The transcriptional landscape of the developmental switch from regular pollen maturation towards microspore-derived plant regeneration in barley

Plant formation from in vitro-cultivated microspores involves a complex network of internal and environmental factors.Haploids/doubled haploids(DHs)derived from in vitro-cultured microspores are widely used in plant breeding and genetic engineering.However,the mechanism underlying the developmental switch from regular pollen maturation towards microspore-derived plant regeneration remains poorly defined.Here,RNA-sequencing was employed to elucidate the transcriptional landscapes of four early stages of microspore embryogenesis(ME)in barley cultivars Golden Promise and Igri,which exhibit contrasting responsiveness to microspore-derived plant formation.Our experiments revealed fundamental regulatory networks,specific groups of genes,and transcription factor(TF)families potentially regulating the developmental switch.We identified a set of candidate genes crucial for genotype-dependent responsiveness/recalcitrance to ME.Our high-resolution temporal transcriptome atlas provides an important resource for future functional studies on the genetic control of microspore developmental transition.

Assessing Financial Management Practices and Accounting Mechanisms in Agricultural Cooperatives:A Case Study From Nepal

The study focuses on assessing the financial management practices and accounting mechanisms in agricultural cooperatives in Tulsipur Sub-Metropolitan,Dang District,Nepal with a focus on understanding their implications for financial performance and organizational effectiveness.The sample size of total cooperatives(n=46)was divided into Savings and Credit Cooperatives(n=18)and Multipurpose Cooperatives(n=28),respectively,with a total number of respondents(n=138)categorized into managing directors,employees,and general members.Using a mixed-methods approach that combines quantitative analysis of financial data with qualitative insights gathered through interviews and surveys,the study emphasizes the importance of modern financial practices,improved reporting mechanisms,and relevant staff training for long-term sustainability.Recommendations include the integration of criteria and evaluation tools to assess cooperative performance,with Hamro Pahunch Multipurpose Cooperative identified as a high performer.Emphasizing the need for robust financial management strategies to navigate the complexity of the agricultural sector,manage risks,and achieve sustainable development,the study notes frequent preparation of financial management reports on a monthly and annual basis,and predominantly annual accounting management.Most cooperatives are using computerized models to present financial positions,but face challenges such as lack of marketing infrastructure,cooperative skills,and technical support.Ultimately,the study advocates for educating policy makers,cooperative leaders,practitioners and stakeholders on the role of effective financial management and accounting in enhancing the resilience,expansion and socio-economic impact of agricultural cooperatives,thereby fostering their long-term prosperity and viability as drivers of rural development and empowerment.

Rural coping and adaptation strategies for climate change by Himalayan communities in Nepal

Climate change has major impacts on the livelihoods of forest-dependent communities.The unpredictable weather conditions in rural Nepal have been attributed to a changing climate.This study explored the climate change adaptation and coping strategies that rural communities adopt for the conservation of natural resources and livelihoods in the mid-hills of Nepal.This paper explored major climatic hazards,assessed different coping and adaptation measures,and barrier faced to climate change adaptation based on perceptions by forest-dependent communities.We conducted focus group discussions,questionnaire surveys,and semistructured interviews with local communities and stakeholders.The results showed that rural communities had experienced significant impacts of climate change and variability.In response,they are practicing diverse coping and adaptation strategies,including the construction of bioengineering structures and planting different species that grow quickly and establish promptly.

