ALBERT

Description: In Kapitel 5 unseres englischsprachigen Reports (Zwar et al. 2023) gehen wir vor dem Hintergrund unserer vergleichenden empirischen Analyse von Klimainstitutionen gezielt auf die anstehende Klimaschutznovelle in Deutschland ein (die Reform des Bundes- Klimaschutzgesetzes (KSG)). Dieses Dokument ist die Übersetzung des für die deutsche Debatte besonders relevanten Kapitels.

Description: Countries around the world have set increasingly ambitious targets to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and mitigate climate change. To deliver on these targets, policymakers have (i) implemented new policy instruments, (ii) increased the stringency of existing policy instruments, and (iii) created ‘climate institutions’. A substantial body of literature is devoted to the first two phenomena. Yet we know little about climate institutions, including the different types of institutions countries create and how they affect the development and stringency of climate policy (Dubash 2021; Dubash et al. 2021). This report therefore seeks to answer three research questions. First, what are climate institutions and how can we characterise them across countries? Second, what effects do climate institutions have on climate policymaking? Third, based on these findings, what lessons can we draw about the landscape of German climate institutions and what options exist for institutional reform? To address these questions, we propose a definition of climate institutions and develop a conceptual framework for analysing and comparing their effects on climate policymaking in four countries: Germany, the United Kingdom, Sweden, and Australia. We then draw on this framework and our comparative analysis to identify potentially promising reforms for German climate governance, especially in light of the proposed changes to the German climate law (the Bundes-Klimaschutzgesetz, or KSG).

Description: Scientific investigation is of value only insofar as relevant results are obtained and communicated, a task that requires organizing, evaluating, analysing and unambiguously communicating the significance of data. In this context, working with ecological data, reflecting the complexities and interactions of the natural world, can be a challenge. Recent innovations for statistical analysis of multifaceted interrelated data make obtaining more accurate and meaningful results possible, but key decisions of the analyses to use, and which components to present in a scientific paper or report, may be overwhelming. We offer a 10-step protocol to streamline analysis of data that will enhance understanding of the data, the statistical models and the results, and optimize communication with the reader with respect to both the procedure and the outcomes. The protocol takes the investigator from study design and organization of data (formulating relevant questions, visualizing data collection, data exploration, identifying dependency), through conducting analysis (presenting, fitting and validating the model) and presenting output (numerically and visually), to extending the model via simulation. Each step includes procedures to clarify aspects of the data that affect statistical analysis, as well as guidelines for written presentation. Steps are illustrated with examples using data from the literature. Following this protocol will reduce the organization, analysis and presentation of what may be an overwhelming information avalanche into sequential and, more to the point, manageable, steps. It provides guidelines for selecting optimal statistical tools to assess data relevance and significance, for choosing aspects of the analysis to include in a published report and for clearly communicating information.

Description: The subpolar North Atlantic (SPNA) is important in the global carbon cycle because of the deep water ventilation processes that lead to both high uptake of atmospheric CO2 and large inventories of anthropogenic CO2 (Cant). Thus, it is crucial to understand its response to increasing anthropogenic pressures. In this work, the budgets of dissolved inorganic carbon (DIC), Cant and natural DIC (DICnat) in the eastern SPNA in the 2000s, are jointly analyzed using in situ data. The DICnat budget is found to be in steady state, confirming a long-standing hypothesis from in situ data for the first time. The biological activity is driving the uptake of natural CO2 from the atmosphere. The Cant increase in the ocean is solely responsible of the DIC storage rate which is explained by advection of Cant from the subtropics (65%) and Cant air-sea flux (35%). These results demonstrate that the Cant is accumulating in the SPNA without affecting the natural carbon cycle.

