The non-literary Latin letters. A study of their syntax and pragmatics

This dissertation studies the language of Latin letters that were written in Egypt and Vindolanda (in northern Britain) during the period 1st century BC 3rd century AD on papyri, ostraca, and wooden tablets. The majority of the texts is, in one way or another, connected with the Roman army. The focus of the study is on syntax and pragmatics. Besides traditional philological methods, modern syntactic theory is used as well, especially in the pragmatic analysis. The study begins with a critical survey of certain concepts that are current in the research on the Latin language, most importantly the concept of vulgar Latin , which, it is argued, seems to be used as an abstract noun for variation and change in Latin . Further, it is necessary to treat even the non-literary material primarily as written texts and not as straightforward reflections of spoken language. An examination of letter phraseology shows that there is considerable variation between the two major geographical areas of provenance. Latin letter writing in Egypt was influenced by Greek. The study highlights the importance of seeing the letters as a text type, with recurring phraseological elements appearing in the body text as well. It is argued that recognising these elements is essential for the correct analysis of the syntax. Three areas of syntax are discussed in detail: sentence connection (mainly parataxis), syntactically incoherent structures and word order (the order of the object and the verb). For certain types of sentence connection we may plausibly posit an origin in spoken Latin, but for many other linguistic phenomena attested in this material the issue of spoken Latin is anything but simple. Concerning the study of historical syntax, the letters offer information about the changing status of the accusative case. Incoherent structures may reflect contaminations in spoken language but usually the reason for them is the inability of the writer to put his thoughts into writing, especially when there is something more complicated to be expressed. Many incoherent expressions reflect the need to start the predication with a thematic constituent. Latin word order is seen as resulting from an interaction of syntactic and pragmatic factors. The preference for an order where the topic is placed sentence-initially can be seen in word order more generally as well. Furthermore, there appears a difference between Egypt and Vindolanda. The letters from Vindolanda show the order O(bject) V(erb) clearly more often than the letters from Egypt. Interestingly, this difference correlates with another, namely the use of the anaphoric pronoun is. This is an interesting observation in view of the fact that both of these are traditional Latin features, as opposed to those that foreshadow the Romance development (VO order and use of the anaphoric ille). However, it is difficult to say whether this is an indication of social or regional variation.

Empire, Tourism, Nostalgia: Joseph Brodsky and Travel Writing

Joseph Brodsky, one of the most influential Russian intellectuals of the late Soviet period, was born in Leningrad in 1940, emigrated to the United States in 1972, received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1987, and died in New York City in 1996. Brodsky was one of the leading public figures of Soviet emigration in the Cold War period, and his role as a model for the constructing of Russian cultural identities in the last years of the Soviet Union was, and still is, extremely important. One of Joseph Brodsky’s great contributions to Russian culture of the latter half of the twentieth century is the wide geographical scope of his poetic and prose works. Brodsky was not a travel writer, but he was a traveling writer who wrote a considerable number of poems and essays which relate to his trips and travels in the Soviet empire and outside it. Travel writing offered for Brodsky a discursive space for negotiating his own transculturation, while it also offered him a discursive space for making powerful statements about displacement, culture, history and geography, time and space—all major themes of his poetry. In this study of Joseph Brodsky’s travel writing I focus on his travel texts in poetry and prose, which relate to his post-1972 trips to Mexico, Brazil, Turkey, and Venice. Questions of empire, tourism, and nostalgia are foregrounded in one way or another in Brodsky’s travel writing performed in emigration. I explore these concepts through the study of tropes, strategies of identity construction, and the politics of representation. The theoretical premises of my work draw on the literary and cultural criticism which has evolved around the study of travel and travel writing in recent years. These approaches have gained much from the scholarly experience provided by postcolonial critique. Shifting the focus away from the concept of exile, the traditional framework for scholarly discussions of Brodsky’s works, I propose to review Brodsky’s travel poetry and prose as a response not only to his exilic condition but to the postmodern and postcolonial landscape, which initially shaped the writing of these texts. Discussing Brodsky’s travel writing in this context offers previously unexplored perspectives for analyzing the geopolitical, philosophical, and linguistic premises of his poetic imagination. By situating Brodsky’s travel writing in the geopolitical landscape of postcolonial postmodernity, I attempt to show how Brodsky’s engagement with his contemporary cultural practices in the West was incorporated into his Russian-language travel poetry and prose and how this engagement thus contributed to these texts’ status as exceptional and unique literary events within late Soviet Russian cultural practices.

