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Metabarcoding of urban and forest bird faecal samples
We captured birds in urban parks and peri-urban forests in the cities of Lugano, Zurich (Switzerland) and Napoli (Italy). The urban sites were located in urban forests (Lugano, Napoli) and in a cemetery (Zurich). Bird faecal samples were stored in a screw-capped tube (2 ml), which was previously filled with 1 ml ethanol puriss. (Sigma-Aldrich) under sterile conditions. We wore single-use nitrile gloves and used sterile toothpicks to collect solid samples. The tubes were initially stored in the refrigerator during the field campaign and no later than seven days after collection at -20°C until prepared for DNA extraction. DNA extraction and library preparation was performed at WSL Phytopathology facilites, Sequencing was performed at Lausanne Genomic Technologies Facility (University of Lausanne; https://wp.unil.ch/gtf/) on an AVITI benchtop sequencing system (Element Biosciences). Bioinformatics was performed at the Genetic Diversity Center (ETH Zurich) using a custom pipeline.
Faktenblätter und Leitfaden für Hochwasserschätzmethoden in der Praxis
(English version below) Ziel dieser Faktenblätter ist es Informationen zu den Schätzmethoden, Hinweise zur Parametrisierung und eine grobe Einschätzung der Güte der Resultate in übersichtlicher Form bereitzustellen. Ein zeitaufwändiges Zusammensuchen dieser Informationen aus unterschiedlichen Quellen entfällt daher weitgehend. Die Bearbeitenden sollen damit in der Lage sein, sich innerhalb weniger Minuten die wichtigsten Hintergrundinformationen zu jeder der vorgestellten Methoden in Erinnerung zu rufen. Der Leitfaden unterstützt bei der Plausibilisierung und bei der Mittelung der Ergebnisse der einzelnen Schätzmethoden zu einem repräsentativen Endergebnis. Vorausgesetzt wird Grundwissen und Erfahrung in der Thematik. Der Leitfaden führt die Fachperson anhand eines Entscheidungsbaums in acht Schritten durch den Arbeitsablauf und unterstützt mit einem Fragenkatalog bei der Plausibilisierung der Ergebnisse. Auf den Faktenblättern sind für jede Schätzmethode alle relevanten Informationen stichwortartig und grafisch übersichtlich auf einer DIN-A4 Seite zusammengefasst. Jedes Faktenblatt ist einheitlich gegliedert. The aim of these fact sheets is to provide information on the flood estimation methods, notes on their parameterization and a rough assessment of the quality of the results in a clear form. A time-consuming research for this information from different sources is therefore largely eliminated. The users should be able to recall the most important background information on each of the methods presented within a few minutes. The guide provides support in checking plausibility and averaging the results of the individual estimation methods to produce a representative final result. Basic knowledge and experience in the subject are assumed. The guide leads the expert through the workflow in eight steps using a decision tree and supports the plausibility check of the results with a list of questions. On the fact sheets, all relevant information for each estimation method is summarized with key words and graphics on one DIN A4 page. Each fact sheet has a standardized structure.
Torymus sinensis local and regional early population dynamics in the Insubrian and Piedmont regions
This dataset contains the population evolution of a pest and its biocontrol agent in terms of presence proportion at gall level and absolute number of insects. The study area extends from the Cuneo region (Piedmont, Italy) to southern Switzerland. In order to provide a complete range of data covering the entire process from the pest arrival to complete biological control by its natural enemy T. sinensis, a space-for-time substitution approach has been adopted so as to create a temporal gradient of the epidemic stages over the whole study area. The southernmost Swiss sites roughly represent the arrival and establishment of the pest without the presence of the natural enemy, the central ones the early epidemic stage and the epidemic peak, whereas the northern ones the end of the epidemic with the beginning of the biocontrol. The Italian ones represent the beginning of the equilibrium between the two population as well as the situation with stable T. sinensis populations on the long term. These data are used in the paper entitled: Torymus sinensis local and regional early population dynamics in the Insubrian and Piedmont regions
Sentinel-2 Vegetation Height Model Armenia
Countrywide vegetation height models (VHM) were generated for Armenia based on Copernicus Sentinel-2 imagery within the framework of the FORACCA project. “The Forest Restoration and Climate Change in Armenia” (FORACCA) project is funded by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC). The project is implemented by the Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow, and Landscape Research (WSL) in collaboration with Zoï Environment Network as well as the Forest Alliance of Armenia. A Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) model was trained in Switzerland to estimate the maximum vegetation height at the spatial resolution of the Sentinel-2 pixel of 10 m. Vegetation heights from the spatially higher-resolved VHM Lidar NFI were used as reference data for the CNN training. Then, the model was spatially transferred and VHMs for Armenia were generated annually based on available Sentinel-2 imagery from May – September of the respective year. Further details on the dataset and model to create the Sentinel-2 VHMs can be found in the paper Jiang et al. (2023, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.srs.2023.100099). Contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data.
