Search results for " MEDITERRANEAN"

Reversing agriculture from intensive to sustainable improves soil quality in a semiarid South Italian soil

2010

Intensive agriculture (IA) is widespread in South Italy, although it requires frequent tillage, large amounts of fertilizers and irrigation water. We have assessed the efficacy of reversing IA to sustainable agriculture (SA) in recovering quality of a typical South Italy soil (Lithic Haploxeralf). This reversion, lasting from 2000 to 2007, replaced 75% of nutrients formerly supplied inorganically by farmyard manuring and reduced the tillage frequency. Several chemical and biochemical properties, functionally related to C and N mineralisation–immobilisation processes and to P and S nutrient cycles, were monitored annually from 2005 to 2007 in the spring. Reversing IA to SA decreased soil bul…

Trophic habits of Muscardinus avellanarius (Mammalia Gliridae) as revealed by multiple stable isotope analysis

2007

Multiple stable isotope analysis was used to investigate the diet of the common dormouse Muscardinus avellanarius in a mixed Mediterranean forest. δ13C and δ15N values of dormouse tissues compared to those of the vegetal and animal sources available in the area showed that the isotopic composition of both adult and juvenile M. avellanarius could be explained by a mixture of vegetal and animal organic matter. The isotopic composition of the assimilated nitrogen was mostly explained by the organic matter from flora. Among the vegetal components, flowers of Fagus silvatica, Quercus robur, and the rarer Crataegus oxyacantha, berries of Ilex aquifolium and acorns of Q. robur were found in the ad…

The Black Mediterranean: A View from Sicily

2021

While Italy has recently experienced nationalist drives, Sicily and in particular the City of Palermo, one of the major ports of refuge for countless migrants arriving in Europe from the African shores, has distinguished itself as an experimental site where to rethink and challenge notions of residence, mobility, citizenship and belonging. Through a series of cultural initiatives, Palermo has become a hub for frontline artists, writers, intellectuals, and activists who have gathered to explore the historically and contemporary ways in which black voices have been silenced and black bodies have been ambiguously imagined in Western-dominated global culture. Investigating these questions is fu…

CO2 vents areas show effects of ocean acidification on benthic rocky shores assemblages

2011

Mediterranean coccolith ecobiostratigraphy since the penultimate Glacial (the last 145,000years) and ecobioevent traceability

2015

The Mediterranean Sea is a miniature ocean ideal to test the response of marine ecosystems to amplified orbital and suborbital climate changes. Here we present coccolith data from a Sardinia Channel gravity core (Arcose C_33) analysed over the last 145,000 years, with a mean resolution of about 900 years. The study highlights that regional phytoplankton assemblages underwent significant modifications between the penultimate glacial and the last interglacial, as well as between the last glacial and the Holocene. The N ratio palaeoproductivity index suggests reduced productivity levels and the development of a deep nutricline during the last interglacial and the Holocene. Within the last glac…

Green coffee, bioactive compounds’ analysis of experimental cultivation in Sicily: a new frontier in the Sicilian food sector

2023

Recently, climate change represents a new possibility for tropical cultivars fruit in Mediterranean areas. The focus of this work is the evaluation of the real possibility of coffee cultivation in Sicily, like coffee plants grown in tropical and subtropical regions. The objective was to evaluate plant adaptation to our climate and to study the chemical qualities of green coffee pulps and seeds: total phenolic content, antiradical capacity, fatty acids, amino acids, alkaloids, vitamins, proximate composition, polyphenolic profile and other bioactive compounds of cosmetic, pharmaceutical and agrary interest. Temperature, light and vegetative growth of Coffea arabica L. cv. “Caturra” plants we…

The marine crustacea decapoda of Sicily: a cecklist with remarks on their distribution.

2003

A checklist of the Crustacea Decapocla of Sicily, based on previously published records and on original data, is presented. The Sicilian waters were divided into three sectors to account for the different habitats present along the northern and western (sector A), eastern (B) and southern (C) coasts, for the sake of a better interpretation of the species distribution. A total of 186 species, vas recorded between 0 and 800 in depth, 31 of which are reported here for the first time. Sector A hosted 153 species, B 105 species. and C 117 species. The dissimilarities among the habitats present in the shallow waters of the three sectors accounted for the low co-occurrence of species: 30 species w…

Crustacea Decapoda from Ustica (Southern Tyrrhenian Sea): species distribution and sampling approach.

2011

The decapod crustacean fauna of Ustica Island (Sicily, southern Tyrrhenian Sea) has been investigated in summer 2002 with the aid of many different sampling methods: suction device, pushnet, skid trawl, trammel net, traps, underwater observation, interviews. All the substrata occurring around the island from 0 to about -30 m were surveyed: midlittoral rock, infralittoral rock, pebbles, seagrass (Posidonia oceanica) bed, sand, detritic bottom, submerged cave. Fiftyseven species were collected in the investigated localities. Abundance and frequency of all species in the samples and in each surveyed biotope are given. The performance of each sampling method has been evaluated, in terms of numb…

WATER MASSES EXCHANGE THROUGH THE STRAIT OF SICILY DURING THE LAST DEGLACIAL PERIOD AND THE HOLOCENE

2022

The main goal of this thesis is to explore the inter-basin connection between the eastern and the western Mediterranean (E- and W-Med, respectively) during the last deglacial and Holocene periods (last 15 kyr). The thesis is based on the study of a sediment core recovered at the west flank of Sicily channel (W-Sicily), strategically located under the current path of the surface Atlantic waters and directly below the present-day hydrographic boundary layer between the Eastern Mediterranean Sourced Water (EMSW) and the Western Mediterranean Deep Water (WMDW). This key location allow to explore past changes in both surface and deep water exchange between the E and the W-Med. In this thesis, a …

PAROLE MIGRANTI TRA ORIENTE E OCCIDENTE

2015

L’immagine che oggi il Mediterraneo offre è lungi dall’essere rassicurante. Ai nostri giorni si può dire che le sue opposte rive non abbiano in comune che le loro insoddisfazioni. E sempre più si percepisce questo mare come spazio di attraversamenti intollerati. Percepire il Mediterraneo partendo dal suo passato rimane tuttavia un’abitudine tenace, e a volte viene da pensare che la retrospettiva prevalga sulla prospettiva. La retrospettiva è però irrinunciabile, oggi più che mai. E lo è nel momento in cui la realizzazione di una convivenza in seno ai territori multietnici, là dove si incrociano e si mescolano culture, religioni, lingue diverse, conosce sotto i nostri occhi uno smacco crudel…