Search

Ongoing climate change poses an increasing threat to biodiversity. To avoid decline or extinction, species need to either adjust or adapt to new environmental conditions or track their climatic niches across space. In sessile organisms such as plants, phenotypic plasticity can help maintain fitness in variable and even novel environmental conditions and is therefore likely to play an important role in allowing them to survive climate change, particularly in the short term. Understanding a species' response to rising temperature is crucial for planning well‐targeted and cost‐effective conservation measures. We sampled seeds of three Hypericum species (H. maculatum, H. montanum, and H. perforatum), from a total of 23 populations originating from different parts of their native distribution areas in Europe. We grew them under four different temperature regimes in a greenhouse to simulate current and predicted future climatic conditions in the distribution areas. We measured flowering start, flower count, and subsequent seed weight, allowing us to study variations in the thermal plasticity of flowering phenology and its relation to fitness. Our results show that individuals flowered earlier with increasing temperature, while the degree of phenological plasticity varied among species. More specifically, the plasticity of H. maculatum varied depending on population origin, with individuals from the leading range edge being less plastic. Importantly, we show a positive relationship between higher plasticity and increased flower production, indicating adaptive phenological plasticity. The observed connection between plasticity and fitness supports the idea that plasticity may be adaptive. This study underlines the need for information on plasticity for predicting species' potential to thrive under global change and the need for studies on whether higher phenotypic plasticity is currently being selected as natural populations experience a rapidly changing climate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The recycling of wood waste still offers a wide variety of opportunities. The possibilities for wood recycling depend mainly on the substances contained in wood waste; in particular, the recycling of impregnated wood waste, which contains environmentally harmful substances, is strictly regulated. Cement matrix composites could offer new potentials for the utilization of wood-waste fractions. The product safety of wood–cement composites, in terms of leaching and freeze-thaw resistance using de-icing salts, was investigated in this study. In a leaching test, low amounts of copper, chromium, and arsenic leached from a wood–cement composite were observed. The measured concentrations of the studied substances decreased over time. Freeze-thaw resistance of wood–cement composites was studied with four different additives typically used in concrete products. The highest resistance was obtained for the composite without any additives, but, in general, all the studied specimen, with one exception, performed relatively well. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Wood material's vulnerability to natural degradation has necessitated the use of impregnation agents, such as arsenic, chromium, and creosote, the application of which is now relatively contentious due to modern knowledge. Particularly from a sustainability perspective, the impregnation of treated wood material requires accurate treatment at the end of the product lifecycle. This study reviews various appropriate treatment options for impregnated wood at the end of the product lifecycle. Various biological treatment options are considered as alternative routes for these materials as well as technological solutions for material identification including X-ray fluorescence (XRF) and laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS) technologies. The proposed alternative routes are functional in some respects but are not perfect; thus, technological solutions appear to represent a more realistic way to attend to impregnated wood. Available methods and technologies have been improved with advanced applications but cannot achieve perfect results, indicating a need for future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]