The GenTree Platform: growth traits and tree-level environmental data in 12 European forest tree species.

BACKGROUND: Progress in the field of evolutionary forest ecology has been hampered by the huge challenge of phenotyping trees across their ranges in their natural environments, and the limitation in high-resolution environmental information. FINDINGS: The GenTree Platform contains phenotypic and environmental data from 4,959 trees from 12 ecologically and economically important European forest tree species: Abies alba Mill. (silver fir), Betula pendula Roth. (silver birch), Fagus sylvatica L. (European beech), Picea abies (L.) H. Karst (Norway spruce), Pinus cembra L. (Swiss stone pine), Pinus halepensis Mill. (Aleppo pine), Pinus nigra Arnold (European black pine), Pinus pinaster Aiton (maritime pine), Pinus sylvestris L. (Scots pine), Populus nigra L. (European black poplar), Taxus baccata L. (English yew), and Quercus petraea (Matt.) Liebl. (sessile oak). Phenotypic (height, diameter at breast height, crown size, bark thickness, biomass, straightness, forking, branch angle, fructification), regeneration, environmental in situ measurements (soil depth, vegetation cover, competition indices), and environmental modeling data extracted by using bilinear interpolation accounting for surrounding conditions of each tree (precipitation, temperature, insolation, drought indices) were obtained from trees in 194 sites covering the species' geographic ranges and reflecting local environmental gradients. CONCLUSION: The GenTree Platform is a new resource for investigating ecological and evolutionary processes in forest trees. The coherent phenotyping and environmental characterization across 12 species in their European ranges allow for a wide range of analyses from forest ecologists, conservationists, and macro-ecologists. Also, the data here presented can be linked to the GenTree Dendroecological collection, the GenTree Leaf Trait collection, and the GenTree Genomic collection presented elsewhere, which together build the largest evolutionary forest ecology data collection available.

Regional variability of hemorrhage following tonsil surgery in 1,520,234 cases.

PURPOSE: To evaluate, whether the regional variability of tonsil surgery in terms of the 16 Federal States of Germany was mirrored by a comparable variability of bleeding complications in male and female patients. METHODS: A longitudinal population-based inpatient cohort study was performed including all patients who had undergone tonsil surgery between 2005 and 2018. The database was provided by the Federal Statistical Office of Germany and included all inpatient cases after tonsillectomy (with or without adenoidectomy), tonsillotomy, abscess-tonsillectomy and secondary tonsillectomy. The population was stratified by region (16 Federal States) and gender. Operation rates were calculated in relation to the end-year population number of each region. Bleeding percentages were calculated for each calendar year and region as the number of procedures to achieve hemostasis divided by the total number of operations. RESULTS: The surgical rates varied significantly between the 16 Federal States in male, female and all patients (p = 0.001). Revision surgery to achieve hemostasis was predominantly performed in male patients (5.2-11.4% male vs. 3.7-7.6% female patients). Bleeding percentages did not differ significantly from national values in male and female patients in 5 Federal States, but were significantly higher than the national average in 3 Federal States and significantly lower in 7 Federal States for both genders (p < 0.05), while in 1 Federal State it was significantly lower only for the male patients. Pearson's correlation coefficient for surgical and bleeding rates was positive and statistically significant (p < 0.05) for all Federal States, except for two. This phenomenon was emphasized by female gender. CONCLUSIONS: Gender had an impact not only on surgical rates but also on bleeding percentages and this was independent from the decrease in the total number of operations. Surprisingly, there was a clear correlation between the rates of both variables in the majority of the Federal States of Germany. It needs further studies to clarify, why a higher prevalence of surgical practice, thus surgical experience, was not followed by lower bleeding complications.

Identification of black pine (Pinus nigra Arn.) heartwood as a rich source of bioactive stilbenes by qNMR.

