Food availability is central to humans' survival. Even though Sweden has a reasonably low self-sufficiency rate of only 50%, it has a high level of domestic wheat production and exports a lot of wheat yearly. Wheat is a good source of essential nutrients and is a cornerstone in Swedish agriculture and food production. Even though Sweden has a considerable domestic production of wheat, several risks pose a threat to domestic wheat availability in the future, which could endanger Swedish food security. Therefore, this essay evaluates three considerable risks to Swedish wheat availability: climate change, population growth, and trade disturbances. These risks have been assessed based on previous research and statistical analysis of the historical wheat production, consumption, and trade data. In addition, stochastic models have also been created to simulate the risk of a domestic shortage of wheat. Future opportunities in Swedish wheat availability are also discussed to give a nuanced picture of future wheat availability in Sweden. Among other things, ARIMA modeling has been used to predict Swedish wheat production's efficiency. The results indicate that there are positive trends in wheat production. However, wheat production is also an object of increased volatility, threatening wheat availability. This increased volatility can be linked to extreme weather caused by global warming. These extreme weather events are predicted to occur more in the future, risking volatility in wheat production to grow even further. The stochastic model implies that there is an inherent risk of wheat shortage in the future. However, when the stochastic model considers both population growth and increased efficiency in wheat production, the risk of wheat shortage decreases. The results show that population growth, trade disturbances, and especially climate change are risks that need to be considered, and resilience against these risks needs to be built up.

This research explores the French environmental governance framework, and endeavors to establish the implications of its highly centralized structure for the management of common-pool resources (CPRs), by studying in detail the opportunities for administrative and decisional power at the local level. The study employs Elinor Ostrom’s eight design principles for sustainable CPR governance as a benchmark to evaluate the institutions surrounding two resources: water and nature reserves. The results reveal that despite these resources being under strong management, their governance remains centralized, with a distribution of power from the top-down, that limits the agency of local authorities and resource users to create institutions or devise operational rules for their resources. These institutional blockages deter local initiatives and deny local resource users the possibility of a more appropriate and flexible management of their CPRs, both notable outcomes of collaborative governance according to Ostrom. Economic interests are often found to take precedence over environmental concerns, and stakeholder engagement is sometimes inadequate, leading to a weakening of legitimacy and costs shouldered by local ecosystems. Thus, the study concludes that France must continue its journey towards decentralization, enhance the autonomy of localities, and improve its performance in transparent democracy in order to achieve more sustainable CPR institutions.

Green hydrogen is experiencing a worldwide hype due to its role in decarbonizing our future economy, especially in heavy industry sectors. Germany is capitalizing on this momentum by positioning itself as one of the global leaders of the hydrogen transition, forming numerous energy partnerships with countries around the world. These partnerships are intended to foster green hydrogen production in countries with high renewable energy potential. At the same time, they secure import stability for Germany, which lacks the capacity for domestic green hydrogen production necessary for industrial decarbonization. One of these partner countries is Uruguay, which has decarbonized its energy sector and is advertising its promising potential for green hydrogen production. The partnership between the two countries thus appears to be beneficial and conducive to a just transition. However, amidst the praise for green hydrogen, there are also critical voices questioning whether it truly facilitates a just transition or perpetuates a new form of green colonialism. Through a mixed method approach, this thesis aims to evaluate the green hydrogen strategies of both countries and whether they are perceived as just transitions. Thereby, the concept of hydrogen justice by Müller et al. (2022) serves as the theoretical framework. In order to address the research questions, a document analysis was conducted in order to analyze the countries' official hydrogen strategies. In addition, a questionnaire and semi-structured expert interviews were carried out to assess the perception of green hydrogen strategies in both countries. As a result, it was found that the strategies build a foundation on which a just hydrogen transition can be achieved. Nevertheless, there are many uncertainties and shortcomings and a lack of binding mechanisms. In addition, the experts paint an overall positive picture of a just hydrogen transition and emphasize the countries’ ambitions to facilitate participative and just structures. Yet, there are also opposing views among the experts, who criticize the governments of neglecting negative socio-ecological outcomes, especially on local populations. In the end, the future trajectory of green hydrogen is uncertain. However, this study highlights the importance of setting up sustainability standards and participatory processes, that engage all stakeholders in the decision-making process to enable a just transition to a green hydrogen economy.