Warming Changed Soil Respiration Dynamics of Alpine Meadow Ecosystem on the Tibetan Plateau

Alpine meadow system underlain by permafrost on the Tibetan Plateau contains vast soil organic carbon and is sensitive to global warming.However,the dynamics of annual soil respiration(Rs)under long-term warming and the determined factors are still not very clear.Using opentop chambers(OTC),we assessed the effects of two-year experimental warming on the soil CO2 emission and the Q10 value(temperature sensitivity coefficient)under different warming magnitudes.Our study showed that the soil CO2 efflux rate in the warmed plots were 1.22 and 2.32 times higher compared to that of controlled plots.However,the Q10 value decreased by 45.06%and 50.34%respectively as the warming magnitude increased.These results suggested that soil moisture decreasing under global warming would enhance soil CO2 emission and lower the temperature sensitivity of soil respiration rate of the alpine meadow ecosystem in the permafrost region on the Tibetan Plateau.Thus,it is necessary to take into account the combined effect of ground surface warming and soil moisture decrease on the Rs in order to comprehensively evaluate the carbon emissions of the alpine meadow ecosystem,especially in short and medium terms.

Seasonality of PSII thermostability and water use e ffi ciency of in situ mountainous Norway spruce(Picea abies)

The stability of monocultural,even-aged spruce forests at lower altitudes in Central Europe is seriously threatened by the prospects of global climate change.The thermostability and water use efficiency of their photo synthetic apparatus might play a vital role in their successful acclimation.In this study,photo systemⅡ(PSⅡ)performance(OJIP transient,rapid light curves)and thermostability were analyzed in Norway spruce(Picea abies(L.)Karst.)throughout the growing season of the exceptionally warm year 2018(May-September)in the Western Carpathians,Slovakia.These measurements were accompanied by analysis of pigment concentrations in the needles.In addition,gas-exchange temperature curves were produced weekly from June until September to obtain intrinsic water use efficiencies.At the beginning of the growing season,needles exposed to heat stress showed significantly higher basal fluorescence and lower quantum yield,performance index,critical temperature thresholds of PSII inactivation and nonphotochemical yield in comparison to other months.The overall thermostability(heat-resistance)of PSII peaked in July and August,reflected in the lowest basal fluorescence and the highest quantum yield of PSII,critical temperature thresholds and yield of non-photochemical quenching under heat stress.Additionally,the ratio between chlorophyll and carotenoids was the highest in August and had a positive impact on PSII thermostability.Moreover,the high-temperature intrinsic water use efficiency was significantly higher during July and August than in June.Results show that15-year-old trees of Picea abies at 840 m a.s.l.exhibited acclimative seasonal responses of PSII thermostability and intrinsic water use efficiency during an exceptionally warm year.Our results suggest that mountainous P.abies at lower altitudes can acclimate their photosynthetic apparatus to higher temperatures during summer.

Diversity, composition and host-species relationships of epiphytic orchids and ferns in two forests in Nepal

Epiphytic plant species are an important part of biological diversity. It is therefore essential to understand the distribution pattern and the factors influencing such patterns. The present study is aimed at observing the patterns of species richness, abundances and species composition of epiphytic orchids and ferns in two subtropical forests in Nepal. We also studied the relationship of host plants(Schima wallichii and Quercus lanata) and epiphyte species. Data were collected in Naudhara community forest(CF) and the national forest(NF) in Shivapuri Nagarjun National Park. The data were analyzed using univariate and multivariate tests. In total, we recorded 41 species of epiphytes(33 orchid and 8 fern species). Orchid species abundance is significantlyhigher in CF compared to NF. Orchid species richness and abundance increased with increasing southern aspect whereas it decreased with increasing canopy cover, and fern species richness increased with host bark roughness. Orchid abundance was positively correlated with increasing bark p H, stem size, tree age and tree height and negatively correlated with increasing steepness of the area. Likewise, fern abundances were high in places with high canopy cover, trees that were tall and big, but decreased with increasing altitude and southern aspect. The composition of the orchid and fern species was affected by altitude, aspect, canopy cover, DBH, number of forks and forest management types. We showed that the diversity of orchid and fern epiphytes is influenced by host characteristics as well as host types. The most important pre-requisite for a high epiphyte biodiversity is the presence of oldrespectively tall trees, independent of the recent protection status. This means:(i) for protection, e.g.in the frame of the national park declaration, such areas should be used which host such old tall trees;and(ii) also in managed forests and even in intensively used landscapes epiphytes can be protected by letting a certain number of trees be and by giving them space to grow old and tall.

