Search results for " Resource"
showing 10 items of 3405 documents
Semi-natural habitats in the European boreal region: Caught in the socio-ecological extinction vortex?
2022
AbstractWe propose to consider semi-natural habitats—hotspots for biodiversity—being caught in a socio-ecological extinction vortex, similar to the phenomenon described for species threatened with extinction. These habitats are essentially socioecological systems, in which socioeconomic drivers are interlinked with ecological processes. We identify four highly interlinked and mutually reinforcing socio-economic processes, pertaining to the importance of semi-natural habitats for (i) agricultural production, (ii) policy, research and development; (iii) vocational education in the fields of agricultural sciences and (iv) public’s experiences with semi-natural habitats. Evidence from six count…
Ecological and agronomic importance of the plant genus Lotus. Its application in grassland sustainability and the amelioration of constrained and con…
2010
The genus Lotus comprises around 100 annual and perennial species with worldwide distribution. The relevance of Lotus japonicus as a model plant has been recently demonstrated in numerous studies. In addition, some of the Lotus species show a great potential for adaptation to a number of abiotic stresses. Therefore, they are relevant components of grassland ecosystems in environmentally constrained areas of several South American countries and Australia, where they are used for livestock production. Also, the fact that the roots of these species form rhizobial and mycorrhizal associations makes the annual L. japonicus a suitable model plant for legumes, particularly in studies directed to r…
Importance of surface tension characterization for food, pharmaceutical and packaging products: a review.
2006
This article reviews the various theoretical approaches that have been developed for determination of the surface tension of solids, and the applications to food industrial products. The surface tension of a solid is a characteristic of surface properties and interfacial interactions such as adsorption, wetting or adhesion. The knowledge of surface tension is thus of great interest for every domain involved in understanding these mechanisms, which recover a lot of industrial investigations. Indeed, it is the case for the packaging industry, the food materials science, the biomedical applications and the pharmaceutical products, cleaning, adhesive technology, painting, coating and more gener…
Thresholds for impaired species recovery
2015
Studies on small and declining populations dominate research in conservation biology. This emphasis reflects two overarching frameworks: the small-population paradigm focuses on correlates of increased extinction probability; the declining-population paradigm directs attention to the causes and consequences of depletion. Neither, however, particularly informs research on the determinants, rate or uncertainty of population increase. By contrast, Allee effects (positive associations between population size and realized per capita population growth rate, r realized , a metric of average individual fitness) offer a theoretical and empirical basis for identifying numerical and temporal threshol…
Utility of island populations in re-introduction programmes--relationships between Arabian gazelles (Gazella arabica) from the Farasan Archipelago an…
2014
Understanding local adaptation and population differentiation is vital to the success of re-introduction initiatives. As other mammals living on islands, Arabian gazelles (G. arabica) show reduced body size on the Farasan archipelago, which we corroborated in this study through morphometric analyses of skulls. In the light of the steep population decline on the Arabian Peninsula – but stable population development on the archipelago – we tested the potential suitability of Farasan gazelles as a source for re-introductions on the mainland. We therefore investigated genetic differentiation between Farasan and mainland populations using eleven nuclear microsatellite loci and detected a distinc…
Landscape-scale Spatial Distribution of the Lanner Falcon (Falco biarmicus feldeggii) Breeding Population in Italy
2008
Falco biarmicus feldeggii is one of the most threatened taxa in Europe. Its global population is estimated at a few hundred pairs unequally scattered in a vast and fragmented area stretching from Sicily to the Caspian Sea. Most recent counts showed that Italy hosts a large part (>25%) of the whole population. Consequently, Italian authorities promoted a national action plan. In this framework, we carried out the first national survey for the Lanner Falcon in Italy (2003-2004). Our study area covered the whole breeding range, i.e., Sicily and the Italian peninsula (n = 2909 cells 10 × 10 km). When possible, we considered also additional information from previous regional investigations (1993…
Using change trajectories to study the impacts of multi-annual habitat loss on fledgling production in an old forest specialist bird
2017
The loss and subdivision of habitat into smaller and more spatially isolated units due to human actions has been shown to adversely affect species worldwide. We examined how changes in old forest cover during eight years were associated with the cumulative number of fledged offspring at the end of study period in Eurasian treecreepers (Certhia familiaris) in Central Finland. We were specifically interested in whether the initial level of old forest cover moderated this relation. We applied a flexible and powerful approach, latent growth curve modelling in a structural equation modeling (SEM) framework, to create trajectories describing changes in old forest cover through time, and studied h…
Detailed internal characterisation of two Finnish landfills by waste sampling
2006
The aim of this study was to characterise the internal structure and composition of landfilled waste at two Finnish landfills to provide information for active and post-landfill operations. The two sites, Ammässuo and Kujala, have been in operation for 17 and 48 years, respectively. Waste was sampled (total 68 samples) and analysed for total solids (TS), volatile solids (VS), total Kjeldahl nitrogen (TKN), biological methane potential (BMP) and leaching of organic material (determined as chemical oxygen demand, COD) and ammonium nitrogen (NH(4)-N). The results showed high vertical and horizontal variability, which indicated that both the waste composition and state of degradation varied gre…
Ecological Efficiency of Voluntary Conservation of Boreal-Forest Biodiversity
2008
Current networks of protected areas are biased in many countries toward landscapes of low productivity. Voluntary conservation incentives have been suggested as a socially acceptable way to supplement existing networks with more productive, privately owned areas of high priority for nature conservation. The limited resources committed to nature conservation demand cost-efficiency. Efficiency, however, depends not only on costs incurred to society from alternative ways of maintaining biodiversity but also on ecological values that can be captured. We examined the ecological efficiency of the new market-based voluntary program to preserve forest habitats on private land in southwestern Finlan…
Predicting the risk of extinction from shared ecological characteristics
2005
Understanding the ultimate causes of population declines and extinction is vital in our quest to stop the currently rampant biodiversity loss. Comparison of ecological characteristics between threatened and nonthreatened species may reveal these ultimate causes. Here, we report an analysis of ecological characteristics of 23 threatened and 72 nonthreatened butterfly species. Our analysis reveals that threatened butterflies are characterized by narrow niche breadth, restricted resource distribution, poor dispersal ability, and short flight period. Based on the characteristics, we constructed an ecological extinction risk rank and predicted which of the currently nonthreatened species are at …