Methanogens are supposed to be one of the first life forms that emerged and evolved on early Earth inan environment of high depths and pressure utilizing the chemical energy provided by serpentinization.Serpentinization is a geological process that involves the transformation of low-silica ultramafic rocks,which are present in the lower oceanic crust and upper mantle. During this transformation minerals arereacting with water producing H2. Methanogens that can utilize this H2 to reduce the available CO2(hydrogenotrophs) can thrive in an environment like that, taking advantage of the substrate and energyflow that exists and thrive at these ecosystems. Methanobacterium oryzae is a hydrogenotrophicmethanogen that belongs to the order Methanobacteriales and has been isolated from a rice field inPhilippines. Methanobacterium oryzae strain FPi and a strain (wild strain) similar to that, isolated froman ophiolitic outcrop in an active serpentine site in Chimaera, Antalya, Turkey in 2017, have been usedin this study and have been tested for their survivability and adaptation abilities in different iron and O2concentrations. The two strains were cultivated in mediums with 4 different iron and 2 different O2concentrations for a duration ranging from 9 to 21 weeks. Gas chromatography was used to analyzeweekly gas samples for CH4 and CO2 concentrations that have been used as growth indicators. Scanningelectron microscope pictures have been taken to assess cell presence and contamination as well asidentify mineral precipitates. The results indicate the importance of iron for these species showinglimited or no growth when treated with no iron and enhanced growth at higher concentrations of iron.Furthermore, O2 has hindered or inhibited growth in most of the samples, but lower oxygenconcentrations seem to be tolerated by some specimens throughout the experimental time. Furtherresearch for the detection of the mechanisms behind the survivability of the methanogens with no ironand with oxygen in the medium is needed to further reveal the limits of life and provide moreinformation about the organisms that might have been the first ones that inhabited our planet.

Land degradation poses a significant global challenge, affecting vast areas of the world's land and impacting billions of people. Maintaining the land’s ability to provide vital ecosystem services is essential for global food security and climate mitigation. However, land degradation drives us in the opposite direction. Kenya is particularly vulnerable to degradation, making it essential to focus on the rangelands, which comprise over 83% of its land area and support more than 70% of its livestock. Due to widespread land degradation, Kenyan pastoralists, who depend heavily on the productivity of the rangelands, face significant difficulties in providing adequate fodder for their livestock. Nevertheless, degraded land can be restored, and it is crucial to implement restoration interventions on a larger scale to reverse land degradation. Monitoring the impacts of land restoration is essential to carry out evidence-based restoration efforts and effectively halt land degradation. This study assessed the impact of land restoration efforts initiated in 2021 following the establishment of two "Livestock Cafés" in northwest Kenya. The Livestock Cafés initiative is designed to restore degraded land while supporting local pastoral communities. The study applied remote sensing and statistical modeling to monitor changes in three key indicators of land health: soil organic carbon, erosion, and vegetation cover. The findings revealed positive effects of the restoration interventions, including enhanced soil organic carbon and vegetation cover and reduced rates of severe erosion. The results also indicate worsening land health outside the Livestock Cafés, highlighting the serious land degradation challenges in the region. These findings support a wider adoption of the restoration methods applied within the Livestock Cafés to combat land degradation in similar contexts.

Among all vertebrates, pterosaurs were the first group to evolve powered flight. This adaptation allowed them to become a diverse group, filling various habitats. Some individual pterosaurs have been interpreted as inhabiting arboreal environments, with adaptations to match. However, a broader verdict on the arboreal capabilities of pterosaurs, or lack thereof, in general remains absent. Measurements were taken of the claws of pterosaurs, and compared to measurements taken from birds and bats. The results from these comparisons show that the claw morphology of pterosaurs largely overlaps with that of modern birds. This indicates that pterosaurs encompassed a wide range of locomotive behaviours, from ground-dwelling to climbing. The results from this study show that the claw morphology of extinct taxa can be compared to data from similar extant animals to estimate their locomotive behaviour and thus possibly predict the environment they inhabited.

