Search results for " Ecosystem"
showing 10 items of 633 documents
Identifying the role of business accelerators in the developing business ecosystem: the life science sector
2020
PurposeBusiness accelerators have recently received increasing attention as important cogs in business ecosystem development. However, their exact role in the ecosystem is not yet well known, especially outside the IT sector. The purpose of this study is, therefore, twofold: to determine the position of life science accelerators in the business ecosystem and the attributes of support for companies and to identify key features of the life science accelerators that contribute to the change in business ecosystems.Design/methodology/approachThe authors offer an exploratory case study of five life science business accelerators and analyze the main factors affecting the companies and the whole bu…
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…
Innovation and Entrepreneurial Ecosystems: Structure, Boundaries, and Dynamics
2019
Recognizing the broader dimensions of entrepreneurial and innovation activities, holistic and inclusive networked approaches pave the way to co-creation activities that are essential for achieving sustainability in food systems. Recent studies have started to deepen what are the critical enablers for creating thriving entrepreneurial and innovation ecosystems. Networks that include firms, institutions, and several other relevant stakeholders in knowledge spillovers enable to produce more social and economic value through co-creation processes. However, due to the unique complexity within ecosystems, there is no standardized framework or strategy to develop entrepreneurial or innovation ecos…
Road verges provide alternative habitats for some, but not all, meadow plants
2021
Questions Agricultural intensification has led to the decline of biodiverse meadows and other semi-natural grasslands. Road verges offer potential alternative habitats for meadow species, but they may not be suitable for all meadow species due to different soil properties, frequent disturbances, pollution or suboptimal management. Are the communities of vascular plants and bryophytes similar or dissimilar to those in mown or grazed meadows? What kind of species are associated with road verges, mown meadows or grazed meadows? How do the habitat types differ in their soil conditions and disturbance intensity? Location The study was conducted on 36 sites in Central Finland. Methods We compared…
Vegetation dynamics within afforested coastal areas: regeneration by native species or invasion by alien species?
2017
During the last century, massive reforestation projects along the dunes of the southern Sicily have been carried out. Such interventions, far from being in line with the current trends of close-to-nature silviculture, are, however, particularly interesting to assess the vegetation dynamics in afforestation areas. Furthermore, these kind of interventions may determine two opposite effects, that is renaturalization by native woody species or invasion by alien species. Acacia spp. are among the most widespread and prominent invaders within Mediterranean-climate areas, where they have already shown the capability to deeply change the characters and the functioning of native ecosystems. For inst…
Tropical traditional fermented food, a field full of promise. Examples from the Tropical Bioresources and Biotechnology programme and other related F…
2013
International audience; In tropical countries, traditional fermented foods are usually home‐made products obtained through spontaneous fermentation or backslopping. They are now facing an evolution aiming at responding to quality, safety and mass production issues. This requires acquisition of knowledge on raw materials, microbial ecosystems and fermentation processes. Vietnam is a laboratory for such studies as traditional fermented foods play an important role in the diet of Vietnamese and as these foods are very diverse. Among the most popular are nem chua (sausage reminding Thai Nham), dua muoi (cabbage reminding Kimchi), tom chua (shrimps) and the well‐known nuoc mam. The challenge for…
Remote sensing of cyanobacterial blooms in a hypertrophic lagoon (Albufera of València, Eastern Iberian Peninsula) using multitemporal Sentinel-2 ima…
2018
Eutrophy in Albufera of Valencia (Eastern Iberian Peninsula) is a quite old problem since after the intense eutrophication processes throughout the 1960s. The system shifted to a turbid stable state consolidated by the virtual disappearance of macrophytes by the early 1970s. The lagoon has been studied extensively since the 1980s, but efforts to revert the system to a clear state have not yielded the expected results because cultural eutrophication due to the growth of population in its area of influence and the effects of climate change, decreasing rainfall and increasing evaporation. This has driven to an increase in water retention times in the lagoon in recent years, resulting in a phyt…
Microbiome of the Black Sea Water Column Analyzed by Genome Centric Metagenomics  
2020
Abstract Background: The Black Sea is the largest brackish water body in the world, although it is connected to the Mediterranean Sea and presents an upper water layer similar to some regions of the former albeit with lower salinity and (mostly) temperature. In spite of its well-known hydrology and physico chemistry, this enormous water mass remains poorly studied at the microbial genomics level. Results: We have sampled its different water masses and analyzed the microbiome by classic and genome-resolved metagenomics generating a large number of metagenome-assembled genomes (MAGs) from them. The oxic zone presents many similarities to the global ocean while the euxinic water mass has simil…
Final Considerations and Open Scenarios
2016
European river contract experiences demonstrate a growing integration between these contractual agreements and the other instruments of water resources management, and urban and territorial planning. Therefore, river contracts represent innovative places for a new governance of river ecosystems and territories, also in compliance with subsidiarity principle. The twofold nature of these contractual agreements—technical dimension and concertative approach—together with their expected wide evolution, allow to identify river contracts not only as sectoral tools for water resource protection and management, but also as catalysts of a new culture of water, recalling the deep interrelationships ex…
Long-term recovery of stream habitat structure and benthic invertebrate communities from in-stream restoration
2002
Headwater streams channelized for water transport of timber in Finland are being restored to their pre-channelization state. The primary motivation is the enhancement of sport fisheries, but restoration probably has profound impacts also on other stream organisms. We assessed how such ‘‘single-goal’’ restorations affect benthic macroinvertebrate communities. We revisited the streams sampled by Laasonen et al. [Aquatic Conservation: Marine and Freshwater Ecosystems 8 (1998)] in the early 1990s when the streams had been recently restored. In 1997, the recovery period of these streams ranged from 4 to 8 years. Habitat structure among the stream types represented a distinct recovery gradient, w…