Tropical rain forests only cover around six percent of the world?s land area and contain around 70 % of the world´s animals and plants. Tropical rainforests have been, and still are, negatively affected by human activities. These activities lead to forest degradation which has negative impacts on production and biodiversity. Between 1970-1980 forests in Borneo, Sabah, Malaysia, was subjected to intense logging.

A secondary and a pioneer tree species can with advantage be included in a mixed stand to increase the use of sunlight. Nitrogen-fixing plants have been shown to increase the supply of nitrogen in the soil by, for example, litter fall. This deposition acts as a biological fertilization, which may be used by non-fixing plants. Alder is a nitrogen-fixing, pioneer tree species that loses its nitrogen-rich leaves late in the autumn. The aim of this study was to examine the effect on the total volume of production, when different proportions of nitrogen-fixing Alder were part of spruce stands.

The common warthog (Phachocoerus africanus) is a relatively long-legged pig with noticeable curved tusks, a short neck and three pairs of facial warts. It has four recognized subspecies. The common warthog is a non-migratory ungulate living on the African savannah. It is a hindgut fermenter and predominantly dependent on high-quality foods. It prefers open areas for grazing but use bushes for cover.

The species in the genus bumblebees (Bombus) are important pollinators. In the world there are 250 bumblebee species and there are 34 species in Norway. The purpose of this study is 1) to assess changes in the species composition of bumblebees in twenty different places in Norway that have been inventoried first one time between 1939-1960 and the second time in 2012, and 2) to relate species richness and distributions to current landscape composition with the aid of orthophotos. In this study, I have used regression analyzes on the different bumblebee species that were present or absent at the inventory, using the premises of the following variables: low or high altitude, latitude, longitude and seven different types of land use (farmland, building/plots, open land/pasture, forest, wetland and open or snow-covered ground above the tree line) to see if there was any relationship between each species and the different variables. I have not analyzed what the landscape looked like at the first inventories and therefore we cannot say whether it has changed and if that is why species number has decreased. This would be interesting to study further and to see if there is any relationship between landscape changes and bumblebee?s species decline.

As birch is one of the most common trees in Sweden, and probably one of the easiest for someone who lives here to identify, it is interesting to note that most people do not know how variable the genus is and how widely it is distributed across the northern hemisphere. One can find birch growing at both high and low elevations, demanding different soil conditions and preferring varying amounts of sunlight. Many people may also be surprised to hear that the colour of the bark can vary from bight white to almost black, and different shades of pink, orange and red can also be displayed. This, together with the astonishing beauty of the genus, the important role as a pioneer in many ecological systems and the difficulty in sorting out the taxonomy of the genus, constitutes the background of this thesis. The thesis is written at the Department of Landscape Development in Alnarp, Sweden with Kenneth Lorentzon, researcher at the Swedish University of Agriculture as a supervisor. The aim of this thesis is to highlight which species and cultivars within the genus Betula could be appropriate for horticultural use in Sweden.

Zoos currently aim at keeping animals in as natural habitats as possible, since they havegone from displaying exotic animals to working with conservation of endangered species.It is therefore more common that zoos keep groups composed of two or more species in thesame enclosure. The aim of this report is to study why and how different species are held atzoos. Species in the wild can interact in different degrees depending on season andresources. When species are held together at zoos the space can be more effectively used,the animals increase their activity and the visitors increase their learning. Mixed speciesenclosures involve more work and risks of injury.

The study intends to find easily recognizable indicator species for water quality in the constructed wetland of Flemingsbergsviken. The study is relevant since indicator species can be difficult to determine for common people. Easily recognizable indicator species could improve dialogue between the scientific community, administrative authorities and the general public. Such species could be used in education systems, associations or in information campaigns. Therefore, I have chosen to refer to these species as didactical species.

This paper appeals to professionals working with green questions. It intends to create a discussion about which plant species that can be established in a fieldlayer of a naturelike planting on fertile agricultural land. To initiate the essay, a studie of which values that can be connected with an establishment of a fieldlayer was performed . A part of Tor Nitzelius Park in Alnarp, a so called naturlike planting on fertile agricultural land, was used as a model for the choice of species. With the aid of soil values, photos and a list of current species, interviews with four ecologists were performed.

Specialarbete, 15 hpSvenska som andraspråk, fördjupningskurs SSA133Vt 2012Handledare: Hans LandqvistExaminator:.

Various Fusarium species causes some of the most common cereal diseases worldwide. Besides the yield losses that can be a result of these diseases, strains from several Fusarium species can produce mycotoxins, some very toxic. The aim of this study was to investigate which Fusarium species and how many that occurred in winter wheat grains from Mälardalen and Kalmar län, if there was any difference in the distribution of Fusarium fungi between the regions and the potential within species to produce mycotoxins belonging to the group trichothecenes. Winter wheat grains collected in 2009 from ten fields (unsprayed plots) in the two regions were analysed for Fusarium species. PCR was used to amplify the TEF region where after the samples were sequenced.

In the tropics, logging and wild fire can result in degraded secondary forests with lower biodiversity than in the natural forest. One way to limit forest degradation is to rehabilitate the present large areas of secondary forests. However, there is a lack of knowledge concerning the ecology of tropical tree species and further studies would be advantageous for future rehabilitation efforts of degraded rainforest. The objective of this study was to investigate how mother trees in secondary forest and different site factors affect the abundance and spatial distribution of natural regeneration of non-pioneer tree species in a tropical rainforest in Sabah, Malaysia. The study took place in the INIKEA Forest Rehabilitation Project area, which suffered from wild fire in 1983 and has been selectively logged over both before and after the fire. Natural regeneration and site variables were inventoried in plots, while mother trees were inventoried in the whole survey area.

Continuously grazed grasslands have remarkably high plant species diversity. In Sweden this type of habitat has declined for the last two centuries. Changed land use has caused habitat fragmentation and loss of habitat quality. This has caused a great number of plant species to end up on the verge of extinction. To try to save this unique habitat and the species that are tied to it, lots of resources are laid on restoration of abandoned grasslands. In this study, plant species richness of continuously grazed, abandoned and restored grasslands were related to degree of overgrowth, time since overgrowth started and rate of overgrowth.

Alien plants that have intentionally been introduced to an area for cultivation in public or private gardens constitute the primary pathway of introduction for invasive alien species that spread into nature. Garden owners want species that have satisfying characteristics, these characteristics are often also linked to plant invasiveness. Thus, the horticulture industry plays an important role by making scientifically based decisions and phasing out invasive plants and replacing them with alternative species with satisfying characteristics, but low risks of becoming invasive. This thesis aimed to examine the sale of and the attitudes towards alien plants in the horticulture industry in Sweden. Alien terrestrial plants identified to have a severe risk, high risk or potentially high risk of spreading and becoming invasive according to ArtDatabankens assessment, were examined to see if they were for sale.

The climate affects animal populations through several processes. These processes includereproduction, phenology and the success of hunting. By influencing the phenology of species theclimate also affects the way species interact. If a climate-induced phenology change promotes abasal species to bud earlier in the spring for example, this will affect the links to other species inthe food web due to a time lag in the tropic levels above. This dependence, that a predator has tobeing synchronous to its prey, is called the match/mismatch hypothesis (MMH).

This report was an outcome of a cooperation between ?The Visitor and Knowledge Project Carl von Linné? and SLU, the Swedish University of Agricultural Science. The aim with the cooperation was to create a garden and to suggest suitable plants for an orangery already built. All species suggested should have a documented relationship with Carl von Linné. The project is located in the southern part of Sweden at an estate named Möckelsnäs not far away from Linné?s birthplace.