The use of complete mitochondrial DNA to carry out phylogenetic and population genomics analyses on ancient species has shown to be successful. The relationship between modern elephants and mammoths has been elucidated thanks to analyses of genetic material coming from mammoth fossils. Similar to that here we used newly assembled complete mitogenomes from Alaskan mammoth populations from the Late Pleistocene, and publicly available mammoth mitogenome data, to assess their position within the three mitochondrial lineages previously described in the literature in a BEAST and RAxML phylogenetic tree.  The studied bone fragments underwent drilling and DNA extractions before the construction of the libraries and sequencing was carried out. A novel DNA extraction method using a 96 sample plate was implemented alongside standard extraction methods.  The mapping of raw reads was implemented using two BWA v0.7.18 algorithms, “aln” and “mem”. After the results of both mappings were compared, the analysis continued with the output generated by BWA aln, which had a better overall performance.  The resulting phylogenetic trees had similar morphologies and placed our 10 newly assembled mitogenomes within Clade 1, a clade that was distributed throughout Eurasia and North America. Clade 1 was further divided into three subclades named Clade 1C1-C2 and 1DE. Clade 1C1 was made up of Columbian, Jeffersonian and woolly mammoth mitogenomes. One of our mitogenomes (called OG002) was placed outside of Clade 1C1, possibly due to its low coverage. Clade 1C2 was made out of North American woolly mammoths and unidentified mammoth specimens. Most of our mitogenomes (8 out of 10) were placed within this clade in the RAxML tree, and 7 out of 10 were placed within this clade in the BEAST tree. OG001 was placed outside Clade 1C2 in the BEAST tree, possibly due to its low coverage (0.9X). Clade 1DE was made up of Eurasian woolly mammoth specimens and unidentified mammoth specimens. OG020 was placed within this subclade in both trees. The current phylogenetic results were not sufficient to identify the species of our new mitogenomes, but further analysis in samples with high coverage may elucidate this matter.

I ett alltmer urbaniserat samhälle har forskning uppmärksammat behovet av tillgång till gröna och tysta områden för att främja god hälsa hos människor. Befolkningstillväxten och förtätningen ökar i kommunerna i Stockholms län, vilket orsaker mer trafik och mer buller. Denna studie syftar till att undersöka hur buller från motorvägar sprids i stadsnära naturreservat. Studiens frågeställningar berör vilken inverkan vegetation och topografi har för bullerspridningen, vilka avstånd som krävs från bullerkällan för att bullret inte ska upplevas som störande och slutligen om en mobiltelefon som GNSS-mottagare är tillräcklig för positionering av mätpunkter. Det utvalda studieområdet var Järvafältet, en samling sammanhängande naturreservat omgivet av tätbebyggda kommuner och högtrafikerade motorvägar. Datainsamling bestod av 72 mätpunkter där flertalet data samlades in, bland annat decibelnivå, koordinater, avstånd till närmaste motorväg, höjddata, vindhastighet, väder, vegetation och en subjektiv uppskattning av störning från trafikbuller. Sju av variablerna behandlades i en principal-komponentanalys där den viktigaste komponenten bestod av decibelnivå, avstånd till motorväg, grad av bullerskydd och lufttemperatur. Subjektiv uppskattning av störning ingick inte i principalkomponentanalysen. En ljudmodell skapades med hjälp av interpolationsverktyget Kriging. I principalkomponentanalysen fastslogs att fyra av variablerna byggde upp en extraherad komponent: decibelnivå, avstånd till motorväg, grad av bullerskydd och lufttemperatur. Variablerna decibelnivå och avstånd till motorväg var negativt korrelerade till -0,78. Drygt 500 meter från bullerkällan visade sig sänkningen av decibelnivån plana ut. Även variabeln bullerskydd var korrelerad med decibelnivån, men det gick inte att fastställa om detta samband var mer kopplat till decibelnivån eller till avstånd från motorvägarna. Variabeln vegetation visade liten eller ingen korrelation med decibelnivåer. Lufttemperatur visade viss korrelation med decibelnivå, men detta samband var sannolikt falskt och berodde högst troligen på årstidsväxlingar. Avstånd till motorväg klassificerades i sju kategorier beroende på avstånd till motorväg. I varje kategori testade olika korrelationer mellan decibelnivå och tre olika variabler. Inom cirka 240 meter från motorvägen visade sig graden av bullerskydd vara stark negativt korrelerad med decibelnivå, men längre bort blev denna korrelation svag. Kontrolljudmätningar utfördes efter interpolationsmodellering för att validera resultatet. Kontrollmätningar avvek med i genomsnitt 1,5 dBA. Mobiltelefonens positionerings-precision jämfördes med en dedikerad GNSS-mottagare. Mobiltelefonen avvek med i genomsnitt 8,33 meter (13,16 meter inklusive en utliggare), ett resultat som ansågs fullgott för denna typ av ljudstudie. / In a more urbanised society research has shown the need for green spaces in order to favour human health. This study aims to explore how traffic noise travel through nature reserves close to metropolitan areas. Furthermore, the study tries to answer whether topography and vegetation have impact on noise level, distance required for the noise to stop being an inconvenience and if a mobile phone is sufficient as a GNSS-receiver for positioning of sound measuring points. The study area consists of Järvafältet, north of Stockholm, a collection of nature reserves surrounded by freeways. A total of 72 measuring points were selected, where several data were collected. A principal component analysis was used to extract components from the most important variables: decibel levels, distance to freeways, noise protection and air temperature. Decibel levels and distance to freeways were negatively correlated by -0.78. Vegetations show little correlation with decibel levels and correlation between noise protection and decibel levels are inconclusive but seem to have some correlation when analysed close to the source of noise. Kriging interpolation was used to model sound maps and control measurements resulted in an average deviation of 1,5 dBA in comparison to the created model. It was also found that a mobile phone GNSS receiver is not as precise as a dedicated GNSS receiver but is sufficient for this kind of sound study.

