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Meteorological forcing at the air-water interface is the main determinant of the heat balance of most lakes (Edinger et al., 1968; Sweers, 1976). Year-to-year changes in the weather therefore have a major effect on the thermal characteristics of lakes. However, lakes that differ with respect to their morphometry respond differently to these changes (Gorham, 1964), with deeper lakes integrating the effects of meteorological forcing over longer periods of time. Other important factors that can influence the thermal characteristics of lakes include hydraulic residence time, optical properties and landscape setting (e.g. Salonen et al., 1984; Fee et al., 1996; Livingstone et al., 1999). These factors modify the thermal responses of the lake to meteorological forcing (cf. Magnuson et al., 2004; Blenckner, 2005) and regulate the patterns of spatial coherence (Chapter 17) observed in the different regions (Livingstone, 1993; George et al., 2000; Livingstone and Dokulil, 2001; Jarvinen et al., 2002; Blenckner et al., 2004)

The global forestry industry after experiencing a market downturn during the past decade has now aimed its vision towards the integrated biorefinery. New business models and strategies are constantly being explored to re-invent the global wood and pulp/paper industry through sustainable resource exploitation. The goal is to produce diversified, innovative and revenue generating product lines using on-site bioresources (wood and tree residues). The most popular product lines are generally produced from wood fibers (biofuels, pulp/paper, biomaterials, and bio/chemicals). However, the bark and other tree residues like foliage that constitute forest wastes, still remain largely an underexploited resource from which extractives and phytochemicals can be harnessed as by-products (biopharmaceuticals, food additives and nutraceuticals, biopesticides, cosmetics). Commercially, Populus (poplar) tree species including hybrid varieties are cultivated as a fast growing bioenergy crop, but can also be utilized to produce bio-based chemicals. This review identifies and underlines the potential of natural products (phytochemicals) from Populus species that could lead to new business ventures in biorefineries and contribute to the bioeconomy. In brief, this review highlights the importance of by-products/co-products in forest industries, methods that can be employed to extract and purify poplar phytochemicals, the potential pharmaceutical and other uses of >160 phytochemicals identified from poplar species - their chemical structures, properties and bioactivities, the challenges and limitations of utilizing poplar phytochemicals, and potential commercial opportunities. Finally, the overall discussion and conclusion are made considering the recent biotechnological advances in phytochemical research to indicate the areas for future commercial applications from poplar tree species.

Competition-driven evolution of habitat isolation is an important mechanism of ecological speciation but empirical support for this process is often indirect. We examined how an on-going displacement of pied flycatchers from their preferred breeding habitat by collared flycatchers in a young secondary contact zone is associated with (a) access to an important food resource (caterpillar larvae), (b) immigration of pied flycatchers in relation to habitat quality, and (c) the risk of hybridization in relation to habitat quality. Over the past 12 years, the estimated access to caterpillar larvae biomass in the habitat surrounding the nests of pied flycatchers has decreased by a fifth due to shifted establishment possibilities, especially for immigrants. However, breeding in the high quality habitat has become associated with such a high risk of hybridization for pied flycatchers that overall selection currently favors pied flycatchers that were forced to immigrate into the poorer habitats (despite lower access to preferred food items). Our results show that competition-driven habitat segregation can lead to fast habitat isolation, which per se caused an opportunity for selection to act in favor of future "voluntarily" altered immigration patterns and possibly strengthened habitat isolation through reinforcement.

Lemna minor (common duckweed) and a Wolffia sp. were grown in submerged growth systems. Submerged growth increased the productivity unit volume (P/UV) of the organisms and may allow these plants to be used in a controlled ecological life support system (CELSS).

Understanding the changes in hydrological process is a key subject for water resource management of a high-diversity watershed. In this paper, through an establishment of a SWAT-based model, the effects of climate change and its induced vegetation change on hydrological process were analyzed in the East River Basin. The model could well simulate the hydrological processes of the basin including surface runoff (SURQ), groundwater (GWQ), lateral flow (LATQ), total water yield (WYLD), actual evapotranspiration (ET), and groundwater recharge (PERC). Under the vegetation change induced by temperature increase, the effects of the vegetation change on hydrological process were larger than that of the temperature change. Under the vegetation change caused by the increase of temperature and precipitation, the vegetation change enhanced the effects of climate change on annual SURQ, LATQ, GWQ, WYLD, and PERC of the basin. Under spatial scale, when the temperature and precipitation changed simultaneously, the increase of precipitation could promote the increase of annual ET in sub-watersheds. Also, the annual SURQ, WYLD, GWQ and ET in western sub-watersheds were more sensitive to the cumulative changes of vegetation and climate. This work can provide useful information to decision makers in water resource management of watersheds.