Othmarsingen, Switzerland: Long-term forest meteorological data from the Long-term Forest Ecosystem Research Programme (LWF), from 1996 onwards
High quality meteorological data are needed for long-term forest ecosystem research, particularly in the light of global change. The long-term data series published here comprises almost 20 years of measurements for two meteorological stations in Othmarsingen in Switzerland where one station is located within a natural deciduous forest stand (OTB) with European beech (_Fagus sylvatica_; 120-140 yrs) and lime trees (_Tilia sp._; 120-140 yrs) as dominant tree species. A second station is situated in the very vicinity outside of the forest (field station, OTF). The meteorological time series are presented in hourly time resolution of air temperature, relative humidity, precipitation, photosynthetically active radiation (PAR) and wind speed. Othmarsingen is part of the Long-term Forest Ecosystem Research Programme (LWF) established and maintained by the Swiss Federal Research Institute WSL.
Base cation dynamics in an Oriental beech forest
Throughfall, litterflow and soil solution were sampled during one whole year under five Oriental beech trees in a mixed Hyrcanian beech forest. The amounts of Ca2+, Mg2+, K+ and Na+ in these fluxes were calculated based on their concentrations and the sampled volumes, and subsequently compared with the respective fluxes in the rainfall and soil solution of an adjacent forest gap. In addition six soil profiles, one close to every single tree and one in the forest gap, were analyzed for pH, CaCO3, organic matter and texture.
Sentinel-2 time series of Switzerland
We processed Sentinel-2 image time series from 2017 to 2023 for Switzerland with the Software FORCE (Frantz 2019) on the basis of [Sentinel-2 images](https://envidat.ch/#/metadata/sentinel-2-imagery-of-switzerland). The respective parameter files can be found here: [Github](https://github.com/TLKoch/Sentinel-2_CH). All the image time series consist of several TB and therefore access will be granted upon request. The available bands (in spatial reference system EPSG 3035) are the following: Red, Green, Blue, NIR, Red-Edge-1, Red-Edge-2, Red-Edge-3, SWIR-1, SWIR-2 The available indices (in spatial reference system EPSG 3035) are the following: CCI, CIRE, NDWI/NDMI, NDVI, EVI Processing On the basis of processed Sentinel-2 images for the 14 Sentinel-2 tiles covering Switzerland (T31TGN, T32TLT, T32TMT, T32UMU, T32TNT, T32TPT, T31TGM, T32TLS, T32TMS, T32TNS, T32TPS, T32TLR, T32TMR, T32TNR), we processed the image time series further with FORCE v. 3.7.8-12. We generated interpolated Sentinel-2 time series with a 5-day interval, corresponding to the theoretical revisit time of the Sentinel-2 satellites. It's important to note that the 5-day time series consist of interpolated and smoothed composites, not the original images. We used the radial basis convolutional filtering (RBF) available in the FORCE time series analysis (TSA) submodule (Schwieder et al. 2016). The RBF is similar to a spatial moving window average approach over time (Schwieder et al. 2016). We applied kernel width values of 10, 20, 30, and 50 days. We spectrally adjusted all the images to match Sentinel-2A, and we removed curve outliers and pixels that failed the quality checks for clouds and their shadows, snow, saturation, and limited illumination. The processed image time series are available in tiles of 30 by 30 km. Example images Uploaded is an example of the index EVI for one of the generated 30 by 30 km tiles located around the city of Zürich. The values are multiplied by 10.000. The time series spans the month of July from 2018.
