Search results for " biodiversity."
showing 10 items of 313 documents
Urban green and grey space in relation to respiratory health in children
2017
We assessed the effect of three different indices of urban built environment on allergic and respiratory conditions.This study involved 2472 children participating in the ongoing INMA birth cohort located in two bio-geographic regions (Euro-Siberian and Mediterranean) in Spain. Residential surrounding built environment was characterised as 1) residential surrounding greenness based on satellite-derived normalised difference vegetation index (NDVI), 2) residential proximity to green spaces and 3) residential surrounding greyness based on urban land use patterns. Information on wheezing, bronchitis, asthma and allergic rhinitis up to age 4 years was obtained from parent-completed questionnair…
CITIZEN SCIENCE: A SUCCESSFUL TOOL FOR MONITORING MARINE BIODIVERSITY
2019
The Mediterranean Sea, considered as a true hotspot of biodiversity, is currently experiencing a decline in the number of species and a deterioration of habitats, as a consequence of different anthropogenic pressures, which are predicted to increase in the future. Among these pressures, the increase of human population, habitat modification and loss, pollution, coastal urbanization, overexploitation, the intentional or indirect introduction of Non-Indigenous Species (NIS, i.e. organisms introduced outside of their natural range) and climate changes (i.e. acidification and warming) have been pointed out as the major threats to biodiversity. Therefore, biodiversity monitoring and surveillance…
Gaps in International Biodiversity Law and Possible Ways Forward
2021
Building on the report on gaps in international environmental law prepared in 2018 by the UN Secretary-General, this chapter focuses on the existing gaps in international biodiversity law and explores possible ways forward to a more effective and integrated legal regime. The analysis indicates the existence of structural, regulatory and implementation gaps that seriously undermine the efficiency of the regime. The chapter explores the possibility of building a more integrated international legal regime for biodiversity protection by analysing three possible avenues: greater integration between existing conventions, the conclusion of new conventions (such as the impending agreement on marine…
Shelled-Molluscs Fauna at Abrolhos Bank (Brazil): Assessment of Both Total Species Richness and the Completed Distribution of Species Frequencies by …
2020
Numerous anthropogenic threats to the exceptionally rich coral-reef ecosystem at Abrolhos Bank (Brazil) arguably require implementing drastic conservation policy and meanwhile, urge for the prior detailed assessment of species richness and the species distribution across the Bank. Due to their unavoidable incompleteness, the already implemented “Rapid Assessment Surveys” at Abrolhos Bank deserve being completed, at least numerically, by implementing an appropriate extrapolation procedure, to avoid serious bias precisely due to ignoring both the number and the frequency distribution of those species still remaining undetected after Rapid Assessment Surveys. Complying with this concern, I rep…
Marine biodiversity in space and time : what tiny fossils tell
2018
Biodiversity has been changing both in space and time. For example, we have more species in the tropics and less species in the Arctic and Antarctic regions, constituting latitudinal diversity gradient, one of the patterns we can see most consistently in this complex world. We know much less regarding the biodiversity gradients with time. This is because it would require a well designed continuous monitoring program, which seldom persist beyond a few decades. But, luckily, we have remains of ancient organisms, called fossils. These are basically the only direct records of past biodiversity.
Sustaining Canadian marine biodiversity: Policy and statutory progress
2020
A 2012 Expert Panel Report on marine biodiversity by the Royal Society of Canada (RSC) concluded that Canada faced significant challenges in achieving sustainable fisheries, regulating aquaculture, and accounting for climate change. Relative to many countries, progress by Canada in fulfilling international obligations to sustain biodiversity was deemed poor. To track progress by Canada since 2012, the RSC struck a committee to track policy and statutory developments on matters pertaining to marine biodiversity and to identify policy challenges, and leading options for implementation that lie ahead. The report by the Policy Briefing Committee is presented here. It concluded that Canada has …
Biodiversity conservation and protected areas in the Mediterranean region
2018
This chapter provides an overview of current biodiversity knowledge in Mediterranean forest ecosystems across all levels (genetic diversity, species diversity, landscape diversity) and endemism, ecological peculiarities that make Mediterranean forest ecosystems different. It also outlines the importance of biodiversity for functional forest ecosystems and illustrates some examples of conservation efforts in the region.
Monitoring of alien aquatic plants in the inland waters of Sicily (Italy)
2020
Updated and reliable data on the presence and distribution of alien aquatic plant species in Sicily are lacking, and there is a need to fill this gap for a proper and efficient management of freshwater ecosystems and biodiversity. This paper reviews the available knowledge about alien aquatic vascular plants in the inland waters of Sicily (Italy). The aim is to provide an updated checklist, as a first step in the study of the impact of those plants on the native species and ecosystems of this Mediterranean island. The paper focuses on the strictly aquatic species (hydrophytes), excluding emergent macrophytes. Four species were listed, all of them free-floating and with American origin. Most…
Antitumoral compounds from vertebrate sister group: A review of Mediterranean ascidians
2020
Among the diseases that afflict the human population, cancer is one for which many drug treatments are not yet known or effective. Moreover, the pharmacological treatments used often create serious side effects in sick patients and for this reason, it is essential to find effective and less harmful treatments. To date, marine biodiversity is a real source of metabolites with antitumoral activity and among invertebrates' ascidians have been the main source to obtain them. Mediterranean area is the richest in biodiversity and contains several ascidian species used in drugs development during the years. However, many more Mediterranean ascidian species have not been studied and could be a sour…