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AbstractNitrous oxide (N2O) is a potent greenhouse gas and causes stratospheric ozone depletion. While the emissions of N2O from soil are widely recognized, recent research has shown that terrestrial plants may also emit N2O from their leaves under controlled laboratory conditions. However, it is unclear whether foliar N2O emissions are universal across varying plant taxa, what the global significance of foliar N2O emissions is, and how the foliage produces N2O in situ. Here we investigated the abilities of 25 common plant taxa, including trees, shrubs and herbs, to emit N2O under in situ conditions. Using 15N isotopic labeling, we demonstrated that the foliage‐emitted N2O was predominantly derived from nitrate. Moreover, by selectively injecting biocide in conjunction with the isolating and back‐inoculating of endophytes, we demonstrated that the foliar N2O emissions were driven by endophytic bacteria. The seasonal N2O emission rates ranged from 3.2 to 9.2 ng N2O–N g−1 dried foliage h−1. Extrapolating these emission rates to global foliar biomass and plant N uptake, we estimated global foliar N2O emission to be 1.21 and 1.01 Tg N2O–N year−1, respectively. These estimates account for 6%–7% of the current global annual N2O emission of 17 Tg N2O–N year−1, indicating that in situ foliar N2O emission is a universal process for terrestrial plants and contributes significantly to the global N2O inventory. This finding highlights the importance of measuring foliar N2O emissions in future studies to enable the accurate assigning of mechanisms and the development of effective mitigation.

The success of decarbonisation will largely depend on how the policies on energy transition are introduced, implemented, and subsequently received by the targeted entities. This study uncovers possible ways of enabling a regulatory framework for achieving Positive Energy Districts (PEDs) based on the local context with a human-centred focus. We address the four prerequisites of the PED pathway and discuss cultural configurations to explore how they affect the energy transition in three of the case studies – Amsterdam, Vienna, and Lisbon – to demonstrate differences in their contexts. The analysis in this study is based on the primary data, collected via semi-structured interviews conducted with stakeholders from the observed regions. The interviews were a foresight exercise, where the participants proposed desired pathways towards the development of PEDs. Based on their different cultural configuration context, we posit that distinct approaches in energy transition are essential for the effective formation of PEDs. We argue that policy interventions on decarbonisation should be tailored to different situations and bringing the cultural perspective into policy design is one way of incorporating the differences in contexts. As the policies are implemented at different governmental levels, future research on to what extent the differences in cultural configurations play role in multi-level governance in decarbonisation will be important.

Phytoplankton account for approximately 50% of global primary production, form the trophic base of nearly all marine ecosystems, are fundamental in trophic energy transfer and have key roles in climate regulation, carbon sequestration and oxygen production. Boyce et al.1 compiled a chlorophyll index by combining in situ chlorophyll and Secchi disk depth measurements that spanned a more than 100-year time period and showed a decrease in marine phytoplankton biomass of approximately 1% of the global median per year over the past century. Eight decades of data on phytoplankton biomass collected in the North Atlantic by the Continuous Plankton Recorder (CPR) survey2, however, show an increase in an index of chlorophyll (Phytoplankton Colour Index) in both the Northeast and Northwest Atlantic basins3,4,5,6,7 (Fig. 1), and other long-term time series, including the Hawaii Ocean Time-series (HOT)8, the Bermuda Atlantic Time Series (BATS)8 and the California Cooperative Oceanic Fisheries Investigations (CalCOFI)9 also indicate increased phytoplankton biomass over the last 20–50 years. These findings, which were not discussed by Boyce et al.1, are not in accordance with their conclusions and illustrate the importance of using consistent observations when estimating long-term trends.

Abstract This case study of the Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry (SETAC) workshop MODELINK demonstrates the potential use of mechanistic effects models for macrophytes to extrapolate from effects of a plant protection product observed in laboratory tests to effects resulting from dynamic exposure on macrophyte populations in edge-of-field water bodies. A standard European Union (EU) risk assessment for an example herbicide based on macrophyte laboratory tests indicated risks for several exposure scenarios. Three of these scenarios are further analyzed using effect models for 2 aquatic macrophytes, the free-floating standard test species Lemna sp., and the sediment-rooted submerged additional standard test species Myriophyllum spicatum. Both models include a toxicokinetic (TK) part, describing uptake and elimination of the toxicant, a toxicodynamic (TD) part, describing the internal concentration-response function for growth inhibition, and a description of biomass growth as a function of environmental factors to allow simulating seasonal dynamics. The TK–TD models are calibrated and tested using laboratory tests, whereas the growth models were assumed to be fit for purpose based on comparisons of predictions with typical growth patterns observed in the field. For the risk assessment, biomass dynamics are predicted for the control situation and for several exposure levels. Based on specific protection goals for macrophytes, preliminary example decision criteria are suggested for evaluating the model outputs. The models refined the risk indicated by lower tier testing for 2 exposure scenarios, while confirming the risk associated for the third. Uncertainties related to the experimental and the modeling approaches and their application in the risk assessment are discussed. Based on this case study and the assumption that the models prove suitable for risk assessment once fully evaluated, we recommend that 1) ecological scenarios be developed that are also linked to the exposure scenarios, and 2) quantitative protection goals be set to facilitate the interpretation of model results for risk assessment. Integr Environ Assess Manag 2016;12:82–95. ©2015 SETAC Key Points We use an herbicide case study to demonstrate how toxicodynamics-toxicokinetics models coupled with macrophyte population models can link dynamic exposure patterns to expected biomass dynamics in the field. We introduce models for 2 macrophyte species, Lemna sp. and Myriophyllum spicatum to refine a risk assessment based on laboratory experiments. Based on specific protection goals, we propose example criteria for duration and magnitude of effects and show how the modeling results could be used as risk refinement option. We recommend further refining and testing the models to develop ecological scenarios linked to the exposure scenarios and to set quantitative protection goals to facilitate the interpretation of model results for risk assessment.

