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The Great Spotted Woodpecker is the most common and best-known woodpecker species in the W Palearctic. The sections Habitat, Distribution, Population, Movements, Food, Social pattern and behaviour, Voice, Breeding, Plumages, Bare parts, Moults, Measurements, Weights, and Geographical variation have been updated or completely rewritten, and a new section has been added on Conservation. High flexibility enables the Great Spotted Woodpecker to utilize a great variety of habitats, from Arctic taiga through boreal and temperate to Mediterranean (N Africa and Canary Islands) and Alpine forest zones, wherever there are mature trees of any sort with sufficient growth to accommodate nest-holes and with a supply of available food. The Distribution and Population sections include new data of population tendencies, with stable or positive trends in most European countries and fluctuating populations in N Europe. Recent negative range trends with small decreases only in S Europe, apparently due to loss of wooded habitats. The Conservation section presents literature on the Great Spotted Woodpecker as the key or umbrella species for secondary cavity-nesting species. This section also demonstrates the importance of woodpeckers as indicators for naturally dynamic forests with tree species diversity, forest management, and sustainable forestry. Woodpeckers can be part of a monitoring system of e.g. sustainable forestry, but species from other organism groups are also required. The section on Movements has been updated with new data on dispersal and summer/autumn and spring migration. The Great Spotted Woodpecker uses a very wide and varied diet and is characterized as a 'universalist' in food-gathering; pecking and hammering are most important in autumn and winter, gleaning and probing are important at times of high food availability at the tree surface in spring and summer. It takes arthropods and insect larvae, coniferous seeds and various nuts mainly in autumn and winter, and drills holes for sap-sucking in spring, takes surface dwelling arthropods and caterpillars, bird eggs and nestlings, and fruits and berries in spring and summer. The Social pattern and behaviour section presents new data on the mating system, parental effort, pair-bond, divorce rate, survival rate, and mortality. Great Spotted Woodpeckers are socially and genetically monogamous with a potential to polyandry, which was recorded in Japan. Changes of partner between seasons common. Males usually invest more in nesthole construction and guarding than the females and contribute the same amount or more to brood care. Males usually incubate and brood at night, as with all studied woodpeckers, and defend territories, which seem to be important for female choice. Females compete intensely for access to males and perform male-like courtship behaviours such as drumming. Great Spotted Woodpeckers are intelligent and currently doing damage to house facades. The Voice section presents mainly new data on calls and instrumental signals of the young. The Breeding section has been updated with new information about nest-sites, breeding behaviour, and breeding success. New data on age determination are shown in the Bare parts and Moults sections. Additional data are provided on size and weight.
About half of present-day cloud condensation nuclei originate from atmospheric nucleation, frequently appearing as a burst of new particles near midday1. Atmospheric observations show that the growth rate of new particles often accelerates when the diameter of the particles is between one and ten nanometres2,3. In this critical size range, new particles are most likely to be lost by coagulation with pre-existing particles4, thereby failing to form new cloud condensation nuclei that are typically 50 to 100 nanometres across. Sulfuric acid vapour is often involved in nucleation but is too scarce to explain most subsequent growth5,6, leaving organic vapours as the most plausible alternative, at least in the planetary boundary layer7,8,9,10. Although recent studies11,12,13 predict that low-volatility organic vapours contribute during initial growth, direct evidence has been lacking. The accelerating growth may result from increased photolytic production of condensable organic species in the afternoon2, and the presence of a possible Kelvin (curvature) effect, which inhibits organic vapour condensation on the smallest particles (the nano-Köhler theory)2,14, has so far remained ambiguous. Here we present experiments performed in a large chamber under atmospheric conditions that investigate the role of organic vapours in the initial growth of nucleated organic particles in the absence of inorganic acids and bases such as sulfuric acid or ammonia and amines, respectively. Using data from the same set of experiments, it has been shown15 that organic vapours alone can drive nucleation. We focus on the growth of nucleated particles and find that the organic vapours that drive initial growth have extremely low volatilities (saturation concentration less than 10−4.5 micrograms per cubic metre). As the particles increase in size and the Kelvin barrier falls, subsequent growth is primarily due to more abundant organic vapours of slightly higher volatility (saturation concentrations of 10−4.5 to 10−0.5 micrograms per cubic metre). We present a particle growth model that quantitatively reproduces our measurements. Furthermore, we implement a parameterization of the first steps of growth in a global aerosol model and find that concentrations of atmospheric cloud concentration nuclei can change substantially in response, that is, by up to 50 per cent in comparison with previously assumed growth rate parameterizations.