Description: 1. We performed a mesocosm experiment to investigate the structuring and cascading effects of two predominant crustacean mesozooplankton groups on microbial food web components. The natural summer plankton community of a mesotrophic lake was exposed to density gradients of Daphnia and copepods. Regression analysis was used to reveal top-down impacts of mesozooplankton on protists and bacteria after days 9 and 15. 2. Selective grazing by copepods caused a clear trophic cascade via ciliates to nanoplankton. Medium-sized (20-40 mum) ciliates (mainly Oligotrichida) were particularly negatively affected by copepods whereas nanociliates (mainly Prostomatida) became more abundant. Phototrophic and heterotrophic nanoflagellates increased significantly with increasing copepod biomass, which we interpret as an indirect response to reduced grazing pressure from the medium-sized ciliates. 3. In Daphnia-treatments, ciliates of all size classes as well as nanoflagellates were reduced directly but the overall predation effect became most strongly visible after 15 days at higher Daphnia biomass. 4. The response of bacterioplankton involved only modest changes in bacterial biomass and cell-size distribution along the zooplankton gradients. Increasing zooplankton biomass resulted either in a reduction (with Daphnia) or in an increase (with copepods) of bacterial biovolume, activity and production. Patterns of bacterial diversity, as measured by polymerase chain reaction-denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis (PCR-DGGE), showed no distinct grouping after 9 days, whereas a clear treatment-coupled similarity clustering occurred after 15 days. 5. The experiment demonstrated that zooplankton-mediated predatory interactions cascade down to the bacterial level, but also revealed that changes occurred rather slowly in this summer plankton community and were most pronounced with respect to bacterial activity and composition.

Description: Non-ribosomal peptide synthetases are complex multimodular biosynthetic machines that assemble various important and medically relevant peptide antibiotics. An interesting subgroup comprises the cyclodepsipeptide synthetases from fungi synthesizing cyclohexa- and cyclo-octadepsipeptides with antibacterial, anthelmintic, insecticidal, and anticancer properties; some are marketed drugs. We exploit the modularity of these highly homologous synthetases by fusing the hydroxy-acid-activating module of PF1022 synthetase with the amino-acid-activating modules of enniatin and beauvericin synthetase, thus yielding novel hybrid synthetases. The artificial synthetases expressed in Escherichia coli and the fungus Aspergillus niger yielded new cyclodepsipeptides, thus paving the way for the exploration of these derivatives for their bioactivity.

Description: Continuous high-resolution underway measurements of dimethyl sulfide (DMS) and isoprene in the ocean surface were conducted from Germany to South Africa in November 2008. DMS, total dimethylsulfoniopropionate (DMSPt), isoprene and 19'-hexanoyloxyfucoxanthin (19'-hex) correlated in nitrogen-depleted regions when they were clustered by nitrogen to phosphorous ratio (N:P). The 19'-hex-containing algae groups might be a common source of DMS, DMSPt, and isoprene in the low N: P regions. Additionally, DMS and isoprene correlated in nitrate-depleted regions when they were clustered against nitrate concentrations. Correlations between DMS and isoprene were also found within nitrate-depleted eddies encountered along the cruise track. Eddies with N: P of similar to 2.8 showed the highest positive correlations between DMS and isoprene. We conclude that the DMS/isoprene relationships in the eastern Atlantic Ocean were influenced by nutrient availability, with implications for using nutrients to predict the DMS and isoprene concentrations over a range of oceanographic areas depleted in nitrogen

Description: Key Points: • diatom sedaDNA composition is concordant with reconstructed sea-ice dynamics, SSTs and subsurface salinities over the past millenia • loss of diatom richness at ~11.1 cal kyr BP is possibly a consequence of increased freshwater input from Kamchatka • shifts of potential ecotypes of species from the genus Chaetoceros with changing environmental conditions We traced diatom composition and diversity through time using diatom derived sedimentary ancient DNA (sedaDNA) from eastern continental slope sediments off Kamchatka (North Pacific) by applying a short, diatom‐specific marker on 63 samples in a DNA metabarcoding approach. The sequences were assigned to diatoms that are common in the area and characteristic of cold water. SedaDNA allowed us to observe shifts of potential lineages from species of the genus Chaetoceros that can be related to different climatic phases, suggesting that pre‐adapted ecotypes might have played a role in the long‐term success of species in areas of changing environmental conditions. These sedaDNA results complement our understanding of the long‐term history of diatom assemblages and their general relationship to environmental conditions of the past. Sea‐ice diatoms (Pauliella taeniata (Grunow) Round & Basson, Attheya septentrionalis (Østrup) R.M.Crawford and Nitzschia frigida (Grunow)) detected during the late glacial and Younger Dryas are in agreement with previous sea‐ice reconstructions. A positive correlation between pennate diatom richness and the sea‐ice proxy IP25 suggests that sea ice fosters pennate diatom richness, whereas a negative correlation with June insolation and temperature points to unfavorable conditions during the Holocene. A sharp increase in proportions of freshwater diatoms at ∼11.1 cal kyr BP implies the influence of terrestrial runoff and coincides with the loss of 42% of diatom sequence variants. We assume that reduced salinity at this time stabilized vertical stratification which limited the replenishment of nutrients in the euphotic zone.