Natural rain forest fires in Eastern Borneo during the Pleistocene and Holocene

We thank B. Zentgraf for his basic and constructive ideas and his field support, R. Andi Abdoerrachman for logistic and technical support and E. Shimokawa, Kagoshima University, for providing a charcoal sample from Kutai National Park. We thank P. Becker-Heidmann, Isotope Dating Laboratory, University of Hamburg, for his immediate ¹⁴C-dating by Liquid Scintillation Counting, and Chr. Goedicke, Rathgen Research Laboratory, Staatliche Museen Preussischer Kulturbesitz Berlin, for immediate TL dating. M. A. Gill, C.S.I.R.O. Canberra, has critically reviewed this paper. This research was sponsored by the Volkswagen Foundation.     

Foresty offsets in emissions trading systems: a link between systems?

An important aspect in the linking of different emissions trading schemes is the degree to which these systems allow (or ban) external offset project categories. The EU Emission Trading Scheme (EU ETS) currently allows the use of credits from energy and industry projects developed under the Kyoto Protocol’s Joint Implementation (JI) and Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) but excludes the use of carbon credits from forestry projects for compliance in the EU ETS. Forestry credits generated by the CDM have a limited lifetime and expire at the end of a project’s crediting period, or earlier if the carbon stock for which the credits have been issued ceases to exist. According to the recently adopted amendment of the EU ETS Directive forestry credits will remain to be excluded until 2020. The present article reviews how the New South Wales Greenhouse Gas Abatement Scheme (Australia), the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (US) and the voluntary scheme of the Chicago Climate Exchange integrate forestry offsets into the respective system and how they deal with the risk of losing stored and credited biomass. By comparing the results of different scenarios this article shows how differences in the treatment of forestry offsets could impact the efforts to link various emission trading systems in future.

Effects of cultivation on N2O emission and seasonal quantitative variations of related microbes in a temperate grassland soil

ＩｎｔｒｏｄｕｃｔｉｏｎＡｔｍｏｓｐｈｅｒｉｃｎｉｔｒｏｕｓｏｘｉｄｅ (Ｎ2 Ｏ)ｉｓａｖｅｒｙｒａｄｉｏａｃｔｉｖｅｌｙａｃｔｉｖｅｇｒｅｅｎｈｏｕｓｅｇａｓ,ａｌｓｏｃｏｎｔｒｉｂｕｔｉｎｇｔｏｔｈｅｄｅｐｌｅｔｉｏｎｏｆｏｚｏｎｅｌａｙｅｒｏｆｓｔｒａｔｏｓｐｈｅｒｅ .ＡｔｍｏｓｐｈｅｒｉｃＮ2 Ｏｍａｉｎｌｙｏｒｉｇｉｎａｔｅｄｆｒｏｍｎｉｔｒｉｆｉｃａｔｉｏｎａｎｄｄｅｎｉｔｒｉｆｉｃａｔｉｏｎｉｎｔｅｒｒｅｓｔｒｉａｌｅｃｏｓｙｓｔｅｍｓ.Ｇｒａｓｓｌａｎｄｅｃｏｓｙｓｔｅｍ ,ａｃｃｏｕｎ…     

Human appropriation of net primary production as determinant of avifauna diversity in Austria

The relationship between land-use induced changes in production ecology and avifauna diversity was analysed using a GIS land cover dataset on a 0.25 km × 0.25 km grid covering Austria's national territory. Considering only aboveground processes, the “human appropriation of net primary production” (HANPP = potential NPP − NPP_t), actual NPP (NPP_act), harvest (NPP_h) and NPP_t (= NPP_act − harvest) were recalculated based on existing datasets. Elevation as well as indicators of land cover heterogeneity and landscape heterogeneity were also considered. Correlation analyses were performed between these potential determinants of avifauna diversity and breeding bird species richness data as well as the percentage of endangered breeding birds included in the Austrian red list. Four spatial scales—0.25 km × 0.25 km, 1 km × 1 km, 4 km × 4 km and 16 × 16 km, were analysed. It was shown that breeding bird species richness was more strongly correlated with production ecological indicators and elevation than with heterogeneity indicators. A residual analysis in which the effect of elevation (a proxy for climate) on species richness and its potential determinants was removed confirmed the importance of the availability of trophic energy (NPP) for bird diversity patterns. The results support the species-energy hypothesis, thus confirming the notion that HANPP could be a useful pressure indicator for biodiversity loss.     

Metamorphic evolution of eclogite and associated garnet-mica schist in the high-pressure metamorphic Maksyutov complex, Ural, Russia

Metasedimentary garnet-mica schists are interlayered with metabasic garnet–omphacite schists and enclose eclogite boudins in the high-pressure metamorphic Maksyutov complex in the Southern Urals, Russia. These three rock types were investigated in one outcrop and compared chemographically and thermobarometrically. The Fe/Mg distributions between garnet rim–omphacite and garnet rim–phengite pairs indicate different equilibration temperatures for the three samples, with the lowest temperature (500°C, >1.5 GPa) for the eclogite boudin, an intermediate temperature (630°C, >1.7 GPa) for the foliated eclogite and the highest temperature (650°C, >1.7 GPa) for the garnet-mica schist. The garnets in garnet-mica schist enclose abundant chloritoid relics and the Fe/Mg distribution between chloritoid and garnet records an earlier high-temperature stage (650°C, >2.0 GPa) before the garnet rim–phengite temperatures were reached. Together with some minimum- and maximum-pressure estimates three different prograde pressure–temperature paths and a common retrograde metamorphic evolution are interpreted from the chemographic and thermobarometric data. The different early metamorphic evolutions and conditions confirm the variability of protoliths, which are also indicated by different U/Pb zircon and rutile ages.