Search results for " ecological network"
showing 9 items of 9 documents
Machine learning of microbial interactions using abductive ILP and hypothesis frequency/compression estimation
2021
Interaction between species in microbial communities plays an important role in the functioning of all ecosystems, from cropland soils to human gut microbiota. Many statistical approaches have been proposed to infer these interactions from microbial abundance information. However, these statistical approaches have no general mechanisms for incorporating existing ecological knowledge in the inference process. We propose an Abductive/Inductive Logic Programming (A/ILP) framework to infer microbial interactions from microbial abundance data, by including logical descriptions of different types of interaction as background knowledge in the learning. This framework also includes a new mechanism …
Civic resielience : botanical gardens in North America, birth, development, and enviromental awarness
2023
The chapter explores from a historical perspective the birth of botanical gardens in North America, considered a significant part of the ecological network system and of the green and blue 'infrastructure'. This important system opposes geographical risk, which must be organically dealt with in programmes, plans and strategies that protect the landscape, prevent risks, and strengthen short-, medium- and long-term actions, also involving local Communities, integrating the vision to the different scales of intervention and projects. The Botanical Garden, seen here as an 'Open Work', has an important role not only because it preserves botanical specimens that come from all over the world, but …
Urban Services to Ecosystems - Green Infrastructure Benefits from the Landscape to the Urban Scale
2021
The aim of this book is to bring together multidisciplinary research in the field of green infrastructure design, construction and ecology. The main core of the volume is constituted by contributions dealing with green infrastructure, vegetation science, nature-based solutions and sustainable urban development. The green infrastructure and its ecosystem services, indeed, are gaining space in both political agendas and academic research. However, the attention is focused on the services that nature is giving for free to and for human health and survival. What if we start to see things from another perspective? Our actions shall converge for instance to turn man-made environment like cities f…
Plant-animal seed dispersal interactions as key drivers of ecological restoration in a changing world
2022
Many global and European commitments state the need to plant billions of trees and restore millions of hectares of degraded ecosystems to contrast biodiversity loss, desertification and climate change. Seed dispersal is a crucial process promoting vegetation dynamics, and in the Mediterranean, up to 65% of woody plant species need animals for seed dispersal. Therefore, such mutualistic ecological interaction represents a key nature-based solution to help us reaching our commitments. In this presentation first we will report the strong expansion rate and correlated finescale spatio-temporal patterns of woody natural regeneration over a pastureland, using a spatially-explicit framework deploy…
Cities and garbage: an un-sustainable relationship
2009
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The starry sky, a territorial commons?
2021
International audience; Flagstaff, Arizona, United States, April 15, 1958: the city council adopts the ordinance n°440 which aims at “preventing a rapid deterioration of the visibility of the starry sky”. This regulation results from the mobilization of the Lowell Observatory astronomers against certain public lighting devices. Through this political act, the elected officials place their city at the epicenter of an emergent international movement: the ‘Dark-sky movement’. The first replica of this movement is felt in 1972 in Tucson, Arizona. From a discomfort perceived by astronomers from the Lowell and Kitt Peak observatories, the idea of ‘light pollution’ emerges and begins to spread thr…
'Dark Ecological Network': strategically tackling light pollution for biodiversity and people
2021
Night-time light pollution from artificial sources can disrupt biological processes and fragment habitats. This study presents a new concept foraddressing the problem: a 'dark ecological network'. Its development involves mapping a new system of connected functional zones and corridors where dark can be preserved to help birds, bats and other taxa, and gives people the chance to experience starry skies.
Urban Services to Ecosystems: An Introduction
2021
Green infrastructure is a structural system of naturally developed human societies, capable of preserving and ensuring as much space as possible to the local biodiversity. For this reason, green infrastructure shall be planned and designed so that the urban built environment is in harmony with the surrounding biotic communities. The challenge is to sustain nature-based solutions in order to improve citizens’ awareness towards natural and semi-natural ecosystems while providing our society with a more liveable, healthier, safer and fairer environment. This book puts an emphasis on the services the city can offer to nature, thanks to a multidisciplinary approach involving scientists and pract…
I TETTI VERDI DI TIPO ESTENSIVO: BIODIVERSITÀ AD ALTA QUOTA
2016
Le città sono state paragonate da Odum a degli organismi eterotrofi che basano la loro crescita ed espansione sull’uso indiscriminato di risorse e sono causa di perdita irreversibile e frammentazione degli habitat naturali. I tetti verdi rappresentano uno strumento essenziale di mitigazione e compensazione ambientale all’interno del tessuto urbano dove, l’alta densità edilizia e l’elevato disturbo antropico concedono poco spazio alle dinamiche naturali. In particolare, i tetti verdi per la biodiversità caratterizzati da mosaici di micro-habitat diversi e contigui tra loro, possano ospitare specie con caratteristiche morfo-funzionali diverse. L’approccio noto come habitat template, consiste …