Long-term measurements of ecosystem-atmosphere exchanges of carbon, water, and energy, via eddy flux towers, give insight into three key questions about Amazonian forest function. First, what is the carbon balance of Amazon forests? Some towers give accurate site-specific carbon balances, as validated by independent methods, but decisive resolution of the large-scale question will also require integration of remote sensing techniques (to detect and encompass the distribution of naturally induced disturbance states across the landscape of old growth forests) with eddy flux process studies (to characterize the association between carbon balance and forest disturbance states). Second, what is the seasonality of ecosystem metabolism in Amazonian forests? Models have historically simulated dry season declines in photosynthetic metabolism, a consequence of modeled water limitation. Tower sites in equatorial Amazonian forests, however, show that photosynthetic metabolism increases during dry seasons ("green up"), perhaps because deep roots buffer trees from dry season water stress, while phenological rhythms trigger leaf flush, associated with increased solar irradiance. Third, how does ecosystem metabolism vary across biome types and land use patterns? As dry season length increases from equatorial forest, to drier southern forests, to savanna, fluxes show seasonal patterns consistent with increasing water stress, including a switch from dry season green up to "brown down." Land use change in forest ecosystems removes deep roots, artificially inducing the same trend toward brown down. In the final part, this review suggests that eddy tower network and satellitebased insights into seasonal responses provide a model for detecting responses to extreme interannual climate variations that can test whether forests are vulnerable to model-simulated Amazonian forest collapse under climate change.

Large scale and transnational electricity grids facilitate balancing capacity across the areas that they serve and increase potential for energy trading. Offshore grids and the more ambitious notion of supergrids are beginning to play a significant part, especially in Europe, in the realization of improving security of domestic energy supply and expanding renewable energy production. As such, offshore (super-) grid development provides an excellent example of the move towards marine regionalization. Moreover, because of limited spatial claims and environmental impacts, marine electricity systems seem well-aligned with the rationale of ecosystem-based management, which is at the heart of European marine governance. By outlining their historical path and the envisioned outlook, in this article we show how offshore (super-) grid developments link up to marine regionalization and its related processes of integration and cooperation. It is argued that scaling-up grids to the level of regional seas is not unproblematic, but faces obstacles which depend on persistent practical and policy realities, and which may be relevant to other expressions of marine regionalization.

Using 40-year experiment data from a mono-modal rainfall area of northern Togo, we analyzed soil fertility dynamics when 2 and 3-year fallows were alternated with 3-year rotation of groundnut, cotton and sorghum. The control treatment consisted to continuous cultivate the soil in a rotation of groundnut/cotton/sorghum without fallow periods. For each rotation, two fertilisation rates were applied: no fertilisation and mineral fertiliser application during the cropping and/or the fallow periods. Yields of unfertilised crops, which averaged 1 t ha-1 during the first years of cultivation, were often nil in the long-term. In the long-term, yields of fertilised cotton and sorghum decreased by 32 and 50 %, respectively compared to the average of 2.4 and 1.6 t ha-1 obtained during the first decade of cultivation. The long-term decline in crop productivity was mitigated when fallow periods were alternated with cropping periods, and consequently there was partial compensation in terms of production for the unproductive fallowed plots. Long-term yields of fertilised cotton and sorghum in the periodically fallowed plots were 40 and 50 % higher than those in continuously cropped plots, respectively; they were 90 and 60 % higher than those in continuously cropped plots without fertilisation. Like for crop productivity, soil C, N and exchangeable Ca and Mg decreased less in periodically fallowed plots than in continuously cropped plots. The limited soil C decline when fallows were alternated with crops appears to be the consequence of no-tillage period rather than the effect of the highest C inputs to the soil.