Search results for " forest"
showing 10 items of 1940 documents
Soil genetic erosion: New conceptual developments in soil security
2019
In the last decades, in some Mediterranean areas, pedodiversity decreased mainly due to pedotechnique application in large-scale farming that transformed original soils into Anthrosols. Supporting the consideration that soils can be considered as living systems, the original concept of 'soil genetic erosion' is re-proposed. Data, extrapolated and modeled from a Soil Information System in a study case representative of a Mediterranean landscape, predicted that most of the soil types would disappear in few years leading to a decrease of the soil diversity and originating soil genetic erosion. This circumstance is intentionally here told in form of a story where the fairy tale characters are s…
Testing soil water repellency in a Sicilian area two years after a fire
2019
The water drop penetration time (WDPT) technique was applied in 2018 to check persistence of soil water repellency (SWR) in a Sicilian mountain area affected by a wildfire on June 2016. A total of four sites, that were severely water repellent immediately after burning, were sampled. Depending on the site, wettable soil conditions, less SWR and maintenance of a noticeable SWR were detected two years later. At the site showing a near-constant SWR, WDPTs were particularly high in the top soil layer (0-0.03 m) and they appreciably decreased more in depth. Signs of decreasing SWR in drier soil conditions and in association with coarser soil particles were also detected at this site. High gradie…
Analytical approach extending the Granier method to radial sap flow patterns
2020
Abstract The Granier thermal dissipation (TD) method is probably the most applied method to compute the transpiration flux of trees, due to its simplicity and effective compromise between theory and data availability. Starting from the heat transfer equations at the basis of Granier’s method, the objective of this paper is to derive an analytical solution for the transpiration flux to extend the sap flow equations to the radial domain. We adopted a flexible approach to cope with the differences in radial sapflow density (SFD) profile shapes that are known to occur in relation to wood anatomy (diffuse porous vs. ring- or non-porous xylem). With this purpose, we investigated the robustness of…
Soil conservation and sustainable development goals(SDGs) achievement in Europe and central Asia: Which role for the European soil partnership?
2021
Abstract Voluntary soil protection measures are not sufficient to achieve sustainable soil management at a global scale. Additionally, binding soil protection legislation at national and international levels has also proved to be insufficient for the effective protection of this non-renewable natural resource. In 2012, the FAO Members established the Global Soil Partnership (GSP) with the mission to facilitate and contribute exchange of knowledge and technologies related to soils, and develop dialogue and raise awareness for the need to establish a binding global agreement for sustainable soil management. Moreover, region-specific aspects of implementation are considered and strengthened th…
Determining hydraulic properties of a loam soil by alternative infiltrometer techniques
2015
Testing infiltrometer techniques to determine soil hydraulic properties is necessary for specific soils. For a loam soil, the water retention and hydraulic conductivity predicted by the BEST (Beerkan Estimation of Soil Transfer parameters) procedure of soil hydraulic characterization was compared with data collected by more standard laboratory and field techniques. Six infiltrometer techniques were also compared in terms of saturated soil hydraulic conductivity, Ks. BEST yielded water retention values statistically similar to those obtained in the laboratory and Ks values practically coinciding with those determined in the field with the pressure infiltrometer (PI). The unsaturated soil hyd…
Detection of algorithmically generated malicious domain names using masked N-grams
2019
Abstract Malware detection is a challenge that has increased in complexity in the last few years. A widely adopted strategy is to detect malware by means of analyzing network traffic, capturing the communications with their command and control (C&C) servers. However, some malware families have shifted to a stealthier communication strategy, since anti-malware companies maintain blacklists of known malicious locations. Instead of using static IP addresses or domain names, they algorithmically generate domain names that may host their C&C servers. Hence, blacklist approaches become ineffective since the number of domain names to block is large and varies from time to time. In this paper, we i…
Reliable diagnostics using wireless sensor networks
2019
International audience; Monitoring activities in industry may require the use of wireless sensor networks, for instance due to difficult access or hostile environment. But it is well known that this type of networks has various limitations like the amount of disposable energy. Indeed, once a sensor node exhausts its resources, it will be dropped from the network, stopping so to forward information about maybe relevant features towards the sink. This will result in broken links and data loss which impacts the diagnostic accuracy at the sink level. It is therefore important to keep the network's monitoring service as long as possible by preserving the energy held by the nodes. As packet trans…
Transferability of PCR-based diagnostic protocols: An international collaborative case study assessing protocols targeting the quarantine pine pathog…
2019
Producción Científica
Tillage intensity and pasture in rotation effectively shape soil microbial communities at a landscape scale
2018
International audience; Soil microorganisms are essential to agroecosystem functioning and services. Yet, we still lack information on which farming practices can effectively shape the soil microbial communities. The aim of this study was to identify the farming practices, which are most effective at positively or negatively modifying bacterial and fungal diversity while considering the soil environmental variation at a landscape scale. A long-term research study catchment (12 km2 ) representative of intensive mixed farming (livestock and crop) in Western Europe was investigated using a regular grid for soil sampling (n = 186). Farming systems on this landscape scale were described in terms…
Effect of Jasonia glutinosa on immune and oxidative status of gilthead seabream (Sparus aurata L.).
2020
Jasonia glutinosa (rock-tea, RT) has numerous biological activities. In the present work, the beneficial effects of dietary RT on gilthead seabream (Sparus aurata L.) were studied. Fish fed experimental diets containing 0 (control), 10 or 30% of RT for 15 and 30 days. Samples from skin mucus, blood, head kidney, liver and gut were obtained at 15 and 30 days. The antioxidant properties from RT were analysed such as the antioxidant capacity and phenolic content. The heat shock protein 70 level (HSP70) and the total oxidized proteins were evaluated on skin mucus as stress markers. Immune parameters, both humoral (peroxidase activity, immunoglobulin M levels and complement activity) and cellula…