Impact of water scarcity on spruce and beech forests

One of the greatest threats posed by ongoing climate change may be regarded the drought caused by changes in precipitation distribution. The aim of presented study was to characterize reactions to dry conditions and conditions without drought stress on gross primary production (GPP) and net ecosystem production (NEP) of spruce and beech forests, as these two species dominate within the European continent. Daily courses of GPP and NEP of these two species were evaluated in relation to an expected decrease in CO2 uptake during dry days. The occurrence of CO2 uptake hysteresis in daily production was also investigated. Our study was performed at Bily Kriz(spruce) and Stitna(beech) mountain forest sites during 2010–2012 period. We applied eddy covariance technique for the estimation of carbon fluxes, vapor pressure deficit and precipitation characteristics together with the SoilClim model for the determination of drought conditions, and the inverse of the Penman–Monteith equation to compute canopy conductance. Significant differences were found in response to reduced water supply for both species. Spruce reacts by closing its stomata before noon and maintaining a reduced photosynthetic activity for the rest of the day, while beech keeps its stomata open as long as possible and slightly reduces photosynthetic activity evenly throughout the entire day. In the spruce forest, we found substantial hysteresis in the light response curve of GPP. In the beech forest, the shape of this curve was different: evening values exceeded morning values.

Can a dam type of an alpine lake be derived from lake geometry?A negative result

Glacial lake outburst floods(GLOFs)represent one of the most serious hazard and risk in deglaciating high mountain regions worldwide and the need for GLOF hazard and risk assessment is apparent.As a consequence,numerous region-and nation-wide GLOF assessment studies have been published recently.These studies cover large areas and consider hundreds to thousands of lakes,prioritizing the hazard posed by them.Clearly,certain simplification is required for executing such studies,often resulting in neglecting qualitative characteristics which would need manual assignment.Different lake dam types(e.g.,bedrock-dammed,moraine-dammed)are often not distinguished,despite they control GLOF mechanism(dam overtopping/dam breach)and thus GLOF magnitude.In this study,we explore the potential of easily measurable quantitative characteristics and four ratios to approximate the lake dam type.Our dataset of 851 lakes of the Cordillera Blanca suggests that while variances and means of these characteristics of individual lake types differ significantly(F-test,t-test),value distribution of different geometrical properties can’t be used for the originally proposed purpose along the spectra.The only promising results are obtained for extreme values(selected bins)of the ratios.For instance,the low width to length ratio indicates likely morainedammed lake while the high value of ratio indicating round-shape of the lake indicates increased likelihood of bedrock-dammed lake.Overall,we report a negative result of our experiment since there are negligible differences of relative frequencies in most of the bins along the spectra.

Glacier retreat, rock weathering and the growth of lichensin the Churup Valley, Peruvian Tropical Andes

The most heavily glacierized tropical range in the world– the Peruvian Cordillera Blanca-has been losing ice since the end of the Little Ice Age(LIA).In this study,the decline of the Churup glacier(9°28’18"S;77°25’02"W)and associated processes were documented employing multi-proxy approach including the analysis of remotely sensed images(1948-2016),the Schmidt hammer rock test and lichenometric dating.It is shown that Churup glacier has lost the vast majority of its estimated LIA extent(1.05±0.1 km^2;45.0×10^6-57.4×10^6 m^3).The rate of glacier retreat is documented to vary in space(SE,SW and NW-facing slopes)and time,with the peak between 1986 and 1995.With an area of 0.045 km^2 in 2016,it is expected that the complete deglaciation of the Churup valley is inevitable in the near future.Recently(post-LIA)exposed bedrock surfaces have shown higher R-values(54.2-66.4,AVG 63.3,STDEV 2.9)compared to pre-LIA exposed surfaces(46.1-59.3,AVG 50.1,STDEV 4.9),confirming the links to the duration of rock weathering.The Lichenometric dating is applied to recently exposed areas and elevations above 4800 m a.s.l.,revealing only limited reliability and agreement with the age of deglaciation estimated from remotely-sensed images in such an environment.