Observed and simulated snow profile data
This data set includes information on all observed and simulated snow profiles that were used to train and validate the random forest model described in Mayer et al. (2022). The RF model was trained to assess snow instability from simulated snow stratigraphy. The data set contains observed snow profiles from the region of Davos (DAV subset, 512 profiles) and from all over Switzerland (SWISS subset, 230 profiles). For each observed snow profile, there is a corresponding simulated profile which was obtained using meteorological input data for the numerical snow cover model SNOWPACK. The information on the observed snow profile contains a Rutschblock test result including the depth of the failure interface. As part of the study described in Mayer et al. (2022), each observed snow profile was manually compared to its simulated counterpart and the simulated layer corresponding to the Rutschblock failure layer was identified. The data are provided in the following form: one file each per observed and simulated snow profile (2x512 files DAV, 2x230 files SWISS), two files (1 file DAV, 1 file SWISS) containing the observed information on snow instability, the allocation between observed and simulated failure layer, and all features extracted from the simulated weak layers that were used to develop the RF model.
Snowfarming data set Davos and Martell 2015
Two data sets obtained for snow farming projects (Fluela, Davos, CH and Martell, IT) in 2015. The data set contains for each site: * 10 cm GIS raster of snow depth calculated from terrestrial laserscanning surveys (TLS) in the end of winter season (April/May) * 10 cm GIS raster of snow depth calculated from TLS in the end of summer season (October) Input files for SNOWPACK model: * .sno: snow profile at the end of winter * .smet: meteorological data measured by weather stations in the area For more details see Grünewald, T., Lehning, M., and Wolfsperger, F.: Snow farming: Conserving snow over the summer season, The Cryosphere Discuss., https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-2017-93, in review, 2017.
Grassland restoration: nematodes and plant communities
This dataset contains all data on which the following publication below is based. Paper Citation: > Resch, M.C., Schütz, M., Graf, U., Wagenaar, R., van der Putten, W.H., Risch, A.C. 2019. Does topsoil removal in grassland restoration benefit both soil nematode and plant communities? Journal of Applied Ecology 56: 1782-1793. Please cite this paper together with the citation for the datafile. Methods Study area and experimental settings The study was conducted in a nature reserve (Eigental: 47° 27’ to 47° 29’ N, 8° 37’ E, 461 to 507 m a.s.l.) that is located on the Swiss Central plateau close to Zurich airport (Canton Zurich, Switzerland). The mean annual temperature in this area ranges from 8.9 to 10.6 °C, mean annual precipitation from 910 to 1260 mm [10-year average (2007-2017); MeteoSchweiz, 2018]. The main soil types are calcaric to gleyic Cambisol and Gleysols. The reserve was established in 1967 to protect small remnants of oligotrophic semi-natural grasslands (roughly 12 ha). The plant community can be characterized as Molinion and Mesobromion (semi-wet to semi-dry), depending on the site-specific groundwater level and slope inclination (Delarze, Gonseth, Eggenberg, & Vust, 2015). These remnants represent species-rich islands in an otherwise intensively managed agricultural landscape. Semi-natural grasslands covered an area of 60,000 ha in the Canton Zurich in 1939, however, by 2005 only roughly 600 ha remained (Baudirektion Kanton Zürich, 2007). In 1990, the government of Canton Zurich decided to enlarge the nature reserve Eigental. The goal was to incorporate eleven patches of 20 ha adjacent intensively farmed land and transform these patches into semi-natural grasslands. The patches had a different agricultural history, ranging from permanent (no tillage for >50 years) to temporary grassland (as part of crop rotation; last tillage <5 years). On all freshly integrated patches fertilization was stopped in 1992 and from then on biomass was harvested three times a year and removed. After 5 years without noticeable effects on vegetation composition, the Nature Conservation Agency of Canton Zurich decided to increase the restoration efforts. In 1995, a large-scale experiment was initialized to evaluate if certain treatments can facilitate