This review provides a synthesis of limnological data and conclusions from studies on ponds and small lakes at our research sites in Subarctic and Arctic Canada, Alaska, northern Scandinavia, and Greenland. Many of these water bodies contain large standing stocks of benthic microbial mats that grow in relatively nutrient-rich conditions, while the overlying water column is nutrient-poor and supports only low concentrations of phytoplankton. Zooplankton biomass can, however, be substantial and is supported by grazing on the microbial mats as well as detrital inputs, algae, and other plankton. In addition to large annual temperature fluctuations, a short growing season, and freeze-up and desiccation stress in winter, these ecosystems are strongly regulated by the supply of organic matter and its optical and biogeochemical properties. Dissolved organic carbon affects bacterial diversity and production, the ratio between pelagic and benthic primary productivity via light attenuation, and the exposure and photoprotection responses of organisms to solar ultraviolet radiation. Climate warming is likely to result in reduced duration of ice-cover, warmer water temperatures, and increased nutrient supplies from the more biogeochemically active catchments, which in turn may cause greater planktonic production. Predicted changes in the amount and origin of dissolved organic matter may favour increased microbial activity in the water column and decreased light availability for the phytobenthos, with effects on biodiversity at all trophic levels, and increased channelling of terrestrial carbon to the atmosphere in the form of greenhouse gases.

Biodiversity and productivity that highly determine ecosystem services are varying largely under global change. However, the climate sensitivity of them and their relationship are not well understood, especially in the context of increasing nitrogen (N) deposition. Here, based on a six-year N manipulation experiment in an alpine meadow, we quantified interannual climate sensitivity of species richness (SR) and above-ground net primary productivity (ANPP) as well as SR-ANPP relationship as affected by six N addition rate (Nrate) gradients. We found that interannual variations in ANPP and SR were mainly driven by temperature instead of precipitation. In the plots without N addition, higher temperature substantially increased ANPP but reduced SR across years, thus resulting in a negative SR-ANPP relationship. However, the negative and positive responses of SR and ANPP to temperature increased and declined significantly with increasing Nrate, respectively, leading to a shift of the negative relationship between SR and ANPP into a positive one under high Nrate. Moreover, the adverse influence of drought on SR and ANPP would be aggravated by N fertilization, as indicated by the increased positive effect of precipitation on them under N enrichment. Our findings indicate that climate sensitivity of productivity and biodiversity may be misestimated if the impact of N deposition is not considered, and the importance of biodiversity to maintain productivity would enhance as N deposition increases. This study provides a new insight to explain variation of biodiversity-productivity relationship along with environmental changes.

Intraspecific variability in nitrogen use has not been comprehensively assessed in a natural poplar species. Here, a nitrogen isotope mass balance approach was used to assess variability in nitrogen uptake, assimilation and allocation traits in 25 genotypes from five climatically dispersed provenances of Populus balsamifera L. grown hydroponically with either nitrate or ammonium. Balsam poplar was able to grow well with either ammonium or nitrate as the sole nitrogen source. Variation within provenances exceeded significant provenance level variation. Interestingly, genotypes with rapid growth on nitrate achieved similar growth with ammonium. In most cases, the root:shoot ratio was greater in plants grown with ammonium. However, there were genotypes where root:shoot ratio was lower for some genotypes grown with ammonium compared to nitrate. Tissue nitrogen concentration was greater in the leaves and stems but not the roots for plants grown with ammonium compared to nitrate. There was extensive genotypic variation in organ-level nitrogen isotope composition. Root nitrogen isotope discrimination was greater under nitrate than ammonium, but leaf nitrogen isotope discrimination was not significantly different between plants on different sources. This can indicate variation in partitioning of nitrogen assimilation, efflux/influx (E/I) and root or leaf assimilation rates. The proportion of nitrogen assimilated in roots was lower under nitrate than ammonium. E/I was lower for nitrate than ammonium. With the exception of E/I, genotype-level variations in nitrogen-use traits for nitrate were correlated with the same traits when grown with ammonium. Using the nitrogen isotope mass balance model, a high degree of genotypic variation in nitrogen use traits was identified at both the provenance and, more extensively, the genotypic level.