Unicellular microalgae are a renewable bioresource that can meet the challenge forfood and energy in a growing world population. Using sunlight, CO2, nutrients,and water, algal cells produce biomass in the form of sugars, proteins and oils, allof which carry commercial value as food, feed and bioenergy. Flue gas CO2 andwastewater nutrients are inexpensive sources of carbon and fertilizers. Microalgaecan mitigate CO2 emissions and reduce nutrients from waste streams whileproducing valuable biomass.My focus was on some of the challenging aspects of cultivating microalgae ascrop: the response of biomass production and quality to seasonality, nutrients andbiological interactions. Approach spans from laboratory experiments to large-scaleoutdoor cultivation, using single microalgal strains and natural communities insouthern (Portugal) and northern (Sweden) Europe.Half of the seasonal variation in algal oil content was due to changes in light andtemperature in outdoor large-scale cultures of a commercial strain (Nannochloropsisoculata). Seasonal changes also influence algal oil composition with more neutrallipids stored in cells during high light and temperature. Nitrogen (N) stress usuallyenhances lipid storage but suppresses biomass production. Our manipulationshowed that N stress produced more lipids while retaining biomass. Thus,projecting annual biomass and oil yields requires accounting for both seasonalchanges and N stress to optimize lipid production in commercial applications.Baltic Sea microalgae proved to be a potential biological solution to reduce CO2emissions from cement flue gas with valuable biomass production. A multi-speciescultivation approach rather than single-species revealed that natural or constructedcommunities of microalgae can produce equivalent biomass quality. Diversecommunities of microalgae can offer resilience and stability due to more efficientresource utilization with less risk of contamination, less work and cost for culturemaintenance.Stable algal biomass production (annual basis) was achieved in outdoor pilot-scale(1600 L) cultivation of Baltic Sea natural communities using cement flue gas as aCO2 source. Results indicate favorable algal oil content at northern Europeanlatitudes compared to southern European latitudes.My thesis establishes the potential of cultivating microalgae as a bioresource inScandinavia, and using a community approach may be one step towardssustainable algal technology.

Ertrag und Produktqualität sind entscheidende Größen, um die Vermarktung und Erlöse im ökologischen Heil- und Gewürzpflanzenanbau zu verbessern. Ein hoher Gehalt an Wert gebenden Inhaltsstoffen, geringe Anteile an Beimengungen (Schmutz, Fremdbestandteile), Rückstandsfreiheit an Pflanzenschutzmitteln, niedrige Gehalte an toxischen Schwermetallen und Nitrat sind dabei wichtige Qualitätskriterien, die durch anbautechnische Maßnahmen beeinflussbar sind. Hier sollen für wichtige Heil- und Gewürzpflanzen praxisrelevante Ergebnisse vorgelegt und Anbauempfehlungen abgeleitet werden. Die Analyse der Anbau-, Verarbeitungs- und Vermarktungsstrukturen in Sachsen trägt darüber hinaus dazu bei, dass sich die Marktakteure auf diesem Sektor hinsichtlich ihres Angebotsprofils und der Anbau- und Verarbeitungsmöglichkeiten intensiver kennen lernen und neue Wirtschaftskontakte knüpfen können.

