Search results for " Ecosystem"
showing 10 items of 633 documents
Maritime antarctic lakes as sentinels of climate change
2012
Remote lakes, such as lakes from the Maritime Antarctica, can be used as sentinels of climate change, because they are mostly free of direct anthropogenic pressures, and they experience climate change as a main stressor capable of modifying the ecosystem structure and function. In this paper, the content of a lecture that has been presented at the First Conference of Lake Sustainability, which has been centred in our studies on lakes from Byers Peninsula (Maritime Antarctica), are summarized. These included physical, chemical and biological studies of these lakes and other freshwater ecosystems, which highlighted the relevance of biotic interactions for these ecosystems and its sensibility …
Unintentional dispersal of aquatic invertebrates via footwear and motor vehicles in a Mediterranean wetland area
2010
1. Several human activities, such as actions for nature conservation, research and recreational activities, are closely associated with inland aquatic habitats that are usually considered as isolated island habitats. In this study, the possibility of unintentional dispersal of aquatic invertebrates among water bodies via footwear and motor vehicles was investigated. 2. Mud samples collected from boots and from the tyres and wheel cases of cars used for field work by biologists (Camargue, Southern France) were hatched under laboratory conditions and also checked for the presence of unhatched propagules. A large number of organisms hatched and invertebrate propagules from a wide range of taxa…
The influence of thermal extremes on coral reef fish behaviour in the Persian Gulf
2019
AbstractDespite increasing environmental variability within marine ecosystems, little is known about how coral reef fish species will cope with future climate scenarios. The Arabian/Persian Gulf is an extreme environment, providing an opportunity to study fish behaviour on reefs with seasonal temperature ranges which include both values above the mortality threshold of Indo-Pacific reef fish, and values below the optimum temperature for growth. Summer temperatures in the Gulf are comparable to those predicted for the tropical ocean by 2090-2099. Using field observations in winter, spring and summer, and laboratory experiments, we examined the foraging activity, distance from refugia and res…
Trophic cascades in benthic marine ecosystems: lessons for fisheries and protected-area management
2000
An important principle of environmental science is that changes in single components of systems are likely to have consequences elsewhere in the same systems. In the sea, food web data are one of the few foundations for predicting such indirect effects, whether of fishery exploitation or following recovery in marine protected areas (MPAs). We review the available literature on one type of indirect interaction in benthic marine ecosystems, namely trophic cascades, which involve three or more trophic levels connected by predation. Because many indirect effects have been revealed through fishery exploitation, in some cases we include humans as trophic levels. Our purpose is to establish how wi…
BUSINESS ECOSYSTEM UNDER CONSTRUCTION
2012
In recent years, we have seen the rise in interest on new service concepts that would take the advantage of capabilities of ecosystems instead that of single companies. In this paper we describe the initial steps on a new business initiative and how the ecosystem starts developing around the core. We use action research approach in one case of building joint service, sports receipt, for health exercise and wellbeing markets. The research paper concludes with an ecosystem mode peerReviewed
Ecosystem Under Construction: An Action Research Study on Entrepreneurship in a Business Ecosystem
2012
In recent years, we have seen increasing interest in new service concepts that take advantage of the capabilities of business ecosystems instead of single companies. In this article, we describe how a business ecosystem begins to develop around a service business idea proposed by an entrepreneur. We aim to recognize the different domains of players that are or should be involved in the ecosystem while it is under construction. The article concludes with an ecosystem model consisting of six sub-ecosystems having different change drivers and clockspeeds. All great things are based on a series of small things, and all the small things need hard work.
Coastal high-frequency radars in the Mediterranean - Part 2: Applications in support of science priorities and societal needs
2022
The Mediterranean Sea is a prominent climate-change hot spot, with many socioeconomically vital coastal areas being the most vulnerable targets for maritime safety, diverse met-ocean hazards and marine pollution. Providing an unprecedented spatial and temporal resolution at wide coastal areas, high-frequency radars (HFRs) have been steadily gaining recognition as an effective land-based remote sensing technology for continuous monitoring of the surface circulation, increasingly waves and occasionally winds. HFR measurements have boosted the thorough scientific knowledge of coastal processes, also fostering a broad range of applications, which has promoted their integration in coastal ocean …
Statistical upscaling of ecosystem CO2 fluxes across the terrestrial tundra and boreal domain: Regional patterns and uncertainties
2021
The regional variability in tundra and boreal carbon dioxide (CO2) fluxes can be high, complicating efforts to quantify sink-source patterns across the entire region. Statistical models are increasingly used to predict (i.e., upscale) CO2 fluxes across large spatial domains, but the reliability of different modeling techniques, each with different specifications and assumptions, has not been assessed in detail. Here, we compile eddy covariance and chamber measurements of annual and growing season CO2 fluxes of gross primary productivity (GPP), ecosystem respiration (ER), and net ecosystem exchange (NEE) during 1990–2015 from 148 terrestrial high-latitude (i.e., tundra and boreal) sites to a…
Robots responding to care needs? : A multitasking care robot pursued for 25 years, available products offer simple entertainment and instrumental ass…
2020
Twenty-five years ago, robotics guru Joseph Engelberger had a mission to motivate research teams all over the world to design the ‘Elderly Care Giver’, a multitasking personal robot assistant for everyday care needs in old age. In this article, we discuss how this vision of omnipotent care robots has influenced the design strategies of care robotics, the development of R&D initiatives and ethics research on use of care robots. Despite the expectations of robots revolutionizing care of older people, the role of robots in human care has remained marginal. The value of world trade in service robots, including care robots, is rather small. We argue that the implementation of robots in care is n…
A quantitative insight into the impact and performance of seed accelerators and their accelerated start-ups
2020
El tema de investigación de esta tesis es el estudio de las aceleradoras de emprendimiento (AE), consideradas la nueva generación de incubadora de empresas (Bøllingtoft, 2012). Tanto las incubadoras como las aceleradoras permiten a las empresas jóvenes comenzar su actividad a través de un proceso de aprendizaje, consultoría e inversión, con el objetivo de aumentar sus posibilidades de supervivencia y crecimiento en el mercado durante sus primeros meses de vida (Cohen y Hochberg, 2014). El número de AE ha aumentado drásticamente desde la primera Aceleradora conocida en 2005 (Y Combinator), hasta un estimado de más de 3.000 AE en todo el mundo (Hochberg, 2016). Europa en particular, experimen…