Search results for " Ecosystem"

BOTANICAL CONTRIBUTION TO ARCHAEOLOGICAL LAND EVALUATION IN THE FP7 MEMOLA PROJECT

2014

Biomethylation of Heavy Metals in Soil and Terrestrial Invertebrates

2009

Heavy metals play a prominent role in the lives of all organisms. They can be essential, as in the cases of iron, manganese, nickel and copper, which are needed to obtain proper enzyme conformation and reactivity. Some heavy metals are toxic to organisms, such as mercury or cadmium. Often, these metals are rarely accessible in their inorganic form. After biological transformation into organometallic compounds, they exhibit increased toxicity and penetration into animal tissue is facilitated. The alkylation mechanisms of metals (especially mercury) performed by aquatic microorganisms have been well documented. The organometallic food chain from fish to humans has also been investigated. Howe…

Toxico-resistance of Baltic amphipod species to heavy metals

2013

Benthic organisms are important components of aquatic ecosystems and have been widely used to assess environmental pollution. Being very sensitive to a wide range of toxicants amphipods are often used as test objects in eco-toxicological studies. The aim of this study was to compare toxico-resistance of various Baltic amphipod species to exposure of heavy metals. The acute toxicity (48-h LC50 and 96-h LC50) of cadmium (CdCl2), copper (CuSO4) and zinc (ZnSO4 ⋅ 7H2O) was detected experimentally, using juveniles and adults of brackish water amphipods, Monoporeia affinis, Bathyporeia pilosa, Gammarus tigrinus, Pontogammarus robustoides and the freshwater amphipod Gammarus pulex as test objects.…

Empirical calibration of shell chemistry of Cyprideis torosa (Jones, 1850) (Crustacea: Ostracoda)

2012

Abstract Cyprideis torosa is a species of ostracode that inhabits a wide range of aquatic habitats in which its low Alk/Ca requirement is met. Its fossil remains are widely used in palaeoecological studies of coastal environments and inland salt lakes. We collected C. torosa from 20 water bodies near Valencia, Spain. Temperature, chlorophyll a concentration, electrical conductivity, and the concentration of major ions and oxygen isotopes were measured at each site. Between 2 and 20 live individuals of C. torosa were collected per site, their instar stage and sex determined and their shell chemistry (Mg/Ca, Sr/Ca and carbon and oxygen isotope composition) analyzed. Three of these sites were …

Diurnal and Seasonal Solar Induced Chlorophyll Fluorescence and Photosynthesis in a Boreal Scots Pine Canopy

2019

Solar induced chlorophyll fluorescence has been shown to be increasingly an useful proxy for the estimation of gross primary productivity (GPP), at a range of spatial scales. Here, we explore the seasonality in a continuous time series of canopy solar induced fluorescence (hereafter SiF) and its relation to canopy gross primary production (GPP), canopy light use efficiency (LUE), and direct estimates of leaf level photochemical efficiency in an evergreen canopy. SiF was calculated using infilling in two bands from the incoming and reflected radiance using a pair of Ocean Optics USB2000+ spectrometers operated in a dual field of view mode, sampling at a 30 min time step using custom written …

Evaluation of the B‐method for determining actual evapotranspiration in a boreal forest from MODIS data

2007

Boreal forests occupy about 11% of the terrestrial surface and represent an important contribution to global energy balance. The ground measurement of daily evapotranspiration (LEd) is very difficult due to the limitations on experiments. The objective of this paper is to present and explore the applicability of the B-method for monitoring actual LEd in these ecosystems. The method shown in this paper allows us to determine the surface fluxes over boreal forests on a daily basis from instantaneous information registered in a conventional meteorological tower, as well as the canopy temperature (T c) retrieved by satellite. Images collected by the MODIS (moderate resolution imaging spectrorad…

Compensatory water effects link yearly global land CO2 sink changes to temperature

2017

Large interannual variations in the measured growth rate of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) originate primarily from fluctuations in carbon uptake by land ecosystems1–3. It remains uncertain, however, to what extent temperature and water availability control the carbon balance of land ecosystems across spatial and temporal scales3–14. Here we use empirical models based on eddy covariance data15 and process-based models16,17 to investigate the effect of changes in temperature and water availability on gross primary productivity (GPP), terrestrial ecosystem respiration (TER) and net ecosystem exchange (NEE) at local and global scales. We find that water availability is the dominant driver of…

Effects of overabundant nitrate and warmer temperatures on charophytes: The roles of plasticity and local adaptation

2018

Global change effects, such as warming and increases in nitrogen loading, alter vulnerable Mediterranean aquatic systems, and charophytes can be one of the most affected groups. We addressed the possible interaction between these factors on two populations of the cosmopolitan charophytes Chara hispida and Chara vulgaris. Populations were taken from two different environments, a nitrate-poor mountain lake and a nitrate-rich Mediterranean coastal spring. The laboratory experiment had a 2 × 2 factorial design based on two nitrate levels (similar to and double the local conditions) and two temperatures. Increased temperatures favoured the growth of the four populations, but an increase in nitra…

Combining land preparation and vegetation restoration for optimal soil eco-hydrological services in the Loess Plateau, China

2019

Abstract In semiarid terrestrial ecosystems, optimized eco-rehabilitation strategies, such as land preparations and planting vegetation, are keys to achieve a successful ecological restoration. Land preparations and vegetation are supposed to have the coupled and respective impacts on soil ecosystem services, which are still unclear now. In this study, eighteen experimental plots with six different combinations and repetitions of land preparations and vegetation were built in the Chinese Loess Plateau in 2014 and soil moisture storages (SMS), soil carbon stocks (SCS) and other soil nutrient stocks were calculated at 0–100 cm, also the effects of land preparations and planting vegetation on …

Catastrophic effects of sand mining on macroinvertebrates in a large shallow lake with implications for management

2019

Sand mining is a human activity that is increasing in inland waters and has profound effects on entire aquatic ecosystems. However, current knowledge of the effects of sand mining on freshwater lake ecosystems remains limited, especially for biotic communities. Here, we investigated the responses of macroinvertebrates to indiscriminate sand mining in a large shallow lake of China. Our results indicated that sand mining significantly increased the content of suspended particulate matter, total nitrogen, total phosphorus and chlorophyll a in the water column both in the sand mining area and the area adjacent to the dredging activities. While there was significantly lower total nitrogen and th…