Rhetoric and Representation : Exploring the Cultural Meaning of the Natural Sciences in Contemporary Popular Science Writing and Literature

Kirjallisuuden- ja kulttuurintutkimus on viimeisten kolmen vuosikymmenen aikana tullut yhä enenevässä määrin tietoiseksi tieteen ja taiteen suhteen monimutkaisesta luonteesta. Nykyään näiden kahden kulttuurin tutkimus muodostaa oman kenttänsä, jolla niiden suhdetta tarkastellaan ennen kaikkea dynaamisena vuorovaikutuksena, joka heijastaa kulttuurimme kieltä, arvoja ja ideologisia sisältöjä. Toisin kuin aiemmat näkemykset, jotka pitävät tiedettä ja taidetta toisilleen enemmän tai vähemmän vastakkaisina pyrkimyksinä, nykytutkimus lähtee oletuksesta, jonka mukaan ne ovat kulttuurillisesti rakentuneita diskursseja, jotka kohtaavat usein samankaltaisia todellisuuden mallintamiseen liittyviä ongelmia, vaikka niiden käyttämät metodit eroavatkin toisistaan. Väitöskirjani keskittyy yllä mainitun suhteen osa-alueista popularisoidun tietokirjallisuuden (muun muassa Paul Davies, James Gleick ja Richard Dawkins) käyttämän kielen ja luonnontieteistä ideoita ammentavan kaunokirjallisuuden (muun muassa Jeanette Winterson, Tom Stoppard ja Richard Powers) hyödyntämien keinojen tarkasteluun nojautuen yli 30 teoksen kattavaa aineistoa koskevaan tyylin ja teemojen tekstianalyysiin. Populaarin tietokirjallisuuden osalta tarkoituksenani on osoittaa, että sen käyttämä kieli rakentuu huomattavassa määrin sellaisille rakenteille, jotka tarjoavat mahdollisuuden esittää todellisuutta koskevia argumentteja mahdollisimman vakuuttavalla tavalla. Tässä tehtävässä monilla klassisen retoriikan määrittelemillä kuvioilla on tärkeä rooli, koska ne auttavat liittämään sanotun sisällön ja muodon tiukasti toisiinsa: retoristen kuvioiden käyttö ei näin ollen edusta pelkkää tyylikeinoa, vaan se myös usein kiteyttää argumenttien taustalla olevat tieteenfilosofiset olettamukset ja auttaa vakiinnuttamaan argumentoinnin logiikan. Koska monet aikaisemmin ilmestyneistä tutkimuksista ovat keskittyneet pelkästään metaforan rooliin tieteellisissä argumenteissa, tämä väitöskirja pyrkii laajentamaan tutkimuskenttää analysoimalla myös toisenlaisten kuvioiden käyttöä. Osoitan myös, että retoristen kuvioiden käyttö muodostaa yhtymäkohdan tieteellisiä ideoita hyödyntävään kaunokirjallisuuteen. Siinä missä popularisoitu tiede käyttää retoriikkaa vahvistaakseen sekä argumentatiivisia että kaunokirjallisia ominaisuuksiaan, kuvaa tällainen sanataide tiedettä tavoilla, jotka usein heijastelevat tietokirjallisuuden kielellisiä rakenteita. Toisaalta on myös mahdollista nähdä, miten kaunokirjallisuuden keinot heijastuvat popularisoidun tieteen kerrontatapoihin ja kieleen todistaen kahden kulttuurin dynaamisesta vuorovaikutuksesta. Nykyaikaisen populaaritieteen retoristen elementtien ja kaunokirjallisuuden keinojen vertailu näyttää lisäksi, kuinka tiede ja taide osallistuvat keskusteluun kulttuurimme tiettyjen peruskäsitteiden kuten identiteetin, tiedon ja ajan merkityksestä. Tällä tavoin on mahdollista nähdä, että molemmat ovat perustavanlaatuisia osia merkityksenantoprosessissa, jonka kautta niin tieteelliset ideat kuin ihmiselämän suuret kysymyksetkin saavat kulttuurillisesti rakentuneen merkityksensä.

