Search results for " Conservation of Natural Resources"
showing 5 items of 5 documents
Mediterranean bioconstructions along the Italian coast
2018
Marine bioconstructions are biodiversity-rich, three-dimensional biogenic structures, regulating key ecological functions of benthic ecosystems worldwide. Tropical coral reefs are outstanding for their beauty, diversity and complexity, but analogous types of bioconstructions are also present in temperate seas. The main bioconstructions in the Mediterranean Sea are represented by coralligenous formations, vermetid reefs, deep-sea cold-water corals, Lithophyllum byssoides trottoirs, coral banks formed by the shallow-water corals Cladocora caespitosa or Astroides calycularis, and sabellariid or serpulid worm reefs. Bioconstructions change the morphological and chemicophysical features of prima…
Ecological dependencies make remote reef fish communities most vulnerable to coral loss
2021
Ecosystems face both local hazards, such as over-exploitation, and global hazards, such as climate change. Since the impact of local hazards attenuates with distance from humans, local extinction risk should decrease with remoteness, making faraway areas safe havens for biodiversity. However, isolation and reduced anthropogenic disturbance may increase ecological specialization in remote communities, and hence their vulnerability to secondary effects of diversity loss propagating through networks of interacting species. We show this to be true for reef fish communities across the globe. An increase in fish-coral dependency with the distance of coral reefs from human settlements, paired with…
Conservation status and historical relatedness of Italian cattle breeds
2018
Background In the last 50 years, the diversity of cattle breeds has experienced a severe contraction. However, in spite of the growing diffusion of cosmopolite specialized breeds, several local cattle breeds are still farmed in Italy. Genetic characterization of breeds represents an essential step to guide decisions in the management of farm animal genetic resources. The aim of this work was to provide a high-resolution representation of the genome-wide diversity and population structure of Italian local cattle breeds using a medium-density single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) array. Results After quality control filtering, the dataset included 31,013 SNPs for 800 samples from 32 breeds. Ou…
Improving marine protected area governance through collaboration and co-production.
2020
Marine protected areas (MPAs) socio-ecological effectiveness depends on a number of management and governance elements, among which stakeholder engagement and community support play key roles. Collaborative conservation initiatives that engage stakeholders in action research and knowledge co-production processes can enhance management and governance of MPAs. To design effective strategies aimed at reconciling biodiversity conservation and management of sustainable human uses, it is key to assess how local communities respond to such initiatives and identify the set of contextual factors, institutional, local and individual, potentially affecting these responses. This paper presents the appr…
Mediterranean rocky reefs in the Anthropocene: Present status and future concerns
2021
Global change is striking harder and faster in the Mediterranean Sea than elsewhere, where high levels of human pressure and proneness to climate change interact in modifying the structure and disrupting regulative mechanisms of marine ecosystems. Rocky reefs are particularly exposed to such environmental changes with ongoing trends of degradation being impressive. Due to the variety of habitat types and associated marine biodiversity, rocky reefs are critical for the functioning of marine ecosystems, and their decline could profoundly affect the provision of essential goods and services which human populations in coastal areas rely upon. Here, we provide an up-to-date overview of the statu…