlled by the difference in osmotic pressure. Specifically, zebrafish (Danio rerio) spermatozoa undergo hypoosmotic shock due to the decrease in extracellular potassium, which leads to membrane hyperpolarization and activation of flagellar motility. Previous studies have concluded that motility activation has a negative effect on the
Both in the social and natural sciences, methodologies have been developed to deal with relatively stable conditions, where findings can be validated based on past experiences. At a time when both social and natural phenomena are rapidly changing, new approaches are urgently needed to produce knowledge for systemic change, inform high-stakes decisions, and enable sustainability transitions in the
Astrocytes are emerging key players in neurological disorders. However, their role in disease etiology is poorly understood owing to inaccessibility of primary human astrocytes. Pluripotent stem cell-derived cells fail to mimic age and due to their clonal origin do not mimic genetic heterogeneity of patients. In contrast, direct conversion constitutes an attractive approach to generate human astro
Lunds universitet har på uppdrag av Naturvårdsverket under 2021 utvärderat metodik för nationell pollinatörsövervakning. Metodiken bygger på rapporten ”Proposal for an EU pollinator monitoring scheme” som tagits fram av en expertgrupp inom EU (Potts m. fl. 2020) och ska kunna ge underlag för uppföljning av pollinatörer på nationell nivå med ett främsta fokus på landskapet utanför områden som omfat
Detecting changes in population trends depends on the accuracy of estimated mean population growth rates and thus the quality of input data. However, monitoring wildlife populations poses economic and logistic challenges especially in complex and remote habitats. Declines in wildlife populations can remain undetected for years unless effective monitoring techniques are developed, guiding appropria
Mouse hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) have been extensively defined both molecularly and functionally at steady state, while regenerative stress induces immunophenotypical changes that limit high purity isolation and analysis. It is therefore important to identify markers that specifically label activated HSCs to gain further knowledge about their molecular and functional properties. Here, we asse
Fjord systems are typically affected by low-oxygen conditions, which are increasing in extent and severity, forced by ongoing global changes. Fjord sedimentary records can provide high temporal resolution archives to aid our understanding of the underlying mechanisms and impacts of current deoxygenation. However, such archives can only be interpreted with well-calibrated proxies. Bottom-water oxyg
Sandy beaches are biogeochemical hotspots that bridge marine and terrestrial ecosystems via the transfer of organic matter, such as seaweed (termed wrack). A keystone of this unique ecosystem is the microbial community, which helps to degrade wrack and re-mineralize nutrients. However, little is known about this community. Here, we characterize the wrackbed microbiome as well as the microbiome of
Bayesian inference can be extended to probability distributions defined in terms of their inverse distribution function, i.e. their quantile function. This applies to both prior and likelihood. Quantile-based likelihood is useful in models with sampling distributions which lack an explicit probability density function. Quantile-based prior allows for flexible distributions to express expert knowle
The equilibrium organization of two polymers in strong confinement has been extensively investigated in the scope of simple models in the recent past, after it was suggested that the entropic repulsion between polymers could be a mechanism for chromosome separation in living cells. Despite many efforts, how solvent quality can manipulate separation or compaction for the formation of domains in a t
The impact of climate change on surface ozone over Europe was studied using four offline regional chemistry transport models (CTMs) and one online regional integrated climate-chemistry model (CCM), driven by the same global projection of future climate under the SRES A1B scenario. Anthropogenic emissions of ozone precursors from RCP4.5 for year 2000 were used for simulations of both present and fu