Historically, peat mining has involved drainage processes that alter water chemistry, increase rates of organic matter, release nutrients and therefore impacting downstream recipients. In the catchment of Håtjärnen, Håsjön and Yttersjön, three peat mining sites have been draining into the lakes since the 1980s. This study aimed to investigate the potential impact of these peat mining sites on the lake sediment geochemistry as a complement to a previous study in the area. Four sediment profiles were sampled using an HTH-corer and the sediment geochemistry was analyzed using X-ray fluorescence, Loss on Ignition, Near Infrared spectroscopy, C/N-ratio and Si/Al-ratio. The results from these analyses show that the contribution of peat mining to variations in sediment quality in Håtjärnen, Håsjön and Yttersjön is minimal and that other logical explanations can explain the small variability of the data. In comparison with ratios from other studies, the C/N ratio did not indicate a significant input of organic matter derived from peat. The findings of this study contradict the conclusions from the previous study in the area which highlights the importance of analyzing all the major components of sediment to achive a comprehensive insight of the variations in chemical composition of sediments.

The long history of moderating watercourses to accommodate timber floating in northern Sweden lay the ground for river restorations. One restoration method is supplementing spawning gravel for Salmonidae to lay their eggs in. The success of Salmonidae reproduction is essential for the ecology in streams as well as for the economy and culture of Sweden. However, finding appropriate locations for the gravel beds, benefiting their longevity have been difficult. The aim of this study was to investigate if hydraulic and geomorphic characteristics influence mobility of 64 restored spawning beds in 11 streams in the Vindel River catchment, Sweden. Field measurements of the spawning beds condition were taken as percentage remaining and function. Metrics of fluvial power were calculated by geospatial analysis and compared to each other by a correlation model. A linear mixed effects model was made with belonging likelihood test comparing slope, drainage area, stream power proxy, distance to lake upstream, water depth over riverbed, channel width, restoration type and all variables together to the percentage remaining. The result showed that 84% of the spawning beds had moved while 71% of the beds were recorded as functioning. No significant correlation was found between any of the investigated variables by themselves or together and percentage remaining, suggesting other variables influenced mobility of the spawning gravel. Such as variations on a local-scale and variables connected to the northern hemisphere region. The lack of adequate data, subjectivity in the condition measurements and the proxy used for stream power also influenced the result.