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New mutations provide the raw material for evolution and adaptation. The distribution of fitness effects (DFE) describes the spectrum of effects of new mutations that can occur along a genome, and is, therefore, of vital interest in evolutionary biology. Recent work has uncovered striking similarities in the DFE between closely related species, prompting us to ask whether there is variation in the DFE among populations of the same species, or among species with different degrees of divergence, that is whether there is variation in the DFE at different levels of evolution. Using exome capture data from six tree species sampled across Europe we characterized the DFE for multiple species, and for each species, multiple populations, and investigated the factors potentially influencing the DFE, such as demography, population divergence, and genetic background. We find statistical support for the presence of variation in the DFE at the species level, even among relatively closely related species. However, we find very little difference at the population level, suggesting that differences in the DFE are primarily driven by deep features of species biology, and those evolutionarily recent events, such as demographic changes and local adaptation, have little impact. Nasl. z nasl. zaslona. Opis vira z dne 12. 12. 2023. Število sodelavcev v konzorciju GenTree Consortium: 128. Sodelavca pri raziskavi: M. Bajc. M. Westergen. Bibliografija: str. 15-16. Abstract.

Condensable vapors, including highly oxygenated organic molecules (HOMs), govern secondary organic aerosol formation and thereby impact the quantity, composition, and properties (e.g., toxicity) of aerosol particles. These vapors are mainly formed in the atmosphere through the oxidation of volatile organic compounds (VOCs). Urban environments contain a variety of VOCs from both anthropogenic and biogenic sources, as well as other species, for instance nitrogen oxides (NOx), that can greatly influence the formation pathways of condensable vapors like HOMs. During the last decade, our understanding of HOM composition and formation has increased dramatically, with most experiments performed in forests or in heavily polluted urban areas. However, studies on the main sources for condensable vapors and secondary organic aerosols (SOAs) in biogenically influenced urban areas, such as suburbs or small cities, have been limited. Here, we studied the HOM composition, measured with two nitrate-based chemical ionization mass spectrometers and analyzed using positive matrix factorization (PMF), during late spring at two locations in Helsinki, Finland. Comparing the measured concentrations at a street canyon site and a nearby urban background station, we found a strong influence of NOx on the HOM formation at both stations, in agreement with previous studies conducted in urban areas. Even though both stations are dominated by anthropogenic VOCs, most of the identified condensable vapors originated from biogenic precursors. This implies that in Helsinki anthropogenic activities mainly influence HOM formation by the effect of NOx on the biogenic VOC oxidation. At the urban background station, we found condensable vapors formed from two biogenic VOC groups (monoterpenes and sesquiterpenes), while at the street canyon, the only identified biogenic HOM precursor was monoterpenes. At the street canyon, we also observed oxidation products of aliphatic VOCs, which were not observed at the urban background station. The only factors that clearly correlate (temporally and composition-wise) between the two stations contained monoterpene-derived dimers. This suggests that HOM composition and formation mechanisms are strongly dependent on localized emissions and the oxidative environment in these biogenically influenced urban areas, and they can also change considerably within distances of 1 km within the urban environment. This further suggests that studies should be careful when extrapolating single-point measurements in an urban setting to be representative of district or city scales.

High latitude ecosystems are experiencing the most rapid warming on earth, expected to trigger a diverse array of ecological responses. Climate warming affects the ecophysiology of fish, and fish close to the cold end of their thermal distribution are expected to increase somatic growth from increased temperatures and a prolonged growth season, which in turn affects maturation schedules, reproduction, and survival, boosting population growth. Accordingly, fish species living in ecosystems close to their northern range edge should increase in relative abundance and importance, and possibly displace cold-water adapted species. We aim to document whether and how population-level effects of warming are mediated by individual-level responses to increased temperatures, shift community structure, and composition in high latitude ecosystems. We studied 11 cool-water adapted perch populations in communities dominated by cold-water adapted species (whitefish, burbot, and charr) to investigate changes in the relative importance of the cool-water perch during the last 30 years of rapid warming in high latitude lakes. In addition, we studied the individual-level responses to warming to clarify the potential mechanisms underlying the population effects. Our long-term series (1991-2020) reveal a marked increase in numerical importance of the cool-water fish species, perch, in ten out of eleven populations, and in most fish communities perch is now dominant. Moreover, we show that climate warming affects population-level processes via direct and indirect temperature effects on individuals. Specifically, the increase in abundance arises from increased recruitment, faster juvenile growth, and ensuing earlier maturation, all boosted by climate warming. The speed and magnitude of the response to warming in these high latitude fish communities strongly suggest that cold-water fish will be displaced by fish adapted to warmer water. Consequently, management should focus on climate adaptation limiting future introductions and invasions of cool-water fish and mitigating harvesting pressure on cold-water fish. Peer reviewed

