Calendar date of the beginning of the growing season at high altitude in the Colorado Rocky Mountains is variable but has not changed significantly over the past 25 years. This result differs from growing evidence from low altitudes that climate change is resulting in a longer growing season, earlier migrations, and earlier reproduction in a variety of taxa. At our study site, the beginning of ...

Many plant species have evolved the ability to flower in the proper season by sensing environmental cues. The prolonged cold of winter is one such cue that certain plants use to acquire competence to flower the following spring. For example, biennials and winter annuals become established in one growing season and often flower quickly in the early spring of the following year to complete their ...

The global climate change recorded over recent years may prompt changes in phenological events. The present study sought to analyse the varying impact of changes in weather conditions at different times of the year on woody-plant flowering, by analysing recent trends in airborne count for 3 pollen types abundant in Galicia belonging to the Fagales order: Alnus, which flowers in early winter; Be...

Seasonal changes in ultrastructure of locomotory muscle were quantified after acclimatization to natural temperature and photoperiod. Only modest changes were seen in the volume density (V(v)) of mitochondria in slow fibers ranging from 0.21 +/- 0.01 (summer) to 0.24 +/- 0.01 (winter), despite an increase in fiber size from 945 +/- 19 to 1,594 +/- 46 microm(2), respectively, resulting in a sign...

We measured annual net nitrogen (N) mineralization, nitrification, and amino acid production in situ across a primary successional sequence in interior Alaska, USA. Net N mineralization per gram dry soil increased across the successional sequence, but with a sharp decline in the oldest stage (black spruce). Net N mineralization expressed per gram soil organic matter exhibited the opposite patte...

Increasingly, cover crops are being adopted for the purpose of improving soil health, yet timescale and magnitude by which living annual might modify chemical biological aspects health is not well understood. At same time, there growing interest among farmers in crop mixtures due to perceptions that species-rich communities will enhance relative monocultures. In a field experiment southeast New...

Growing season conditions are widely recognized as the main driver for tundra shrub radial growth, but the effects of winter warming and snow remain an open question. Here, we present a more than 100 years long Betula nana ring-width chronology from Disko Island in western Greenland that demonstrates a highly significant and positive growth response to both summer and winter air temperatures du...

The nasopharynx is the ecological niche for many commensal bacteria and for potential respiratory or invasive pathogens like Streptococcus pneumoniae, Haemophilus influenzae, and Neisseria meningitidis. Disturbance of a balanced nasopharyngeal (NP) microbiome might be involved in the onset of symptomatic infections with these pathogens, which occurs primarily in fall and winter. It is unknown w...

[1] Submicron atmospheric aerosol particles were collected between 1 March 2008 and 1 March 2009 at Barrow, Alaska, to characterize the organic mass (OM) in the Arctic aerosol. Organic functional group concentrations and trace metals were measured with FTIR on submicron particles collected on Teflon filters. The OM varied from 0.07 mg m in summer to 0.43 mg m in winter, and 0.35 mg m in spring,...