Mauwake reference grammar

This dissertation provides a synchronic grammatical description of Mauwake, a Papuan (Trans-New Guinea) language of about 2000 speakers on the North Coast of the Madang Province in Papua New Guinea. The theoretical background is that of Basic Linguistic Theory (BLT), used extensively in analysing and writing descriptive grammars. The chapters from morphology to clause level are described from form to function; in the later chapters the function is taken more often as the starting point. Any theory-specific terminology is kept to the minimum and formalisms have been avoided in accordance with BLT principles. Mauwake has a classic 5-vowel system and 14 consonant phonemes. With its simple phonology it is a typical representative of the Madang North Coast languages. For a Papuan language there are relatively few morphophonological alternations. Nouns are either alienably or inalienably possessed. There is no obligatory number marking in nouns or noun phrases. Pronouns have several different forms: five for case and three for other functions. The dative pronouns are treated as [+human] locatives, and they have also grammaticalised as possessives. The verbal morphology is agglutinative and mainly suffixal. Unusual features include two distributive suffixes, and the interaction of the derivational benefactive and the inflectional beneficiary suffixes. The applicative suffix has either transitivising or causative but not benefactive function. The switch-reference system distinguishes between simultaneous and sequential action, as well as same or different subject in relation to the following clause. There are several verbs denoting coming and going, and they may combine with one of three prefixes to indicate bringing and taking. Mauwake is a nominative-accusative type language, and the basic constituent order in a clause is SOV. Subject and object are the only syntactic arguments. There is no indirect object, but a clause can have two or even three objects. A nominalised clause with a finite verb functions as a relative clause or a complement clause; one with a nominalised verb has several different functions. Functional domains described include modality, negation, deixis, quantification, possession and comparison. As there are four negators, Mauwake has more variation in negative expressions than is usual in Papuan languages. Clause chaining is the preferred strategy for joining clauses into sentences, but coordination and subordination of finite clauses are also common. The form of a complement clause depends on whether it is of the fact, action or potential type. Tail-head linkage is used as a cohesive device between sentences. The discourse-level features described are topic and focus.

"Four Ways of Writing the City" : St. Petersburg-Leningrad as a Metaphor in the Poetry of Joseph Brodsky

The present study discusses the theme of St. Petersburg-Leningrad in Joseph Brodsky's verse works. The chosen approach to the evolving im-age of the city in Brodsky's poetry is through four metaphors: St. Petersburg as "the common place" of the Petersburg Text, St. Petersburg as "Paradise and/or Hell", St. Petersburg as "a Utopian City" and St. Petersburg as "a Void". This examination of the city-image focusses on the aspects of space and time as basic categories underlying the poet's poetic world view. The method used is close reading, with an emphasis on semantical interpretation. The material consists of eighteen poems dating from 1958 to 1994. Apart from investigating the spatio-temporal features, the study focusses on exposing and analysing the allusions in the scrutinised works to other texts from Russian and Western belles lettres. Terminology (introduced by Bakhtin and Yury Lotman, among others) concerning the poetics of space in literature is employed in the present study. Conceptions originating from the paradigm of possible worlds are also used in elucidating the position of fictional and actual chronotopes and heroes in Brodsky's poetry. Brodsky's image of his native city is imbued with intertextual linkings. Through reminiscences of the "Divine Comedy" and Russian modernists, the city is paralleled with Dante's "lost and accursed" Florence, as well as with the lost St. Petersburg of Mandel'shtam and Akhmatova. His city-image is related to the Petersburg myth in Russian literature through their common themes of death and separation as well as through the merging of actual realia with the fictional worlds of the Petersburg Text. In his later poems, when his view of the city is that of an exiled poet, the city begins to lose its actual world referents, turning into a mental realm which is no longer connected to any particular geographical location or historical time. It is placed outside time. The native city as the homeland in its entirety is replaced by another existence created in language.