Palms are ecologically important and charismatic trees of the tropics. They are important to the livelihood of local communities and are key resources for the frugivore community in tropical forests. These frugivores are in turn hunted by humans for food. This ecological connection between human, palms, and frugivores provides a unique setting to study how cultural and ecological components within this multitrophic interaction influences palm populations. In chapter 1, I explored the traditional and ecological knowledge behind the cultivation of palm-weevil larvae for food. I found the Joti people, cultivated two species of weevil-larvae differently, which also determined whether palms were logged before or after reproductive maturity. The cultivation of each weevil-larvae species therefore had a differential impact on palm populations. In chapter 2, I investigated how frugivores mediate interactions between two dominant and co-occuring palms in the Peruvian Amazonia-- Attalea phalerata and Astrocaryum murumuru. I found frugivores codispersed seeds of the two palm species, which contributed to aggregated spatial patterns of their juveniles. Spatial patterns suggested associations between heterospecific palms experienced lower density-dependent mortality than associations between conspecifics and this likely contributes to the coexistence of the two palm species in their early life-history. These findings highlight the importance of dispersers to species coexistence and suggest over-hunting can lead to shifts away from species codominance. In chapter 3, I examined the contribution of dispersal, distance-and density-dependent to spatial ecology of Attalea phalerata. Using microsatellite-based parentage analysis, I found high levels of seed movement mediated by frugivore dispersers. Despite this, I found dispersal limitation remains strong enough to cause spatial aggregation between offspring and parents. As individuals grew towards maturity, distance and density dependent mortality contributed to increasingly disaggregated patterns between older offspring cohorts of parents, non-parent adults, and siblings. These results provide a foundation for assessing the impacts of hunting on the spatial ecology of palm populations. In chapter 4, we characterized 14 microsatellite loci for A. phalerata that were used in the parentage analysis of chapter 3. These loci amplified reliably and were sufficiently polymorphic and will be useful for future studies addressing population-level questions for this species. / text

Σκοπός της παρούσας μελέτης είναι η χαρτογράφηση των καλλιεργειών του Νομού Αιτωλοακαρνανίας. Στη συνέχεια αφού γίνεται απολογισμός της χαρτογράφησης καθώς και περιγραφή των καλλιεργούμενων εκτάσεων για το έτος 2012 ακολουθεί ο ρόλος του μάρκετινγκ στα αγροτικά προϊόντα. Έπειτα γίνονται προτάσεις για τους παραγωγού που θέλουν να εισχωρήσουν με το παραγόμενο προϊόν τους σε μια αγορά. / The purpose of this study is to map crop Aitoloakarnania. Then after taking stock of the mapping and description of cultivated land in the year 2012 followed by the role of marketing in agricultural products. Following are recommendations for producers who want to penetrate with the product in a market.

In order to determine if weed control as practised during the establishment phase of tree growth had a beneficial and long term (over a six to eight year rotation) impact on tree performance, a Eucalyptus hybrid clone (GC304) was planted in a field trial in 1990. The trial was situated in the coastal Zululand region near the KwaZulu-Natal town of Mtunzini. Nine different vegetation management treatments were imposed from establishment. These included a weedy control, a manually weeded treatment, a chemically weeded treatment, a 1.2 m row and 1.2 m inter-row weeding, a 0.5 m radius ring weeding, a complete weeding except for a 0.5 m radius ring around the tree, and the use of two legume cover-crops, Mucuna puriens (cowpea) and Vigna sinensis (velvet bean). Initial improvements in tree performance from these competition control treatments were detected from 60 days after planting, and were maintained over seven growing seasons. This occurred despite the absence of competitive vegetation after the first growing season due to reduced light, following crown canopy closure. There were strong indications that initial competition was mainly for moisture and possibly also for nutrients, rather than competition for light. Initially those trees that had weeds within their immediate vicinity were most affected (weedy control, inter-row weeding and the complete weeding except for a 0.5 m radius around the tree). With time, tree performance was more closely related to an increase in the percentage of the area kept free of weeds. The best performing treatment at felling, the manually weeded control, produced 17.1 % and 38.5 % more merchantable timber than the 1.2 m row weeding and the weedy control, at an increased profit of 8 % and 27 %, respectively. Two forms of competition (interspecific and intraspecific competition) were evident in the weedy control at different stages of tree development in contrast to the one (intraspecific competition) in the manually weeded treatment. Interspecific competition resulted in greater variability between the trees in the weedy control by the time canopy closure had occurred. This differentiation in tree size was further enhanced by asymmetric intraspecific competition once the trees had become established. The onset of intraspecific competition was first detected 995 days after planting for the manually weeded treatment and 1641 days after planting for the weedy control. Of the various competition indices that were