restoration within a reasonable timeframe of 5 to 10 years after treatment implementation. The three restoration treatments used were: i. “Harvest only”: Plots are being mowed two to three times a year and the biomass is removed. ii. “Topsoil”: Topsoil was removed to a depth of 10 to 20 cm, depending on the depth of the O and A horizon, in four randomly selected areas within each of the eleven patches in late autumn 1995. The size of each topsoil removal area depended on individual patch size and was between 2700 and 7000 m2. iii. “Topsoil+Propagules”: Propagules from target vegetation were added on half of the area where topsoil was removed, using fresh, seed-containing hay originating from a mixture of semi-dry to semi-wet species-rich grasslands of local provenance (within a radius of 7 km). Hay applications were conducted twice in 1995 and 1996. Repeated applications were chosen to account for the low quantity of available plant material per transfer, since area ratio between receptor and donor sites was roughly 1:1. In addition, hand-collected propagules from 15 selected target species of regional provenance (within a radius of 30 km) were equally applied in 1996 and 1997. “Topsoil” and “Topsoil+Propagules” plots are mowed once a year, and the biomass is removed. Mowing on these plots started five years after the treatment was implemented. Eleven permanent plots of 5 m x 5 m were randomly established in each treatment to monitor the vegetation development. The experiment was complemented with 11 control plots that represent the initial state of intensively managed grasslands, further referred to as “Initial”, and 11 control plots that represent the targeted state of donor sites for “Topsoil+Propagules”, further referred to as “Target”. Consequently, the experiment consists of 55 plots (5 treatments x 11 replicates). Management of intensively used grasslands includes mowing and fertilizing (manure) between two to five times a year, as well as different tillage regimes (no tillage for >50 years; last time of tillage <5 years). Nematode and plant sampling Soil nematodes were sampled in 2 m x 2 m plots, randomly established at least 2 m away from the vegetation plots. We collected eight soil cores with a 2.2 cm diameter soil core sampler (Giddings Machine Company, Windsor, CO, USA) to a depth of 12 cm (representing the majority of the plant rooting system) in each plot at the beginning of July 2017. The eight cores within each replicate plot were combined, gently homogenized, placed in coolers and transported to the laboratory of NIOO in Wageningen, the Netherlands, within one week. Free-living nematodes were extracted from 200 g of fresh soil using Oostenbrink elutriator (Oostenbrink, 1960) and concentrated, resulting in 6 mL nematode solution. The nematode solution was subdivided into three subsamples, two for morphological identification and quantification, and one for molecular work (not used in this study). For morphological identification and quantification, nematodes were heat-killed at 90 °C and fixed in 4 % formaldehyde solution (final volume 10 mL per subsample). All nematodes in 1 mL of formaldehyde solution were counted, and a minimum of 150 individuals per 1 mL sample (or all if less nematodes were present) were identified to family level using Bongers (1988). We then extrapolated the numbers of each nematode taxa identified to the entire sample and expressed them per 100 g dry soil for further analyses. We calculated number of nematode taxa and Shannon diversity and assessed nematode community composition. In addition, we classified the nematode taxa into feeding types (herbivores, bacterivores, fungivores, omni-carnivores), structural and functional guilds (Table S4). Structural guilds assign nematode taxa according to life-history traits into five colonizer-persister (C-P) classes, ranging from one (early colonizers of new resources) to five (persisters in undisturbed habitats; Bongers 1990). C-P classes can be categorized as indicators for nutrient-enriched (C-P1), stressed (C-P2) and structured (C-P3 + C-P4 + C-P5) soil conditions (Ferris, Bongers, & de Goede, 2001). Functional guilds assign nematode taxa according to their C-P classification combined with their feeding habits (Ferris, Bongers, & de Goede, 2001). Based on the structural and functional guild classification we calculated five additional indices to assess soil nutrient status, disturbance and food web characteristics using NINJA (Sieriebriennikov, Ferris, & de Goede, 2014). 