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Abstract Perceived novelty in mobile applications is an inevitable aspect of today's technologies. Studies suggest that this perceived novelty effect increases motivation but wanes once the user becomes accustomed to the product. Using a Self-Determination Theory approach, the present study investigates how different tools relate to students' motivation, basic psychological needs, and achievement, over and above the effect of perceived novelty. The results from a randomized controlled experiment show that a mobile-learning tool and a digital version of a textbook are perceived as more novel than a traditional textbook. However, only the mobile-learning tool enhances the students' basic psychological needs. Additionally, using path-analysis, we find that the mobile-learning tool, need-satisfaction within the mobile-learning tool, and autonomous motivation account for achievement and internalization, over and above the effect of novelty. We argue that this finding is due to the inherent need-supportive elements within the mobile-learning tool that satisfy the basic psychological needs. Highlights • Study investigating the novelty effect of different learning tools. • Mobile learning tool and digital textbook perceived as more novel relative to traditional textbook. • Mobile learning tool enhances achievement and need satisfaction relative to digital textbook and traditional textbook. • Path-analysis show that mobile learning tool uniquely enhances need satisfaction, autonomous motivation and internalization. • Results are in line with Self-Determination Theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the face of climate change, populations have two survival options − they can remain in situ and tolerate the new climatic conditions (“stay”), or they can move to track their climatic niches (“go”). For sessile and small-stature organisms like alpine plants, staying requires broad climatic tolerances, realized niche shifts due to changing biotic interactions, acclimation through plasticity, or rapid genetic adaptation. Going, in contrast, requires good dispersal and colonization capacities. Neither the magnitude of climate change experienced locally nor the capacities required for staying/going in response to climate change are constant across landscapes, and both aspects may be strongly affected by local microclimatic variation associated with topographic complexity. We combine ideas from population and community ecology to discuss the effects of topographic complexity in the landscape on the immediate “stay” or “go” opportunities of local populations and communities, and on the selective pressures that may have shaped the stay or go capacities of the species occupying contrasting landscapes. We demonstrate, using example landscapes of different topographical complexity, how species’ thermal niches could be distributed across these landscapes, and how these, in turn, may affect many population and community ecological processes that are related to adaptation or dispersal. Focusing on treeless alpine or Arctic landscapes, where temperature is expected to be a strong determinant, our theorethical framework leads to the hypothesis that populations and communities of topographically complex (rough and patchy) landscapes should be both more resistant and more resilient to climate change than those of topographically simple (flat and homogeneous) landscapes. Our theorethical framework further points to how meta-community dynamics such as mass effects in topographically complex landscapes and extinction lags in simple landscapes, may mask and delay the long-term outcomes of these landscape differences under rapidly changing climates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• We explore Cooperative Learning (CL) vs lectures in digital settings. • Digital CL, not digital lectures, positively affect students' psychosocial outcomes. • Sense of belonging, science confidence, generic skills, and loneliness are affected. • Traditional CL methods are transferable to synchronous digital settings. • The effect of CL in digital settings is at least as great as in physical settings. Identifying evidence-based teaching and learning strategies that can ease teacher challenges and mitigate student concerns in digital settings becomes increasingly important. In this intervention study we compared the effect of digital cooperative learning (CL) and digital lectures on a range of psychosocial outcomes, specifically students' sense of belonging, science confidence, perceived generic skills, and loneliness, among a Norwegian sample of undergraduate biology students (n = 71). Employing a one-group pretest/posttest quasi-experimental design with a double pretest and follow-up, we found that students' scores on psychosocial outcomes improved significantly following digital CL compared to digital lectures. Further, the effect sizes suggest that the effect of CL on psychosocial outcomes in digital settings is at least as substantial as in physical settings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights: [•] We assess the restoration potential of native forests after clear-felling of coniferous plantations. [•] Four years after clearing, the former plantations had developed many similarities to native birch forests. [•] Species richness and soil heterogeneity increased after clear-felling. [•] Vascular plants failed to be a good surrogate measure of bryophyte species richness change. [•] Plantation impacts of Picea abies on soil and biodiversity may be reversible. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