tested in order to try and explain this differential growth in terms of individual tree performance, none was able to do so to complete satisfaction. The growth rates of different tree size classes were therefore compared for the weedy control and manually weeded treatment. The diverging slopes of the different stem area classes indicated that the larger trees were growing at the expense of the smaller trees. This type of competition is known as asymmetric intraspecific competition. In addition, a comparison was made between the slopes for the weedy and weedfree treatments for similar stem area classes. No significant difference was detected, indicating that similar size classes in these two treatments grew at similar rates. Trees from three treatments were selected (manually weeded treatment, 1.2 m row weeding treatment and the weedy control) and tested for the wood and pulping properties of density, active alkali consumption, extractable content, screened pulp yield, pulp yield per hectare and fibre length and coarseness. The use of Canonical Variate Analysis to determine if there were differences between the three treatments for the variates measured, indicated that they were significantly different. There was a significantly positive trend of an increase in density, extractable content and active alkali consumption with increased weed control. A possible explanation for this could be that the larger trees of the manually weeded treatment were under more stress (from increased intraspecific competition) during the latter phase of their growth. This was demonstrated by comparing the growth rates for these three treatments. The smaller trees of the 1.2 m row weeding treatment and the weedy control exhibited a lower rate of decline. As no significant difference was detected for screened pulp yield between the treatments, any differences in the pulp yield per hectare values could be attributed to differences in the merchantable volume. There was a 22.6 % and 40.8 % increase in the pulp yield per hectare for the manually weeded treatment in comparison to the 1.2 m row weeding treatment and the weedy control. The planting of cover-crops, although beneficial in terms of weed suppression, caused significant tree suppression. This occurred despite the fact that their initial biomass accumulation was slower than that of the natural weed population. Of the two cover-crops, the use of the velvet bean was not considered suitable due to its vigorous vining habit which affected the growth form of the trees. Subsequent work suggests that if the beneficial qualities of cowpeas are to be realised (that of weed suppression, erosion control and nitrogen fixation), a delay in their planting by three months after establishment of the trees should alleviate any negative impacts on tree growth. / Thesis (Ph.D.)-University of Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 1999.

South Africa is not well endowed with indigenous forests which are now known to be degraded and declining at unknown rates. This constitutes a direct threat to quality of life of the resource-poor rural households who directly depend on them and to ecological integrity. It is also recognised that the declining tree resources, particularly the high value indigenous tree species, are increasingly threatened by a number of growing subsistence demands. This emphasised the need to cultivate and conserve high-value tree species such as Englerophytum natalense, Ptaeroxylon obliquum and Millettia grandis on-farm in Umzimvubu District. Agroforestry is recognised as a viable option for optimising land productivity, reducing pressure on the indigenous forests, ensuring a sustainable supply of desired tree products and services and improving the quality of life of the resource-poor rural households. This Thesis examines whether agroforestry in Umzimvubu District and similar areas of South Africa has the potential for addressing these needs. It recognises that for successful initiation, implementation and adoption, agroforestry should be considered at two levels, namely, household and institutional. Responses based on structured questionnaires were obtained at these levels. Questionnaires were used to determine whether the households and institutions were aware of, and responding to, the need to intensify and diversify on-farm production, ease pressure on indigenous forest, improve income opportunities and problem solving capacities to address agroforestry related issues. An ecological inventory of E. natalense, P. obliquum and M grandis was carried out to provide a sound basis for integrating high-value species into appropriate agroforestry systems and to facilitate the preparation of future management guidelines for these resources in Mt. Thesiger Forest Reserve. The study: i) confirms that most high value indigenous tree species merit integration into subsistence farming systems through agroforestry, ii) appreciates that some rural households have been unknowingly practising agroforestry, iii) recognises that agroforestry is implied in South Mrica's White Paper on Sustainable Forest Development of 1997, but notes that similar emphasis has not been adopted or incorporated in the National Forestry Action Programme of 1997, and iv) notes that challenges to promoting agroforestry research and development in the South Mrican context of the institutions and resource-poor rural households are many, but can be resolved. The study concludes that agroforestry stands to benefit many resource-poor rural households and enhance environmental resilience in South Africa in the next millennium. / Thesis (M.Sc.) - University of Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 1999.