Influence of environmental predispositions on temperate mountain forest damage at different spatial scales during alternating drought and flood periods:case study in Hruby Jeseník Mts.(Czech Republic)

Mountain forests are more prone to environmental predispositions(EPs)than submountain ones.While remote sensing of mountain forests enables instantaneous damage mapping,the investigation of the causes requires field data.However,a local field or regionally modeled environmental characteristics influence remote data evaluation differently.This study focused on the evaluation of EPs effects damaging mountain forests between various spatial resolutions during environmental change.The evaluation was divided into managed and natural forests in the Hruby Jeseník Mts.(Czech Republic;240-1491 m a.s.l.;50.082°N,17.231°E).Damage was assessed through the discrimination analysis of the normalised difference vegetation index(NDVI)by MODIS VI during alternating drought and flood periods 2003-2014.The local environmental influence was assessed using the discrimination function(DF)separability of forest damage in the training sets.The regional influence was assessed through map algebra estimated via the DF and a forest decline spatial model based on EPs from differences between risk growth conditions and biomass fuzzy sets.Management,EPs and soil influenced forest NDVI at different levels.The management afflicted the NDVI more than the EPs.The EPs afflicted the NDVI more than the soil groups.Strong winters and droughts had a greater influence on the NDVI than the flood events,with the winter of 2005/2006 inverting the DF direction,and the 2003 drought increasing differences in managed forest biomass and decreasing differences in natural forest biomasses.More than 50% of declining managed forests in the training sets occurred on Leptosols,Podzols and Histosols.On a regional scale,the soil influence was eliminated by multiple predispositions.The EPs influenced 96% of natural forest and 65% of managed forest,though managed forest damage was more evident.The mountain forest NDVI decline was dependent on both management and risk predispositions.

Floral diversity and carbon stocks and of protected forest ecosystem: A case of UENR’s Bat Sanctuary, Sunyani, Ghana

The study assesses the functional status of the University of Energy and Natural Resources’ (UENR) bat sanctuary by examining its floral diversity and carbon stocks. Twenty-nine sampling points (plots) were randomly generated by using the ArcGIS random sampling algorithm. Using a three-nest sampling plot of 100m2, 25m2, and 1m2 quadrat, the enumeration of trees (DBH>10cm), saplings (>2cm DBH 0.05) between the 10m buffer created and the core area with respect to species diversity and carbon stocks. The study has provided valuable information on the functional status of the bat sanctuary which will help promote its conservation for sustained provision of ecosystem services.

Stress Response Monitoring of Photoautotrophic Higher Plant Suspension Cultures by Fluorescence Imaging for High-Throughput Toxic Compound Screening

Photoautotrophic suspension cultures have been established from various model and crop plants and proved to be valuable and robust experimental system to assess coordinated responses of primary and secondary metabolism to metabolic and stress related signals. The use of suspension cultures combines the ease of handling microalgae in microtiter plates with the advantage of testing physiological responses of higher plants, notably in combination with the assessment of the response of photosynthetic activity by PAM chlorophyll fluorescence imaging as well as monitoring changes in secondary metabolite production and ROS formation by steady state fluorescence of plant fluorophores or introduced fluorescent probes. Photoautotrophic cultures provide various advantages as fast, highly sensitive, robust and high-through-put experimental system for screening and characterization of the impact of toxic compounds on higher plants. This opinion article discusses and critically evaluates the potential of photoautotrophic cultures of higher plants in combination with fluorescence imaging assays in microtiter plates as a complement to existing guidelines for testing the toxicity of chemicals in plants.

