Search results for " BIODIVERSITY"

The influence of climate change on the soil organic carbon content in Italy from 1961 to 2008

2011

Abstract Soils are the biggest carbon store in the world (1500 Gt, e.g. 1.5 × 10 21  g). The European Commission indicates the accounting of soil organic carbon (SOC) variations in space and time as the first step in the strategy for soil protection. It is indeed necessary in evaluating the risk of soil organic matter decline and soil biodiversity decline, and when evaluating the role played by soils in global CO 2 accounting. Previous maps of SOC variations in Italy did not consider the direct effect of climate. There is a marked inter-dependence between SOC and climate. SOC increases with the increase in precipitations and decreases with a rise in temperatures. It is also known that land …

Verde pensile estensivo ad alto valore ecologico in ambiente mediterraneo. Aspetti progettuali e funzionali

2013

Green areas are open spaces holding an unexpected kind of local biodiversity within the city, linked to species and habitats frequently found in human settlements. Green roofs can be an important means for environmental mitigation and, if designed according to the principles of restoration ecology, can improve the thermodynamic performance / hydraulic system and at the same time encouraging the development of urban biodiversity. With this work, we propose a methodology approach for green roofs in Mediterranean areas, that integrate aesthetic values with the functional traits of native species, in order to make green roofs “local tanks of biodiversity”.

Australohydnum dregeanum new to Italy

2014

We report on the first finding in Italy (and the third in Europe) of Australohydnum dregeanum. A detailed description of the macro- and micromorphological features, the ecological data, and some taxonomic remarks concerning this taxon are provided. The bluish tint in the centre of the hymenophoral surface and the non-cystidiform aspect of the marginal hyphae are previously undescribed characters.

Physical oceanography, sea-bed photographs and videos of benthos from the Weddell Sea taken with remote operated vehicle CHEROKEE during POLARSTERN c…

2010

The marine ecosystem on the eastern shelf of the Antarctic Peninsula was surveyed 5 and 12 years after the climate-induced collapse of the Larsen A and B ice shelves. An impoverished benthic fauna was discovered, that included deep-sea species presumed to be remnants from ice-covered conditions. The current structure of various ecosystem components appears to result from extremely different response rates to the change from an oligotrophic sub-ice-shelf ecosystem to a productive shelf ecosystem. Meiobenthic communities remained impoverished only inside the embayments. On local scales, macro- and mega-epibenthic diversity was generally low, with pioneer species and typical Antarctic megabent…

HISTORY AND FOREST VEGETATION DYNAMICS OF THE FAVORITA PARK IN THE PALERMO SUBURBS (NW SICILY)

2017

THE PALERMO BOTANICAL GARDEN’S FICUS GENUS (MORACEAE) COLLECTION

2014

A Plant Sociological Procedure for the Ecological Design and Enhancement of Urban Green Infrastructure

2021

AbstractUrban green infrastructure could represent an important mean for environmental mitigation, if designed according to the principles of restoration ecology. Moreover, if suitably executed, managed and sized, they may be assimilated to meta-populations of natural habitats, deserving to be included in the biodiversity monitoring networks. In this chapter, we combined automatised and expert opinion-based procedures in order to select the vascular plant assemblages to populate different microhabitats (differing in terms of light and moisture) co-occurring on an existing green roof in Zurich (Switzerland). Our results lead to identify three main plant species groups, which prove to be the …

Mapping and assessing ecosystem services in the EU:Lessons learned from the ESMERALDA approach of integration

2018

The European Union (EU) Horizon 2020 Coordination and Support Action ESMERALDA aimed at developing guidance and a flexible methodology for Mapping and Assessment of Ecosystems and their Services (MAES) to support the EU member states in the implementation of the EU Biodiversity Strategy's Target 2 Action 5. ESMERALDA's key tasks included network creation, stakeholder engagement, enhancing ecosystem services mapping and assessment methods across various spatial scales and value domains, work in case studies and support of EU member states in MAES implementation. Thus ESMERALDA aimed at integrating various project outcomes around four major strands: i) Networking, ii) Policy, iii) Research an…

Species immigration, extinction and turnover of vascular plants in boreal lakes

1999

Dictated by limited resource availability for land acquisition, a central question in conservation biology is the ability of areas of different size to maintain species diversity. The selected reserves should not only be species rich at the moment, but should also maintain species diversity in the long run. We used two sets of data on vascular plant species in boreal lakes collected in 1933/34 and 1996 to test the relationships between lake area and the extinction, immigration and turnover rates of the species. Moreover, we investigated, whether the number of species in 1933/34 or water connection between lakes was related to extinction, immigration and turnover rates of species. We found t…

Conservation of vascular plants in single large and several small mires: species richness, rarity and taxonomic diversity

1998

1. This study on vascular plant species of boreal spruce and pine mires concentrated on two geometrical principles: whether single large or several small (SLOSS) reserves contain more species and whether patch shape should be as nearly circular as possible. 2. SLOSS and patch shape have usually been tested by using species richness. Only a few studies have taken the rarity of species into account, and taxonomic diversity has never been used. In our study, all three of these factors were used. 3. Our results showed that the number of species was not related to the spruce mire size, but it increased in relation to the pine mire size. In contrast, the rarity score increased in relation to the …