This thesis explores how Katuic-speaking indigenous groups in the Central Annamitic Cordillera of Vietnam and Laos understand their environment – hills, streams and forest. Katuic eco-cosmology assumes that the natural landscape is imbued with spirit agents, with whom people must continuously communicate lest misfortune will strike and their livelihoods fail. The thesis posits the hypothesis that these spirit beliefs, and a variety of taboo notions accompanying them, can be interpreted as expressions of a complex socio-environmental adaptation. Today, the indigenous groups in the study region are confronted with a massive development- and modernisation push on two fronts – that of the global development industry on the one hand, and the implementation of national development policies and programs as part of the high-modernist state project in communist Vietnam and Laos, on the other. A second objective of the thesis, then, is to examine the effects of this multi-layered and multi-scaled confrontation on indigenous cosmology, livelihood and landscape. It is argued, this confrontation at the development frontier can be conceived of as an interface between different ontologies or reality posits – one animist, articulated in a relational stance towards the landscape; the other, a naturalist or rationalist ontology, expressed as an objectivist stance towards nature and embodied in the high-modernist development schemes and programs unfolding in the region with the aim of re-engineering its indigenous societies and exploiting its natural resources.      Large parts of the Central Annamites were severely impacted by the Vietnam War; uncounted numbers of minority people were killed, or had their villages destroyed or relocated while defoliants, bombs, and forest fires ravaged the landscape. In the decades that followed the war, the entire social and natural landscape has been reshaped by national development policies and the modernist visions that underpin them. The thesis attempts to understand this physical and cultural transformation of the landscape, focusing particularly on the gradual breakdown of the complex indigenous socio-religious institutions that appear to have played an important functional role in maintaining the pre-war structure of the landscape. The thesis is based primarily on fieldwork carried out between 2004 and 2009 in the provinces of Quảng Nam and Thừa Thiên–Huế in Vietnam and Sekong in Laos.

In the research field of the cultivation theory focus has shifted from TV in general to studying specific genres instead. It is proposed that there are similarities in otherwise different shows and that these shows give it´s voyeurs a solution to their problems.  The purpose however of this study is to investigate how the myth about the good life is posed in Tv3´s supply.  The theories used in this study are closely linked by their meaning. Narrative talks about the fact that texts, video in this case, contain stories. Ideology is the set of visions and beliefs one person has on the world and myth makes social, historic and cultural decided power orders in to facts. All of these are used with a qualitative semiotic analysis which studies signs in texts, pictures and more. It searches for a deeper meaning in the content and with this method can we see what Tv3 says to its voyeurs.   Through our material Tv3 states that success is in terms of either achieving our dreams or to have so much money that you don’t have to look at the price tag. It´s however the individual's responsibility for both their success and their failure and upon failure the individual should do whatever it takes to fix it, often with help by experts in the field. When it comes to love and the search for the right person, this is part of the good life but it is not the most important part. Although a good life is based on individual responsibility, the individual is so also given directives on how this should be done by the society. An important part of this is society's various power structures and the authorities that constitute them. These authorities, often in the judiciary, represent the good life and the individual’s goal. To get to the top of the hierarchy, the individual must play a game in which tactical moves and strategies are of importance, the game of life.   Our findings propose that all responsibility lies on the individual, even if society is influencing an individual's decision. Success is seen in terms of achieved dreams, money and love. How to reach this is not relevant since all means are permitted, life is a game after all. Society stands for the moral bit and its power structures. But with the help of it, the individual may find its target. It is society that provides the map to the individual, the compass to finding the good life.