A survey of 153 acid grasslands from the Atlantic biogeographic region of Europe indicates that chronic nitrogen deposition is changing plant species composition and soil and plant-tissue chemistry. Across the deposition gradient (2–44 kg N ha−1 yr−1) grass richness as a proportion of total species richness increased whereas forb richness decreased. Soil C:N ratio increased, but soil extractable nitrate and ammonium concentrations did not show any relationship with nitrogen deposition. The above-ground tissue nitrogen contents of three plant species were examined: Agrostis capillaris (grass), Galium saxatile (forb) and Rhytidiadelphus squarrosus (bryophyte). The tissue nitrogen content of neither vascular plant species showed any relationship with nitrogen deposition, but there was a weak positive relationship between R. squarrosus nitrogen content and nitrogen deposition. None of the species showed strong relationships between above-ground tissue N:P or C:N and nitrogen deposition, indicating that they are not good indicators of deposition rate. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Evidence from an international survey in the Atlantic biogeographic region of Europe indicates that chronic nitrogen deposition is reducing plant species richness in acid grasslands. Across the deposition gradient in this region (2–44 kg N ha−1 yr−1) species richness showed a curvilinear response, with greatest reductions in species richness when deposition increased from low levels. This has important implications for conservation policies, suggesting that to protect the most sensitive grasslands resources should be focussed where deposition is currently low. Soil pH is also an important driver of species richness indicating that the acidifying effect of nitrogen deposition may be contributing to species richness reductions. The results of this survey suggest that the impacts of nitrogen deposition can be observed over a large geographical range. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The coastal heathlands of north-western Europe are endangered habitats of great conservation value. Invasion by bracken Pteridium aquilinum is a major challenge for conservation and restoration of these heathlands, including the under-studied northern regions. Today, the herbicide asulam is the most widely applied bracken control measure, but increasing focus on organic farming and nature conservation calls for alternative, preferably mechanical, approaches. In a 7-year replicated field experiment in western Norway, we investigated efficiencies of the four bracken control measures asulam, Gratil, annual cutting and biannual cutting, in restoring the characteristic heathland vegetation structure and species composition. We specifically tested herbicide effects on diversity and composition of non-target species. Effects of treatments over time were evaluated by repeated measures ANOVA, and for multivariate data, Principal Response Curves. Our results show that UK based control methods are largely applicable to bracken at its northern limit in the European heathland habitat. Asulam resulted in the fastest reduction in cover but cutting proved equally efficient long-term. Community compositions progressed towards desired heathland vegetation, but successional trajectories differed. Asulam had unintended effects on a number of heathland species not predictable by species characteristics or functional groups. Gratil failed to have any long-term effects. In summary, cutting is as efficient as herbicide application in reducing bracken, and more so in restoring northern heathland vegetation over time. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Inclusivity is fundamental to progress in understanding and addressing the global phenomena of biological invasions because inclusivity fosters a breadth of perspectives, knowledge, and solutions. Here, we report on how the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) assessment on invasive alien species (IAS) prioritized inclusivity, the benefits of this approach, and the remaining challenges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Biology students traditionally use a textbook in the field and on courses to identify species, but now a new mobile-application tool has been developed as an alternative. Guided by Self-Determination Theory (SDT) we conducted an experimental study to test the effect of the mobile-application, relative to the traditional textbook, on students' intrinsic motivation, perceived competence, and achievement. Seventy-one students were randomly assigned to either an experimental condition (mobile application - ArtsApp) or control condition (textbook - Lids flora). As hypothesised, the students using ArtsApp had higher intrinsic motivation, perceived competence, and achievement, compared to the textbook control group, with medium to large effect sizes. Furthermore, using the mobile application, relative to the textbook, predicted intrinsic motivation, which in turn, predicted higher achievement scores in a path analysis. Lastly in a hierarchical regression analysis, intrinsic motivation and autonomous motivation accounted over and above in students' interest for species identification, and importance of knowing species. These results are in line with SDT's theorising: emphasising that when students act out of interest, choice, and have an internal locus of causality, they achieve better outcomes, presumably because these satisfy students' psychological needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness. Factors facilitating this are interest, choice, and feedback, which we argue are in-built functions in the mobile application as opposed to the textbook, and which might account for the positive results. Further studies with several student-groups and complex designs are needed before inferring causality across educational levels. Based on the present study, we recommend that biology teachers in higher education employ mobile application tools in species identification due to increases in motivation and a higher degree of accurate identification of sedges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scaling approaches in ecology assume that traits are the main attributes by which organisms influence ecosystem functioning. However, several recent empirical papers have found only weak links between traits and ecosystem functioning, questioning the usefulness of trait-based ecology (TBE). We argue that these studies often suffer from one or more widespread misconceptions. Specifically, these studies often (i) conflict with the conceptual foundations of TBE, (ii) lack theory- or hypothesis-driven selection and use of traits, (iii) tend to ignore intraspecific variation, and (iv) use experimental or study designs that are not well suited to make strong tests of TBE assumptions. Addressing these aspects could significantly improve our ability to scale from traits to ecosystem functioning. The foundation of trait-based ecology (TBE) is built on trait–environment relationships. Strong tests of TBE require approaches that effectively and explicitly elucidate the links between phenotypes, differential fitness, community assembly, and ecosystem functioning. Testing the assumptions and mechanisms underlying these links will resolve current debates about the merits of TBE and advance the promise of a more predictive science. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Species Distribution Models (SDMs) generally ignore biotic processes. However, it has been shown that biotic interactions from lowland flora contribute to shape the “rear edge” of alpine plant distributions. In this study, we explored the potential effect of accounting for interactions from dominant lowland congeners representative for the lowland flora for predicting landscape scale distribution (1km grain) of two alpine plant species, Viola biflora and Veronica alpina. In a first classical approach, we include the lowland species probabilities of occurrence as covariates in the alpine species landscape scale models (covariate models). In a second novel approach, we first used SDMs to predict the distribution of the two alpine plants at the landscape scale. We then searched for interactive effects with the lowland species, and used this information to re-predict the landscape parts where alpine and lowland species were previously predicted to co-occur (abiotic+biotic models). Our ‘abiotic+biotic’ model improved model precision for both alpine species; but statistically significantly for Viola biflora only. In contrast, the classical covariate approach did not affect the prediction accuracy of Viola biflora and decreased the prediction accuracy for Veronica alpina. This seemed to be caused by collinearity between abiotic and biotic predictors, highlighting potential problems with the conventional method used to account for biotic interactions in SDM. Including potential effects of biotic interactions can improve predictions of alpine species’ ranges at the landscape scale. Ignoring biotic interactions in SDM may lead to biased predictions that are likely to overestimate realized climatic niches and so species distributions. The abiotic+biotic approach can constitute a robust method to account for biotic interactions in SDM. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Germination and seedling establishment are vulnerable stages in the plant life cycle. We investigated how seed mass and family (progeny origin) affect germination and juvenile performance in the grassland herb Knautia arvensis. Seeds were produced by cross-pollination by hand. The fate of 15 individually weighed seeds from each of 15 plants was followed during a 3-month growth chamber experiment. Progeny origin affected germination, both through seed mass and as an independent factor. Two groups of progenies could be distinguished by having rapid or delayed germination. The two groups had similar mean seed masses, but a positive relationship between seed mass and germination rate could be established only among the rapidly germinating progenies. These biologically relevant patterns were revealed because timing of germination was taken into account in the analyses, not only frequencies. Time-to-event data were analysed with failure-time methods, which gave more stable estimates for the relation between germination and seed mass than the commonly applied logistic regression. Progeny origin and seed mass exerted less impact on later characters like juvenile survival, juvenile biomass, and rosette number. These characters were not affected by the timing of germination under the competition-free study conditions. The decrease in the effect of progeny origin from the seed and germination to the juvenile stages suggests that parental effects other than those contributing to the offspring genotype strongly influenced the offspring phenotype at the earliest life stages. Further, the division of progeny germination patterns into two fairly distinct groups indicates that there was a genetic basis for the variation in stratification requirements among parental plants. Field studies are needed to elucidate effects of different timing of germination in the seasonal grasslands that K. arvensis inhabits. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Changes in both temperature and precipitation will affect snowmelt time at high elevation, thereby influencing plant reproduction and growth. Species can respond to changed climate with phenotypic plasticity or genetic adaptation, and these responses might vary at different levels of advanced and delayed snowmelt time. Here we mimicked future climate change projections for western Norway by transplanting individuals of Ranunculus acris towards warmer, wetter and warmer & wetter climates. And we replicated the experiment along regional-scale temperature and precipitation gradients. This setup resulted in both advanced (warmer and warmer & wetter transplants) and delayed (wetter transplants) snowmelt in the experimental sites. We recorded phenological development and growth over one growing season. The reproductive phenology of the transplanted R. acris individuals was affected by both phenotypic plasticity and genetic differences between populations of different origins, while growth showed only plastic responses. Plants expressed high plasticity to both advanced and delayed snowmelt time by acceleration of the onset of buds, flowers and fruits. Only the plants from wet and high-elevation sites showed a small response to advanced SMT. The late snowmelt time these populations experience could potentially cause high selection pressure leading to more constrains in plasticity. When grown under common conditions, plants from late snowmelt sites responded with earlier onset of phenological development, suggesting that the timing of snowmelt exerts strong selection on reproduction. To project species fates under future climate we need to consider the interplay between genetic adaptation and plastic responses under different climate contexts, especially towards the species range limits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How plants allocate biomass to different parts strongly affects vegetation dynamics and ecosystem processes and services such as productivity and carbon storage. We tested the hypothesis that plant size explains the majority of variation in the size of plant parts (as predicted by allometric partitioning theory, APT) and that additional variation is explained by optimal responses for a given individual reproductive state and environment (as predicted by optimal partitioning theory, OPT) for alpine-lowland species pairs from three genera of grassland plants ( Veronica , Viola and Carex ) sampled along orthogonal gradients in temperature and