1) The Maturity index indicates the degree of different environmental perturbations (e.g., tillage, nutrient enrichment, pollution) and is used to monitor colonization and subsequent succession after disturbances (Bongers, 1990). 2) The ratio between the Plant Parasite (C-P of herbivorous nematodes only) to Maturity index is used to monitor the recovery of disturbed habitats incorporating information of life-history traits for all feeding types (Bongers, van der Meulen, & Korthals, 1997). 3) The Enrichment index indicates nutrient-enriched soils and agricultural management practices (Ferris, Bongers, & de Goede, 2001). 4) The Structure index provides information about the succession stage of the soil food web and therefore correlates with the degree of maturity of an ecosystem (Ferris, Bongers, & de Goede, 2001). 5) The Channel index provides information about the predominant decomposition pathways, where higher values stand for a higher proportion of energy transformed through the slow fungal decomposition channel (Ferris, Bongers, & de Goede, 2001). In addition, the Structure and Enrichment indices can be displayed in a biplot where nematode assemblages are plotted along a structure (x-axis) and enrichment (y-axis) trajectory (increasing index values). Each biplot quadrat reflects different levels of disturbance, soil nutrient pools and decomposition pathways (Ferris, Bongers, & de Goede, 2001). The plant surveys were conducted on the 25 m2 permanent plots in June 2017. Plant species cover was visually assessed according to the semi-quantitative cover-abundance scale of Braun-Blanquet (1964; nomenclature: Lauber & Wagner, 1996). We calculated number of species and Shannon diversity, and assessed plant community composition. We also counted the number of target species (all species recorded in the eleven target plots plus propagules of species applied by hand, resulting in a total of 143 species) and categorized plant species into species of concern based on their red list status in Switzerland as well as their protection status in Switzerland and the Canton Zurich (Moser, Gygax, Bäumler, Wyler, & Palese, 2002). Furthermore, we calculated indicator values for soil moisture and soil nutrients for each species according to Landolt et al. (2010). References Baudirektion Kanton Zürich (2007). 10 Jahre Naturschutz-Gesamtkonzept für den Kanton Zürich 1995-2005 – Stand der Umsetzung. Zürich: Baudirektion Kanton Zürich. Bongers, T. (1988). De nematoden van Nederland. Utrecht: Stichting Uitgeverij Koninklijke Nederlandse Natuurhistorische Vereniging. Bongers, T. (1990). The maturity index: an ecological measure of environmental disturbance based on nematode species composition. Oecologia, 83, 14-19. doi:10.1007/BF00324627 Bongers, T., van der Meulen, H., & Korthals, G. (1997). Inverse relationship between the nematode maturity index and plant parasite index under enriched nutrient conditions. Applied Soil Ecology, 6, 195-199. doi:10.1016/S0929-1393(96)00136-9 Braun-Blanquet, J. (1964). Pflanzensoziologie, Grundzüge der Vegetationskunde (3rd ed.). Wien: Springer. Delarze, R., Gonseth, Y., Eggenberg, S., & Vust, M. (2015). Lebensräume der Schweiz: Ökologie - Gefährdung - Kennarten (3rd ed.). Bern: Ott. Ferris, H., Bongers, T., & de Goede, R.G.M. (2001). A framework for soil food web diagnostics: extension of the nematode faunal analysis concept. Applied Soil Ecology, 18, 13-29. doi:10.1016/S0929-1393(01)00152-4 Landolt, E., Bäumler, B., Erhardt, A., Hegg, O., Klötzli, F., Lämmler, W., … Wohlgemuth, T. (2010). Flora indicativa. Ecological indicator values and biological attributes of the Flora of Switzerland and the Alps (2nd ed.). Bern: Haupt. Lauber, K., & Wagner, G. (1996). Flora Helvetica. Flora der Schweiz. Bern: Haupt. MeteoSchweiz (2018). Klimabulletin Jahr 2017, Zürich: MeteoSchweiz. Moser, D., Gygax, A., Bäumler, B., Wyler, N., & Palese, R. (2002) Rote Liste der gefährteten Farn- und Blütenpflanzen der Schweiz. Bern: BUWAL. Oostenbrink, M. (1960). Estimating nematode populations by some selected methods. In N.J. Sasser & W.R. Jenkins (Eds.), Nematology (pp. 85-101). Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. Sieriebriennikov, B., Ferris, H., & de Goede, R.G.M (2014). NINJA: An automated calculation system for nematode-based biological monitoring. European Journal of Soil Biology, 61, 90-93. doi:10.1016/j.ejsobi.2014.02.004