Antarctic glacier forfields are extreme environments and pioneer sites for ecological succession. The Antarctic continent shows microbial community development as a natural laboratory because of its special environment, geographic isolation and little anthropogenic influence. Increasing temperatures due to global warming lead to enhanced deglaciation processes in cold-affected habitats and new terrain is becoming exposed to soil formation and accessible for microbial colonisation. This study aims to understand the structure and development of glacier forefield bacterial communities, especially how soil parameters impact the microorganisms and how those are adapted to the extreme conditions of the habitat. To this effect, a combination of cultivation experiments, molecular, geophysical and geochemical analysis was applied to examine two glacier forfields of the Larsemann Hills, East Antarctica. Culture-independent molecular tools such as terminal restriction length polymorphism (T-RFLP), clone libraries and quantitative real-time PCR (qPCR) were used to determine bacterial diversity and distribution. Cultivation of yet unknown species was carried out to get insights in the physiology and adaptation of the microorganisms. Adaptation strategies of the microorganisms were studied by determining changes of the cell membrane phospholipid fatty acid (PLFA) inventory of an isolated bacterium in response to temperature and pH fluctuations and by measuring enzyme activity at low temperature in environmental soil samples. The two studied glacier forefields are extreme habitats characterised by low temperatures, low water availability and small oligotrophic nutrient pools and represent sites of different bacterial succession in relation to soil parameters. The investigated sites showed microbial succession at an early step of soil formation near the ice tongue in comparison to closely located but rather older and more developed soil from the forefield. At the early step the succession is influenced by a deglaciation-dependent areal shift of soil parameters followed by a variable and prevalently depth-related distribution of the soil parameters that is driven by the extreme Antarctic conditions. The dominant taxa in the glacier forefields are Actinobacteria, Acidobacteria, Proteobacteria, Bacteroidetes, Cyanobacteria and Chloroflexi. The connection of soil characteristics with bacterial community structure showed that soil parameter and soil formation along the glacier forefield influence the distribution of certain phyla. In the early step of succession the relative undifferentiated bacterial diversity reflects the undifferentiated soil development and has a high potential to shift according to past and present environmental conditions. With progressing development environmental constraints such as water or carbon limitation have a greater influence. Adapting the culturing conditions to the cold and oligotrophic environment, the number of culturable heterotrophic bacteria reached up to 108 colony forming units per gram soil and 148 isolates were obtained. Two new psychrotolerant bacteria, Herbaspirillum psychrotolerans PB1T and Chryseobacterium frigidisoli PB4T, were characterised in detail and described as novel species in the family of Oxalobacteraceae and Flavobacteriaceae, respectively. The isolates are able to grow at low temperatures tolerating temperature fluctuations and they are not specialised to a certain substrate, therefore they are well-adapted to the cold and oligotrophic environment. The adaptation strategies of the microorganisms were analysed in environmental samples and cultures focussing on extracellular enzyme activity at low temperature and PLFA analyses. Extracellular phosphatases (pH 11 and pH 6.5), β-glucosidase, invertase and urease activity were detected in the glacier forefield soils at low temperature (14°C) catalysing the conversion of various compounds providing necessary substrates and may further play a role in the soil formation and total carbon turnover of the habitat. The PLFA analysis of the newly isolated species C. frigidisoli showed that the cold-adapted strain develops different strategies to maintain the cell membrane function under changing environmental conditions by altering the PLFA inventory at different temperatures and pH values. A newly discovered fatty acid, which was not found in any other microorganism so far, significantly increased at decreasing temperature and low pH and thus plays an important role in the adaption of C. frigidisoli. This work gives insights into the diversity, distribution and adaptation mechanisms of microbial communities in oligotrophic cold-affected soils and shows that Antarctic glacier forefields are suitable model systems to study bacterial colonisation in connection