Perceived Injustices in Forest Policy Interventions are Causes of Forest Resources Degradation and Loss in Ghana: A Review

Forests provide diverse co-benefits, including livelihoods enhancement, poverty alleviation, and biodiversity conservation and ecosystem services such as climate mitigation. Consequently, Ghana has embraced several global, regional, national, and local forest policy interventions to safeguard its forest resources’ sustainable management. However, the forest policy interventions have not adequately addressed the co-benefits issues of forest resources leading to several forest illegalities that drive forest resources degradation and loss. These forest policies and interventions on the ground primarily favour carbon stocks enhancement and sequestration activities for carbon mitigation purposes compared to the benefits, access and rights that forest-dependent people and communities are supposed to derive from forest resources. These perceived injustices in the access and distribution of forest resources have culminated into all forms of forest illegalities driving Ghana’s forest resources into massive degradation and loss. Currently, Ghana is experiencing a 2% rate of annual deforestation and forest degradation, which translates into approximately 135,000 ha/year of forest cover loss due to anthropogenic causes. Our review is based on relevant and critical forest documents, and scientific peer-reviewed papers on Ghana’s forest policy interventions and dynamics recently published. The information gathered enabled us to highlight the perceived injustices in the forest policy interventions and their effects on forest resources. Unjust forest resources sharing and distribution are critical drivers of forest resources degradation and loss. We thus offer lessons for remedying the unfair distribution and injustices to promote equitable forest resources rights and benefit access to local forest-dependent people. It is expected that this review will offer and assist forest policy, intervention spatial and other planners and designers to find a possible way forward to avoid nature degradation, including biodiversity loss, to resolve perceived injustices in the forestry sector, to use adequate all ecosystem services provided by forests as well as to promote local livelihood and sustainability.

MeteoRead: Client Software for Inserting Observed Atmospheric Data into MySQL_TMDatabase and Downloading them into Different File Format

The investigation of the tendency of climate change and its effects on ecology, economy and sociology is essential for long term policy making. The long-term measurement of the physical and chemical properties of the atmosphere with state-of-the-arts instruments provides high-quality data for these studies. The evaluated data are stored in really special file structures and formats that cannot be inserted in one common database. Moreover, the observed data usually available in ASCII format and the users sometimes need to convert them in other format. The file conversion is usually time consuming procedure and can contribute to the uncertainties. MeteoRead is a client database software that imports the observed atmospheric data e.g. wind direction, wind speed, aerosol particle concentration etc. and makes them available in different file formats, which are most commonly used in climate research. This JavaTM based program applies the Structured Query Language (SQL) functions such as table creation on a database server, data or figures insertion into the table and data selection via Graphical User Interface. The selected data can be stored in NetCDF, HDF5, DataBase or TXT file formats and the figures can be available in PNG, JPG, JPNG, PDF or GIF file formats. The program was tested on Linux and Windows platforms with different JavaTM Development Kit. The MeteoRead is planned to be developed to visualizing the annual, seasonal, monthly, daily or hourly average value of the selected data and to use the functionality of the SQL database to calculate various mathematical and statistical correlations.

Coupled Pacific Rim megadroughts contributed to the fall of the MingDynasty’s capital in 1644 CE

Historical documents provide evidence for regional droughts preceding the political turmoil and fall of Beijing in 1644 CE,when more than 20 million people died in northern China during the late Ming famine period.However,the role climate and environmental changes may have played in this pivotal event in Chinese history remains unclear.Here,we provide tree-ring evidence of persistent megadroughts from1576 to 1593 CE and from 1628 to 1644 CE in northern China,which coincided with exceptionally cold summers just before the fall of Beijing.Our analysis reveals that these regional hydroclimatic extremes are part of a series of megadroughts along the Pacific Rim,which not only impacted the ecology and society of monsoonal northern China,but likely also exacerbated external geopolitical and economic pressures.This finding is corroborated by last millennium reanalysis data and numerical climate model simulations revealing internally driven Pacific sea surface temperature variations and the predominance of decadal scale La Ni?a-like conditions to be responsible for precipitation decreases over northern China,as well as extensive monsoon regions in the Americas.These teleconnection patterns provide a mechanistic explanation for reoccurring drought spells during the late Ming Dynasty and the environmental framework fostering the fall of Beijing in 1644 CE,and the subsequent demise of the Ming Dynasty.