This paper reports on major outcomes of the ERA-PLANET (The European network for observing our changing planet) project, which was funded under Horizon 2020 ERA-net co-funding scheme. ERA-PLANET strengthened the European Research Area in the domain of Earth Observation (EO) in coherence with the European partici-pation to Group on Earth Observation and the Copernicus European Union's Earth Observation programme. ERA -PLANET was implemented through four projects focused on smart cities and resilient societies (SMURBS), resource efficiency and environmental management (GEOEssential), global changes and environmental treaties (iGOSP) and polar areas and natural resources (iCUPE). These projects developed specific science-policy workflows and interfaces to address selected environmental policy issues and design cost-effective strategies aiming to achieve targeted objectives. Key Enabling Technologies were implemented to enhancing 'data to knowledge' transition for supporting environmental policy making. Data cube technologies, the Virtual Earth Laboratory, Earth Observation ontologies and Knowledge Platforms were developed and used for such applications.SMURBS brought a substantial contribution to resilient cities and human settlements topics that were adopted by GEO as its 4th engagement priority, bringing the urban resilience topic in the GEO agenda on par with climate change, sustainable development and disaster risk reduction linked to environmental policies. GEOEssential is contributing to the development of Essential Variables (EVs) concept, which is encouraging and should allow the EO community to complete the description of the Earth System with EVs in a close future. This will clearly improve our capacity to address intertwined environmental and development policies as a Nexus.iGOSP supports the implementation of the GEO Flagship on Mercury (GOS4M) and the GEO Initiative on POPs (GOS4POPs) by developing a new integrated approach for global real-time monitoring of environmental quality with respect to air, water and human matrices contamination by toxic substances, like mercury and persistent organic pollutants. iGOSP developed end-user-oriented Knowledge Hubs that provide data repository systems integrated with data management consoles and knowledge information systems.The main outcomes from iCUPE are the novel and comprehensive data sets and a modelling activity that contributed to delivering science-based insights for the Arctic region. Applications enable defining and moni-toring of Arctic Essential Variables and sets up processes towards UN2030 SDGs that include health (SDG 3), clean water resources and sanitation (SDGs 6 and 14). Peer reviewed

This paper aims to present the results of the Erasmus + RUR'UP project that developed educational tools for scientists, public managers, practitioners, and agricultural advisors living and working in peripheral rural areas. Based on the assessment of the educational needs and gaps for the sustainable development of the EU peripheral rural areas of Greece, Bulgaria, Romania, Croatia, Finland, Ireland and France via a participatory innovation process, we have developed: an asynchronous e-learning course and supporting educational materials. The objective was to provide educational tools that will help the professional competencies of the Higher Education (HE) institutions working with peripheral rural regions by answering to the labour market and societal needs in these regions, thereby strengthening the collaboration between higher education and regional and cross-regional employers. The project resulted in 50 students who attended the e-learning course and the development of Open-Access educational materials with pedagogically sound activities associated with them, which can be used by any actor interested in the sustainable development of peripheral rural areas, especially those with high natural values in the form of a Virtual Bank of Case studies that gathers 14 examples of case studies. Peer reviewed

This study received funding from the European Research Council Executive Agency under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Program (project ERC‐2016‐COG 726349 CLIMAHAL and ERC-2016-STG 714621 GASPARCON) and the European Commission via the EMME-CARE project and was supported by the Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas of Spain. This work was supported by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme under grant agreement no. 856612 and the Academy of Finland (project no. 334514). The Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology is funded by the Ministry of Earth Sciences, Government of India. Ozone, CO, CH4 and AMS measurements were funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation (grant 200021_188478), the Swiss Polar Institute and U.S. National Science Foundation grants 1914781 and 1807163. J.S. holds the Ingvar Kamprad chair for extreme environments research, sponsored by Ferring Pharmaceuticals. Data reported in this manuscript were produced as part of the international MOSAiC expedition with tag MOSAiC20192020, with activities supported by Polarstern expedition AWI-PS122_00. H.S. was funded by the European ERA-PLANET projects iGOSP and iCUPE (consortium agreement no. 689443 for both projects). We thank FORMAS and the Swedish Polar Research Secretariat for support. We gratefully acknowledge funding by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (project no. 268020496 – TRR 172) within the Transregional Collaborative Research Center ‘ArctiC Amplification: Climate Relevant Atmospheric and SurfaCe Processes, and Feedback Mechanisms (AC)3’ in subproject C03. We thank I. Bourgeois (NOAA/CIRES) for providing the ATom NOx data. Unlike bromine, the effect of iodine chemistry on the Arctic surface ozone budget is poorly constrained. We present ship-based measurements of halogen oxides in the high Arctic boundary layer from the sunlit period of March to October 2020 and show that iodine enhances springtime tropospheric ozone depletion. We find that chemical reactions between iodine and ozone are the second highest contributor to ozone loss over the study period, after ozone photolysis-initiated loss and ahead of bromine. 6 pags., 2 figs. Peer reviewed