BACKGROUND: Recently published studies have demonstrated the strong anti-inflammatory properties of Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris L.) heartwood extracts, related to its stilbene content. In order to find alternative sources of Pinus heartwood extracts rich in stilbenes, a large number of samples were investigated, using a new developed high-throughput screening method based on quantitative nuclear magnetic resonance. RESULTS: The new method enabled us to measure the levels of pinosylvin, pinosylvin monomethyl ether and pinosylvin dimethyl ether in heartwood extracts in only 45 s per sample. The method was applied to 260 Pinus nigra trees originating from Peloponnese (southern Greece) from four different natural populations of the species. The results obtained showed that the total stilbenoids per dry heartwood weight varied greatly, ranging from 10.9 to 128.2 mg g-1drywood (average 59.92 ± 21.79 mg g-1drywood ). The major stilbene in all cases was pinosylvin monomethyl ether (40.32 ± 15.55 mg g-1drywood ), followed by pinosylvin (17.07±6.76 mg g-1drywood ) and pinosylvin dimethyl ether (2.54 ± 1.22 mg g-1drywood ). The highest stilbene content of P. nigra samples was found to be 6.3 times higher than the highest reported figure for P. sylvestris L. CONCLUSION: Pinus nigra heartwood is the richest source of pinosylvin and pinosylvin monomethyl ether identified to date and can be considered the best natural resource for production of bioactive extracts. © 2016 Society of Chemical Industry.

Forest genetic monitoring: an overview of concepts and definitions.

Safeguarding sustainability of forest ecosystems with their habitat variability and all their functions is of highest priority. Therefore, the long-term adaptability of forest ecosystems to a changing environment must be secured, e.g., through sustainable forest management. High adaptability is based on biological variation starting at the genetic level. Thus, the ultimate goal of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) to halt the ongoing erosion of biological variation is of utmost importance for forest ecosystem functioning and sustainability. Monitoring of biological diversity over time is needed to detect changes that threaten these biological resources. Genetic variation, as an integral part of biological diversity, needs special attention, and its monitoring can ensure its effective conservation. We compare forest genetic monitoring to other biodiversity monitoring concepts. Forest genetic monitoring (FGM) enables early detection of potentially harmful changes of forest adaptability before these appear at higher biodiversity levels (e.g., species or ecosystem diversity) and can improve the sustainability of applied forest management practices and direct further research. Theoretical genetic monitoring concepts developed up to now need to be evaluated before being implemented on a national and international scale. This article provides an overview of FGM concepts and definitions, discusses their advantages and disadvantages, and provides a flow chart of the steps needed for the optimization and implementation of FGM. FGM is an important module of biodiversity monitoring, and we define an effective FGM scheme as consisting of an assessment of a forest population's capacity to survive, reproduce, and persist under rapid environmental changes on a long-term scale.

Dynamic conservation of forest genetic resources in 33 European countries.

Dynamic conservation of forest genetic resources (FGR) means maintaining the genetic diversity of trees within an evolutionary process and allowing generation turnover in the forest. We assessed the network of forests areas managed for the dynamic conservation of FGR (conservation units) across Europe (33 countries). On the basis of information available in the European Information System on FGR (EUFGIS Portal), species distribution maps, and environmental stratification of the continent, we developed ecogeographic indicators, a marginality index, and demographic indicators to assess and monitor forest conservation efforts. The pan-European network has 1967 conservation units, 2737 populations of target trees, and 86 species of target trees. We detected a poor coincidence between FGR conservation and other biodiversity conservation objectives within this network. We identified 2 complementary strategies: a species-oriented strategy in which national conservation networks are specifically designed for key target species and a site-oriented strategy in which multiple-target units include so-called secondary species conserved within a few sites. The network is highly unbalanced in terms of species representation, and 7 key target species are conserved in 60% of the conservation units. We performed specific gap analyses for 11 tree species, including assessment of ecogeographic, demographic, and genetic criteria. For each species, we identified gaps, particularly in the marginal parts of their distribution range, and found multiple redundant conservation units in other areas. The Mediterranean forests and to a lesser extent the boreal forests are underrepresented. Monitoring the conservation efficiency of each unit remains challenging; however, <2% of the conserved populations seem to be at risk of extinction. On the basis of our results, we recommend combining species-oriented and site-oriented strategies.