Between Herbals et alia: Intertextuality in Medieval English Herbals

This study reports a corpus-based study of medieval English herbals, which are texts conveying information on medicinal plants. Herbals belong to the medieval medical register. The study charts intertextual parallels within the medieval genre, and between herbals and other contemporary medical texts. It seeks to answer questions where and how herbal texts are linked to each other, and to other medical writing. The theoretical framework of the study draws on intertextuality and genre studies, manuscript studies, corpus linguistics, and multi-dimensional text analysis. The method combines qualitative and quantitative analyses of textual material from three historical special-language corpora of Middle and Early Modern English, one of which was compiled for the purposes of this study. The text material contains over 800,000 words of medical texts. The time span of the material is from c. 1330 to 1550. Text material is retrieved from the corpora by using plant name lists as search criteria. The raw data is filtered through qualitative analysis which produces input for the quantitative analysis, multi-dimensional scaling (MDS). In MDS, the textual space that parallel text passages form is observed, and the observations are explained by a qualitative analysis. This study concentrates on evidence of material and structural intertextuality. The analysis shows patterns of affinity between the texts of the herbal genre, and between herbals and other texts in the medical register. Herbals are most closely linked with recipe collections and regimens of health: they comprise over 95 per cent of the intertextual links between herbals and other medical writing. Links to surgical texts, or to specialised medical texts are very few. This can be explained by the history of the herbal genre: as herbals carry information on medical ingredients, herbs, they are relevant for genres that are related to pharmacological therapy. Conversely, herbals draw material from recipe collections in order to illustrate the medicinal properties of the herbs they describe. The study points out the close relationship between medical recipes and recipe-like passages in herbals (recipe paraphrases). The examples of recipe paraphrases show that they may have been perceived as indirect instruction. Keywords: medieval herbals, early English medicine, corpus linguistics, intertextuality, manuscript studies

Writing Otherwise than Seeing : Writing and Exteriority in Maurice Blanchot

Maurice Blanchot (1907-2003), the French writer and novelist, is one of the most important figures in post-war French literature and philosophy. The main intention of this study is to figure out his position and originality in the field of phenomenology. Since this thesis concentrates on the notion of vision in Blanchot s work, its primary context is the post-war discussion of the relation between seeing and thinking in France, and particularly the discussion of the conditions of non-violent vision and language. The focus will be on the philosophical conversation between Blanchot and his contemporary philosophers. The central premise is the following: Blanchot relates the criticism of vision to the criticism of the representative model of language. In this thesis, Blanchot s definition of literary language as the refusal to reveal anything is read as a reference pointing in two directions. First, to Hegel s idea of naming as negativity which reveals Being incrementally to man, and second, to Heidegger s idea of poetry as the simultaneity of revealing and withdrawal; the aim is to prove that eventually Blanchot opposes both Hegel s idea of naming as a gradual revelation of the totality of being and Heidegger s conception of poetry as a way of revealing the truth of Being. My other central hypothesis is that for Blanchot, the criticism of the privilege of vision is always related to the problematic of the exteriority. The principal intention is to trace how Blanchot s idea of language as infinity and exteriority challenges both the Hegelian idea of naming as conceptualizing things and Heidegger s concept of language as a way to truth (as aletheia). The intention is to show how Blanchot, with his concepts of fascination, resemblance and image, both affirms and challenges the central points of Heidegger s thinking on language. Blanchot s originality in, and contribution to, the discussion about the violence of vision and language is found in his answer to the question of how to approach the other by avoiding the worst violence . I claim that by criticizing the idea of language as naming both in Hegel and Heidegger, Blanchot generates an account of language which, since it neither negates nor creates Being, is beyond the metaphysical opposition between Being and non-Being.

