Search results for " environments"

Unveiling distribution patterns of freshwater phytoplankton by a next generation sequencing based approach.

2012

The recognition and discrimination of phytoplankton species is one of the foundations of freshwater biodiversity research and environmental monitoring. This step is frequently a bottleneck in the analytical chain from sampling to data analysis and subsequent environmental status evaluation. Here we present phytoplankton diversity data from 49 lakes including three seasonal surveys assessed by next generation sequencing (NGS) of 16S ribosomal RNA chloroplast and cyanobacterial gene amplicons and also compare part of these datasets with identification based on morphology. Direct comparison of NGS to microscopic data from three time-series showed that NGS was able to capture the seasonality in…

Research focusing on plant performance in constructed wetlands and agronomic application of treated wastewater – A set of experimental studies in Sic…

2019

Constructed wetlands are sustainable technologies for the treatment of wastewater. These biological systems have been widely studied throughout the world for more than 30 years; however, most studies have focused on the effects of design and engineering on pollutant removal from wastewater. Undoubtedly, agro-technical aspects have been given too little consideration by research. This paper reports the main results of a set of experiments carried out on two pilot horizontal subsurface flow systems in Sicily (Italy). Festuca, Lolium and Pennisetum spp. in combination and three emergent macrophytes-Arundo donax L., Cyperus alternifolius L. and Typha latifolia L.-alone, were assessed. The aim o…

Carbon stock increases up to old growth forest along a secondary succession in Mediterranean island ecosystems.

2019

The occurrence of old-growth forests is quite limited in Mediterranean islands, which have been subject to particularly pronounced human impacts. Little is known about the carbon stocks of such peculiar ecosystems compared with different stages of secondary succession. We investigated the carbon variation in aboveground woody biomass, in litter and soil, and the nitrogen variation in litter and soil, in a 100 years long secondary succession in Mediterranean ecosystems. A vineyard, three stages of plant succession (high maquis, maquis-forest, and forest-maquis), and an old growth forest were compared. Soil samples at two soil depths (0-15 and 15-30 cm), and two litter types, relatively undec…

Soil fungal community composition does not alter along a latitudinal gradient through the maritime and sub-Antarctic

2012

We investigated the relationships between fungal community composition, latitude and a range of physicochemical parameters in 58 soils sampled from a 2370 km latitudinal gradient between South Georgia (54 S, 38 W) in the sub-Antarctic and Mars Oasis (72 S, 68 W) on Alexander Island in the southern maritime Antarctic. Our study, which is based on approximately ten times the number of samples used in previous similar studies, indicates that latitude and its associated environmental parameters are not related to fungal community composition. Significant changes in the composition of soil fungal communities were observed in relation to gradients of the ratio of total organic carbon to nitrogen,…

IoT-MAAC: Multiple Attribute Access Control for IoT environments

2020

Access Control is an important security service that should be considered in IoT environments in order to offer reliable IoT services. Access control in IoT environments concerns not only the access of IoT users to IoT services and objects, but also the access of IoT objects to IoT gateways. In this paper, we specify an access control mechanism that considers the access of IoT objects to IoT gateways in order to enhance the reliability of IoT data provided by the IoT objects. Our proposed access control mechanism, called IoT-MAAC (Multi Attribute Access Control), allows retrieving requested data from the most reliable and secured IoT objects among the available objects in the IoT environmen…

The geochemical cycle of Tellurium in volcanic environments

This research is focused on the geochemistry of Tellurium (Te) in active volcanic environments. To this end concentrations of Te have been measured on different matrices (plume, ashes, soils, atmospheric depositions and plants). Samples were collected from different volcanoes around the world: volcanic aerosols from Etna and Vulcano (Italy), Turrialba (Costa Rica), Myakejima, Asama and Aso (Japan), Mutnovsky and Gorely (Kamchatka, Russia), Copahue (Argentina), Nyamuragira and Nyiragongo (D.R. Congo); atmospheric depositions from Etna and Vulcano (Italy), Nyiragongo (D.R. Congo); ash from Etna (Italy), Copahue (Argentina), San Miguel (El Salvador). Among with plume and rain samples, several …

Confined environments for the preparation of Luminescent nanophosphors

2018

Uncertainty-reducing cooperation scripts in online learning environments

2004

Online learning courses can create new interaction situations for participants who have not previously worked with each other. Initially, there is some degree of uncertainty between participants in these interaction situations. According to the uncertainty reduction theory, low uncertainty increases theamount of discourse and decreases information seeking. Thus, uncertainty may influence online discourseand learning. However, the relation of uncertainty reduction to learning outcomes has not yet been investigated systematically. Cooperation scripts may reduce uncertainty, and therefore enhance learning.A cooperation script, which aims to reduce uncertainty at a cognitive level, was chosen f…

Microbial ecology of the rhizosphere

2006

Part II. Selected MethodsPlant-microbe Chapitre 9 : Interactions and Soil Quality; International audience

Landscape Systems and Human Land-Use Interactions in Mediterranean Highlands and Littoral Plains during the Late Holocene: Integrated Analysis from t…

2012

The main goal of the InterAmbAr reseach project is to analyze the relationships between landscape systems and human land-use strategies on mountains and littoral plains from a long-term perspective. The study adopts a high resolution analysis of small-scale study areas located in the Mediterranean region of north-eastern Catalonia. The study areas are distributed along an altitudinal transect from the high mountain (above 2000m a.s.l.) to the littoral plain of Empordà (Fig. 1). High resolution interdisciplinary research has been carried out from 2010, based on the integration of palaeoenvironmental and archaeological data. The micro-scale approach is used to understand human-environmental r…