precipitation. We found general patterns of allometric scaling (allometric exponents) of roots, stems, leaves and flowers, more or less as predicted by APT, and these patterns remained fairly constant across temperature and precipitation gradients. In contrast, basic allocation (allometric coefficients) was clearly related to climate, such as less allocation to leaves but more to roots, stems and flowers with increasing temperatures, in accordance with OPT. Furthermore, our results show that basic allocation is related to habitat affinity (alpine, lowland) and individual life-history states (reproductive or not) and that there is greater variability in small plants, which suggests that biomass partitioning theory should consider both the life-history and ecology of small plants to accurately predict climate-related grassland plant allocation and its implications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• We present an index-based assessment of ecological condition (IBECA). • We test the methodology using a regional case study in central Norway. • We investigate how IBECA aligns with two international frameworks. • We discuss challenges in indicator development and ecological condition assessments. • IBECA provides a transparent, flexible, cost-effective and management relevant tool. Sustainable nature management and ecosystem conservation depends critically on scientifically sound and stakeholder-relevant analytical frameworks for monitoring and assessing ecological condition. Several general frameworks are currently being developed internationally, including the Essential Biodiversity Variables (EBV), and the UN's SEEA EEA Ecosystem Condition Typology (ECT). However, there has so far been few attempts to develop empirical implementations of these general frameworks, or to assess their applicability for environmental decision-making at national or regional scales. In this paper, we aim to fill this implementation gap by demonstrating a practical application of an empirically-based ecological condition assessment framework, the Index-Based Ecological Condition Assessment (IBECA). IBECA defines seven major classes of indicators of ecological condition, representing distinct ecosystem characteristics, and empirically synthesizes indicators for each of these characteristics from various monitoring data. We exemplify and explore the utility and robustness of IBECA using a case study from forest and alpine ecosystems in central Norway, and we investigate how IBECA aligns with the two international frameworks EBV and ECT. In particular, we analyze how the different approaches to categorize indicators into classes affect the assessment of ecological condition, both conceptually and using the case study indicators. We used eleven indicators for each of the two ecosystems and assessed the ecological condition according to IBECA for i) each individual indicator, ii) the seven ecosystem characteristics (indicator classes), and iii) a synthetic ecological condition value for the whole ecosystem. IBECA challenges key concepts of the international frameworks and illustrates practical challenges for national or regional level implementation. We identify three main strengths with the IBECA approach: i) it provides a transparent and management-relevant quantitative approach allowing assessment of spatio-temporal variation in ecological condition across indicators, characteristics and ecosystems, ii) the high degree of flexibility and transparency facilitates updating the ecological condition assessments, also back in time, as improved data and knowledge of indicators emerge, and iii) the quantitative and flexible procedure makes it a cost-effective approach suitable for fast management implementations. More generally, we stress the need for carefully choosing appropriate classification and aggregation approaches in ecological condition assessments, and for transparent and data-driven analytical approaches that can be adjusted as knowledge improves. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• We present five conceptual approaches for setting indicator reference values. • We present four conceptual approaches for setting indicator limit values. • The choice of approach depends on data availability, coverage and type. • We discuss practical considerations and possible solutions to setting these values. • We aim to contribute to development and practical use of this type of value setting. Effective evidence-based nature conservation and habitat management relies on developing and refining our methodological toolbox for detecting critical ecological changes at an early stage. This requires not only optimizing the use and integration of evidence from available data, but also optimizing methods for dealing with imperfect knowledge and data deficiencies. For policy and management relevance, ecological data are often synthesized into indicators, which are assessed against reference levels and limit values. Here we explore challenges and opportunities in defining ecological condition in relation to a reference condition reflecting intact ecosystems, as well as setting limit values for good ecological condition , linked to critical ecological thresholds in dose–response relationships between pressures and condition variables. These two concepts have been widely studied and implemented in aquatic sciences, but rarely in terrestrial systems. In this paper, we address practical considerations, theoretical challenges and possible solutions using different approaches to determine reference and limit values for good ecological condition in terrestrial ecosystems, based on empirical experiences from a case study in central Norway. We present five approaches for setting indicator reference values for intact ecosystems : absolute biophysical boundaries, reference areas, reference communities, ecosystem dynamics based models, and habitat availability based models. We further present four approaches for identifying indicator limit values for good ecological condition : empirically estimated values, statistical distributions, assumed linear relationships, and expert judgement-based limits. This exercise highlights the versatile and robust nature of ecological condition assessments based on reference and limit values for different management purposes, for situations where knowledge of the underlying relationships is lacking, and for situations limited by data availability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]