Nonverbal predication in Erzya : Studies on morphosyntactic variation and part of speech distinctions

This dissertation consists of four articles and an introduction. The five parts address the same topic, nonverbal predication in Erzya, from different perspectives. The work is at the same time linguistic typology and Uralic studies. The findings based on a large corpus of empirical Erzya data, which was collected using several different methods and included recordings of the spoken language, made it possible for the present study to apply, then test and finally discuss the previous theories based on cross-linguistic data. Erzya makes use of multiple predication patterns which vary from totally analytic to the morphologically very complex. Nonverbal predicate clause types are classified on the basis of propositional acts in clauses denoting class-membership, identity, property and location. The predicates of these clauses are nouns, adjectives and locational expressions, respectively. The following three predication strategies in Erzya nonverbal predication can be identified: i. the zero-copula construction, ii. the predicative suffix construction and iii. the copula construction. It has been suggested that verbs and nouns cannot be clearly distinguished on morphological grounds when functioning as predicates in Erzya. This study shows that even though predicativity must not be considered a sufficient tool for defining parts of speech in any language, the Erzya lexical classes of adjective, noun and verb can be distinguished from each other also in predicate position. The relative frequency and degree of obligation for using the predicative suffix construction decreases when moving left to right on the scale verb adjective/locative noun ( identificational statement). The predicative suffix is the main pattern in the present tense over the whole domain of nonverbal predication in Standard Erzya, but if it is replaced it is most likely to be with a zero-copula construction in a nominal predication. This study exploits the theory of (a)symmetry for the first time in order to describe verbal vs. nonverbal predication. It is shown that the asymmetry of paradigms and constructions differentiates the lexical classes. Asymmetrical structures are motivated by functional level asymmetry. Variation in predication as such adds to the complexity of the grammar. When symmetric structures are employed, the functional complexity of grammar decreases, even though morphological complexity increases. The genre affects the employment of predication strategies in Erzya. There are differences in the relative frequency of the patterns, and some patterns are totally lacking from some of the data. The clearest difference is that the past tense predicative suffix construction occurs relatively frequently in Standard Erzya, while it occurs infrequently in the other data. Also, the predicative suffixes of the present tense are used more regularly in written Standard Erzya than in any other genre. The genre also affects the incidence of the translative in uľ(ń)ems copula constructions. In translations from Russian to Erzya the translative case is employed relatively frequently in comparison to other data. This study reveals differences between the two Mordvinic languages Erzya and Moksha. The predicative suffixes (bound person markers) of the present tense are used more regularly in Moksha in all kinds of nonverbal predicate clauses compared to Erzya. It should further be observed that identificational statements are encoded with a predicative suffix in Moksha, but seldom in Erzya. Erzya clauses are more frequently encoded using zero-constructions, displaying agreement in number only.

Pharmacogenetic Variation at CYP2D6, CYP2C9, and CYP2C19: Population Genetic and Forensic Aspects