Assessing impact of land use and climate change on regulating ecosystem services in the Czech Republic

Ecosystem services,defined as benefits provided by ecosystem functioning to society,are essential to human well-being.Due to global environmental change and related anthropogenic drivers,ecosystems are often degraded,which hinders the delivery of ecosystem services.This study aims to quantify the impacts of land use and climate change on two regulating ecosystem services-carbon sequestration and water purification in terms of nitrogen retention in the Czech Republic.While employing approaches of scenarios and modeling,we illustrate current and potential future status of these ecosystem services.Our results show that among the ecosystem change drivers,one of the dominant domestic land-use change of ALARM BAMBU(Business-As Might Be Usual)scenario is change of arable land and grassland to forest area that increases by 4.5%in 2080 compared to 2000.The results of ecosystem service modeling based on BAMBU scenario for the years 2050 and 2080 indicate that the highest yearly carbon sequestration rate occurred in 2000-2050,reaching 640 GgC·yr^(−1),2000-2080 shows decline in this regulating service by 16%.Average nitro-gen leaching to water streams reached 0.75 kgN·ha^(−1)·yr^(−1)for BAMBU in 2050 scenario and 0.80 kgN·ha^(−1)·yr^(−1)for BAMBU in 2080 scenario as a result of decreasing nitrogen load,which suggested a decrease in nitrogen pollution compared to 2000.Since ecosystem services have not been extensively mainstreamed into research and policies in eastern European countries,we aim to contribute to improvement of knowledge on current status and potential future pathways of the provision of regulating ecosystem services in the Czech Republic.

Modeling the impacts of temperature and precipitation changes on soil CO_2 fluxes from a Switchgrass stand recently converted from cropland

Switchgrass（Panicum virgatum L.） is a perennial C_4 grass native to North America and successfully adapted to diverse environmental conditions. It offers the potential to reduce soil surface carbon dioxide（CO_2） fluxes and mitigate climate change. However, information on how these CO_2 fluxes respond to changing climate is still lacking. In this study, CO_2 fluxes were monitored continuously from 2011 through 2014 using high frequency measurements from Switchgrass land seeded in 2008 on an experimental site that has been previously used for soybean（Glycine max L.） in South Dakota, USA. DAYCENT, a process-based model, was used to simulate CO_2 fluxes. An improved methodology CPTE[Combining Parameter estimation（PEST） with ＂Trial and Error＂ method] was used to calibrate DAYCENT. The calibrated DAYCENT model was used for simulating future CO_2 emissions based on different climate change scenarios. This study showed that：（i） the measured soil CO_2 fluxes from Switchgrass land were higher for 2012 which was a drought year, and these fluxes when simulated using DAYCENT for long-term（2015–2070） provided a pattern of polynomial curve;（ii） the simulated CO_2 fluxes provided different patterns with temperature and precipitation changes in a long-term,（iii） the future CO_2 fluxes from Switchgrass land under different changing climate scenarios were not significantly different, therefore, it can be concluded that Switchgrass grown for longer durations could reduce changes in CO_2 fluxes from soil as a result of temperature and precipitation changes to some extent.