to soil formation. / Gletschervorfelder der Antarktis stellen extreme Habitate dar und sind Pionierstandorte biologischer Sukzession. Insbesondere unter Berücksichtigung zuletzt beobachteter und vorausgesagter Erwärmungstrends in der Antarktis und der Relevanz der Mikroorganismen für das Antarktische Ökosystem, ist es essentiell mehr Informationen über die Entwicklung frisch exponierter Gletschervorfelder zu erlangen. Ziel dieser Studie ist es, die Struktur und Entwicklung bakterieller Gletschervorfeldgemeinschaften zu verstehen, insbesondere wie die Mikroorganismen von den Bodenparametern beeinflusst werden und wie diese sich an die extremen Bedingungen des Habitats anpassen. Für die Untersuchung der Proben von zwei Gletschervorfeldern aus den Larsemann Bergen der Ostantarktis diente eine Kombination aus Kultivierungsexperimenten und molekularen, geophysikalischen und geochemischen Analysen. Die untersuchten Gletschervorfelder sind durch extrem niedrige Temperaturen, einer geringen biologischen Wasserverfügbarkeit und oligotrophe Nährstoffgehalte charakterisiert und zeigen unterschiedliche Entwicklungsstufen in Verbindung zu den Bodenparametern. In einem frühen Schritt der Bodenbildung in der Nähe der Gletscherzunge sind die Gemeinschaften undifferenziert, doch mit fortschreitender Entwicklung nimmt de Einfluss von Wasser- und Nährstofflimitationen zu. Nachdem die Kultivierungsbedingungen den kalten und nährstoffarmen Bedingungen des Habitats angepasst wurden, konnten 108 koloniebildende Einheiten heterotropher Bakterien pro Gramm Boden angereichert und daraus 148 Isolate gewonnen werden. Zwei neue psychrotolerante Bakterien, Herbaspirillum psychrotolerans PB1T und Chryseobacterium frigidisoli PB4T, wurden detailiert charakterisiert und als jeweils neue Spezies beschrieben. Die Anpassungsstrategien der Mikroorganismen an die extremen antarktischen Bedingungen zeigten sich in der Aktivität extrazellulärer Enzyme bei niedriger Temperatur, die mit derer temperierter Habitate vergleichbar ist, und in der Fähigkeit der Mikroorganismen, die Fettsäurezusammensetzung der Zellmembran zu ändern. Eine neue Fettsäure, die bisher in keinen anderen Mikroorganismus gefunden wurde, spielt eine entscheidende Rolle in der Anpassung des neu-beschriebenen Bakteriums C. frigidisoli an niedrige Temperaturen und saure pH-Werte. Diese Arbeit gibt einen Einblick in die Vielfalt, Verteilung und Anpassung mikrobieller Gemeinschaften in nährstoffarmen und Kälte-beeinflussten Habitaten und zeigt, dass Antarktische Gletschervorfelder geeignete Modellsysteme, um bakterielle Besiedelung in Verbindung zu Bodenbildung zu untersuchen.

The consortia of microorganisms responsible for the hydrolysis of cellulose in situ are at present poorly characterized. Nonetheless, the importance of these communities is underscored by their capacity for converting biomass to greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide and methane. The metabolic capacities of these organisms is particularly alarming considering the volume of biomass that is projected to re-enter the carbon cycle in Arctic tundra soil environments as a result of a warming climate. Novel cold-adapted cellulase enzymes also present enormous opportunities for a broad range of industries. DNA stable-isotope probing (DNA-SIP) is a powerful tool for linking the phylogenetic identity and function of cellulolytic microorganisms by the incorporation of isotopically labelled substrate into nucleic acids. By providing 13C-enriched glucose and cellulose to soil microcosms, it was possible to characterize the communities of microorganisms involved in the metabolism of these substrates in an Arctic tundra soil sample from Resolute Bay, Canada. A protocol for generating 13C-enriched cellulose was developed as part of this thesis, and a visual DNA-SIP protocol was generated to demonstrate the experimental outline. Denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis (DGGE) and 16S rRNA clone libraries were used to visualize changes in community structure and to identify prevalent, active phylotypes in the SIP incubations. Notably, predominant phylotypes changed over time and clustered based on substrate metabolism. Labelled nucleic acids identified by sequenced DGGE bands and 16S rRNA gene clone libraries provided converging evidence indicating the predominance of Clostridium and Sporolactobacillus in the 13C-glucose microcosms, and Betaproteobacteria, Bacteroidetes, and Gammaproteobacteria in the 13C-cellulose microcosms. Active populations consuming glucose and cellulose were distinct based on principle coordinate analysis of “light” and “heavy” DNA. A large portion of the recovered sequences possessed no close matches in the GenBank database, reflecting the paucity of data on these communities of microorganisms.