Pharmacogenetics deals with genetically determined variation in drug response. In this context, three phase I drug-metabolizing enzymes, CYP2D6, CYP2C9, and CYP2C19, have a central role, affecting the metabolism of about 20-30% of clinically used drugs. Since genes coding for these enzymes in human populations exhibit high genetic polymorphism, they are of major pharmacogenetic importance. The aims of this study were to develop new genotyping methods for CYP2D6, CYP2C9, and CYP2C19 that would cover the most important genetic variants altering the enzyme activity, and, for the first time, to describe the distribution of genetic variation at these loci on global and microgeographic scales. In addition, pharmacogenetics was applied to a postmortem forensic setting to elucidate the role of genetic variation in drug intoxications, focusing mainly on cases related to tricyclic antidepressants, which are commonly involved in fatal drug poisonings in Finland. Genetic variability data were obtained by genotyping new population samples by the methods developed based on PCR and multiplex single-nucleotide primer extension reaction, as well as by collecting data from the literature. Data consisted of 138, 129, and 146 population samples for CYP2D6, CYP2C9, and CYP2C19, respectively. In addition, over 200 postmortem forensic cases were examined with respect to drug and metabolite concentrations and genotypic variation at CYP2D6 and CYP2C19. The distribution of genetic variation within and among human populations was analyzed by descriptive statistics and variance analysis and by correlating the genetic and geographic distances using Mantel tests and spatial autocorrelation. The correlation between phenotypic and genotypic variation in drug metabolism observed in postmortem cases was also analyzed statistically. The genotyping methods developed proved to be informative, technically feasible, and cost-effective. Detailed molecular analysis of CYP2D6 genetic variation in a global survey of human populations revealed that the pattern of variation was similar to those of neutral genomic markers. Most of the CYP2D6 diversity was observed within populations, and the spatial pattern of variation was best described as clinal. On the other hand, genetic variants of CYP2D6, CYP2C9, and CYP2C19 associated with altered enzymatic activity could reach extremely high frequencies in certain geographic regions. Pharmacogenetic variation may also be significantly affected by population-specific demographic histories, as seen within the Finnish population. When pharmacogenetics was applied to a postmortem forensic setting, a correlation between amitriptyline metabolic ratios and genetic variation at CYP2D6 and CYP2C19 was observed in the sample material, even in the presence of confounding factors typical for these cases. In addition, a case of doxepin-related fatal poisoning was shown to be associated with a genetic defect at CYP2D6. Each of the genes studied showed a distinct variation pattern in human populations and high frequencies of altered activity variants, which may reflect the neutral evolution and/or selective pressures caused by dietary or environmental exposure. The results are relevant also from the clinical point of view since the genetic variation at CYP2D6, CYP2C9, and CYP2C19 already has a range of clinical applications, e.g. in cancer treatment and oral anticoagulation therapy. This study revealed that pharmacogenetics may also contribute valuable information to the medicolegal investigation of sudden, unexpected deaths.

Epidemiological data of seasonal variation in mood and behaviour

The aim of this study was to measure seasonal variation in mood and behaviour. The dual vulnerability and latitude effect hypothesis, the risk of increased appetite, weight and other seasonal symptoms to develop metabolic syndrome, and perception of low illumination in quality of life and mental well-being were assessed. These variations are prevalent in persons who live in high latitudes and need balancing of metabolic processes to adapt to environmental changes due to seasons. A randomized sample of 8028 adults aged 30 and over (55% women) participated in an epidemiological health examination study, The Health 2000, applying the probability proportional to population size method for a range of socio-demographic characteristics. They were present in a face-to-face interview at home and health status examination. The questionnaires included the modified versions of the Seasonal Pattern Assessment Questionnaire (SPAQ) and Beck Depression Inventory (BDI), the Health Related Quality of Life (HRQoL) instrument 15D, and the General Health Questionnaire (GHQ). The structured and computerized Munich Composite International Diagnostic Interview (M-CIDI) as part of the interview was used to assess diagnoses of mental disorders, and, the National Cholesterol Education Program Adult Treatment Panel III (NCEP-ATPIII) criteria were assessed using all the available information to detect metabolic syndrome. A key finding was that 85% of this nationwide representative sample had seasonal variation in mood and behaviour. Approximately 9% of the study population presented combined seasonal and depressive symptoms with a significant association between their scores, and 2.6% had symptoms that corresponded to Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) in severity. Seasonal variations in weight and appetite are two important components that increase the risk of metabolic syndrome. Other factors such as waist circumference and major depressive disorder contributed to the metabolic syndrome as well. Persons reported of having seasonal symptoms were associated with a poorer quality of life and compromised mental well-being, especially if indoors illumination at home and/or at work was experienced as being low. Seasonal and circadian misalignments are suggested to associate with metabolic disorders, and could be remarked if individuals perceive low illumination levels at home and/or at work that affect the health-related quality of life and mental well-being. Keywords: depression, health-related quality of life, illumination, latitude, mental well-being, metabolic syndrome, seasonal variation, winter.