A U.S.‒China coal power transition and the global 1.5℃ pathway

As the world seeks to increase ambition rapidly to limit global warming to 1.5℃,joint leadership from the world's largest greenhouse gas(GHG)emitters-the United States(U.S.)and China-will be critical to deliver significant emissions reductions from their own countries as well as to catalyze increased international action.After a period of uncertainty in international climate policy,these countries now both have current leadership that supports ambitious climate action.In this context,a feasible,high-impact,and potentially globally catalytic agreement by the U.S.and China to transition away from coal to clean energy would be a major contribution toward this global effort.We undertake a plant-by-plant assessment in the power sector to identify practical coal retirement pathways for each country that are in line with national priorities and the global 1.5℃ target.Our plant-by-plant analysis shows that the 1.5℃-compatible pathways may result in an average retirement age of 47 years for the U.S.coal plants and 22 years for Chinese coal plants,raising important questions of how to compare broader economic,employment,and social impacts.We also demonstrate that such pathways would also lead to significant emissions reductions,lowering overall global energy-related CO_(2) emissions by about 9%in 2030 relative to 2020.A catalytic effect from the possibility of other countries taking compatible actions is estimated to reduce global emissions by 5.1 Gt CO_(2) in 2030 and by 10.1 Gt CO_(2) in 2045.

The Digital Agricultural Knowledge and Information System(DAKIS):Employing digitalisation to encourage diversified and multifunctional agricultural systems

Multifunctional and diversified agriculture can address diverging pressures and demands by simultaneously enhancing productivity,biodiversity,and the provision of ecosystem services.The use of digital technologies can support this by designing and managing resource-efficient and context-specific agricultural systems.We present the Digital Agricultural Knowledge and Information System(DAKIS)to demonstrate an approach that employs digital technologies to enable decision-making towards diversified and sustainable agriculture.To develop the DAKIS,we specified,together with stakeholders,requirements for a knowledge-based decision-support tool and reviewed the literature to identify limitations in the current generation of tools.The results of the review point towards recurring challenges regarding the consideration of ecosystem services and biodiversity,the capacity to foster communication and cooperation between farmers and other actors,and the ability to link multiple spatiotemporal scales and sustainability levels.To overcome these challenges,the DAKIS provides a digital platform to support farmers'decision-making on land use and management via an integrative spatiotemporally explicit approach that analyses a wide range of data from various sources.The approach integrates remote and in situ sensors,artificial intelligence,modelling,stakeholder-stated demand for biodiversity and ecosystem services,and participatory sustainability impact assessment to address the diverse drivers affecting agricultural land use and management design,including natural and agronomic factors,economic and policy considerations,and socio-cultural preferences and settings.Ultimately,the DAKIS embeds the consideration of ecosystem services,biodiversity,and sustainability into farmers'decision-making and enables learning and progress towards site-adapted small-scale multifunctional and diversified agriculture while simultaneously supporting farmers'objectives and societal demands.

Unmanned aerial vehicles(UAV)for assessment of qualitative classification of Norway spruce in temperate forest stands

The study investigates the potential of UAV-based remote sensing technique for monitoring of Norway spruce health condition in the affected forest areas.The objectives are:(1)to test the applicability of UAV visible an near-infrared(VNIR)and geometrical data based on Z values of point dense cloud(PDC)raster to separate forest species and dead trees in the study area;(2)to explore the relationship between UAV VNIR data and individual spruce health indicators from field sampling;and(3)to explore the possibility of the qualitative classification of spruce health indicators.Analysis based on NDVI and PDC raster was successfully applied for separation of spruce and silver fir,and for identification of dead tree category.Separation between common beech and fir was distinguished by the object-oriented image analysis.NDVI was able to identify the presence of key indicators of spruce health,such as mechanical damage on stems and stem resin exudation linked to honey fungus infestation,while stem damage by peeling was identified at the significance margin.The results contributed to improving separation of coniferous(spruce and fir)tree species based on VNIR and PDC raster UAV data,and newly demonstrated the potential of NDVI for qualitative classification of spruce trees.The proposed methodology can be applicable for monitoring of spruce health condition in the local forest sites.