Variation in tracheid cross-sectional dimensions and wood viscoelasticity extent and control methods

Printing papers have been the main product of the Finnish paper industry. To improve properties and economy of printing papers, controlling of tracheid cross-sectional dimensions and wood viscoelasticity are examined in this study. Controlling is understood as any procedure which yields raw material classes with distinct properties and small internal variation. Tracheid cross-sectional dimensions, i.e., cell wall thickness and radial and tangential diameters can be controlled with methods such as sorting wood into pulpwood and sawmill chips, sorting of logs according to tree social status and fractionation of fibres. These control methods were analysed in this study with simulations, which were based on measured tracheid cross-sectional dimensions. A SilviScan device was used to measure the data set from five Norway spruce (Picea abies) and five Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris) trunks. The simulation results indicate that the sawmill chips and top pulpwood assortments have quite similar cross-sectional dimensions. Norway spruce and Scots pine are on average also relatively similar in their cross-sectional dimensions. The distributions of these species are somewhat different, but from a practical point of view, the differences are probably of minor importance. The controlling of tracheid cross-sectional dimensions can be done most efficiently with methods that can separate fibres into earlywood and latewood. Sorting of logs or partitioning of logs into juvenile and mature wood were markedly less efficient control methods than fractionation of fibres. Wood viscoelasticity affects energy consumption in mechanical pulping, and is thus an interesting control target when improving energy efficiency of the process. A literature study was made to evaluate the possibility of using viscoelasticity in controlling. The study indicates that there is considerable variation in viscoelastic properties within tree species, but unfortunately, the viscoelastic properties of important raw material lots such as top pulpwood or sawmill chips are not known. Viscoelastic properties of wood depend mainly on lignin, but also on microfibrillar angle, width of cellulose crystals and tracheid cross-sectional dimensions.

Rhizoctonia solani as a potato pathogen : Variation of isolates in Finland and host response

Rhizoctonia solani is a soil inhabiting basidiomycetous fungus able to induce a wide range of symptoms in many plant species. This genetically complex species is divided to 13 anastomosis groups (AG), of which AG-3 is specialized to infect potato. However, also a few other AGs are able to infect or live in close contact with potato. On potato, R. solani infection causes two main types of diseases including stem canker observed as a dark brown lesions on developing stems and stolons, and black scurf that develops on new tubers close to the time of harvest. These disease symptoms are collectively called a ‘Rhizoctonia disease complex’. Between the growing seasons R. solani survives in soil and plant debri as sclerotia or as the sclerotia called black scurf on potato tubers which when used as seed offer the main route for dispersal of the fungus to new areas. The reasons for the dominance of AG-3 on potato seem to be attributable to its highly specialization to potato and its ability to infect and form sclerotia efficiently at low temperatures. In this study, a large nationwide survey of R. solani isolates was made in potato crops in Finland. Almost all characterized isolates belonged to AG-3. Additionally, three other AGs (AG-2-1, AG-4 and AG-5) were found associated with symptoms on potato plants but they were weaker pathogens on potato than AG-3 as less prone to form black scurf. According to phylogenetic analysis of the internal transcribed sequences (ITS) of the ribosomal RNA genes the Finnish AG-3 isolates are closely related to each other even though a wide variation of physiological features was observed between them. Detailed analysis of the ITS regions revealed single nucleotide polymorphism in 14 nucleotide positions of ITS-1 and ITS-2. Additionally, compensatory base changes on ITS-2 were detected which suggests that potato-infecting R. solani AG-3 could be considered as a separate species instead of an AG of R. solani. For the first time, molecular defence responses were studied and detected during the early phases of interaction between R. solani AG-3 and potato. Extensive systemic signalling for defence exploiting several known defence pathways was activated as soon as R. solani came into close contact with the base of a sprout. The defence response was strong enough to protect vulnerable sprout tips from new attacks by the pathogen. These results at least partly explain why potato emergence is eventually successful even under heavy infection pressure by R. solani.

Responses of soil microbial communities to clonal variation of Norway spruce

In boreal forests, microorganisms have a pivotal role in nutrient and water supply of trees as well as in litter decomposition and nutrient cycling. This reinforces the link between above-ground and below-ground communities in the context of sustainable productivity of forest ecosystems. In northern boreal forests, the diversity of microbes associated with the trees is high compared to the number of distinct tree species. In this thesis, the aim was to study whether conspecific tree individuals harbour different soil microbes and whether the growth of the trees and the community structure of the associated microbes are connected. The study was performed in a clonal field trial of Norway spruce, which was established in a randomized block design in a clear-cut area. Since out-planting in 1994, the spruce clones showed two-fold growth differences. The fast-growing spruce clones were associated with a more diverse community of ectomycorrhizal fungi than the slow-growing spruce clones. These growth performance groups also differed with respect to other aspects of the associated soil microorganisms: the species composition of ectomycorrhizal fungi, in the amount of extraradical fungal mycelium, in the structure of bacterial community associated with the mycelium, and in the structure of microbial community in the organic layer. The communities of fungi colonizing needle litter of the spruce clones in the field did not differ and the loss of litter mass after two-years decomposition was equal. In vitro, needles of the slow-growing spruce clones were colonized by a more diverse community of endophytic fungi that were shown to be significant needle decomposers. This study showed a relationship between the growth of Norway spruce clones and the community structure of the associated soil microbes. Spatial heterogeneity in soil microbial community was connected with intraspecific variation of trees. The latter may therefore influence soil biodiversity in monospecific forests.

Spatial variation of climate and the impact of disturbances on local climate and forest recovery in northern Finland

The structure and function of northern ecosystems are strongly influenced by climate change and variability and by human-induced disturbances. The projected global change is likely to have a pronounced effect on the distribution and productivity of different species, generating large changes in the equilibrium at the tree-line. In turn, movement of the tree-line and the redistribution of species produce feedback to both the local and the regional climate. This research was initiated with the objective of examining the influence of natural conditions on the small-scale spatial variation of climate in Finnish Lapland, and to study the interaction and feedback mechanisms in the climate-disturbances-vegetation system near the climatological border of boreal forest. The high (1 km) resolution spatial variation of climate parameters over northern Finland was determined by applying the Kriging interpolation method that takes into account the effect of external forcing variables, i.e., geographical coordinates, elevation, sea and lake coverage. Of all the natural factors shaping the climate, the geographical position, local topography and altitude proved to be the determining ones. Spatial analyses of temperature- and precipitation-derived parameters based on a 30-year dataset (1971-2000) provide a detailed description of the local climate. Maps of the mean, maximum and minimum temperatures, the frost-free period and the growing season indicate that the most favourable thermal conditions exist in the south-western part of Lapland, around large water bodies and in the Kemijoki basin, while the coldest regions are in highland and fell Lapland. The distribution of precipitation is predominantly longitudinally dependent but with the definite influence of local features. The impact of human-induced disturbances, i.e., forest fires, on local climate and its implication for forest recovery near the northern timberline was evaluated in the Tuntsa area of eastern Lapland, damaged by a widespread forest fire in 1960 and suffering repeatedly-failed vegetation recovery since that. Direct measurements of the local climate and simulated heat and water fluxes indicated the development of a more severe climate and physical conditions on the fire-disturbed site. Removal of the original, predominantly Norway spruce and downy birch vegetation and its substitution by tundra vegetation has generated increased wind velocity and reduced snow accumulation, associated with a large variation in soil temperature and moisture and deep soil frost. The changed structural parameters of the canopy have determined changes in energy fluxes by reducing the latter over the tundra vegetation. The altered surface and soil conditions, as well as the evolved severe local climate, have negatively affected seedling growth and survival, leading to more unfavourable conditions for the reproduction of boreal vegetation and thereby causing deviations in the regional position of the timberline. However it should be noted that other factors, such as an inadequate seed source or seedbed, the poor quality of the soil and the intensive logging of damaged trees could also exacerbate the poor tree regeneration. In spite of the failed forest recovery at Tunsta, the position and composition of the timberline and tree-line in Finnish Lapland may also benefit from present and future changes in climate. The already-observed and the projected increase in temperature, the prolonged growing season, as well as changes in the precipitation regime foster tree growth and new regeneration, resulting in an advance of the timberline and tree-line northward and upward. This shift in the distribution of vegetation might be decelerated or even halted by local topoclimatic conditions and by the expected increase in the frequency of disturbances.