Search results for " monitoring."
showing 10 items of 2717 documents
Designer ecosystems : A solution for the conservation-exploitation dilemma
2016
Increase in human population is accelerating the rate of land use change, biodiversity loss and habitat degradation, triggering a serious threat to life supporting ecosystem services. Existing strategies for biological conservation remain insufficient to achieve a sustainable human-nature relationship and this situation has fueled a debate on the conservation-exploitation dilemma. We need to devise novel strategies, in a mutually inclusive way, which can support biological conservation and secure economic development of deprived populations. Here we propose the use of designer ecosystems which can ensure ecological sustainability while providing ample and some new means of livelihood to loc…
Species disparity response to mutagenesis of marine yeasts for the potential production of biodiesel.
2019
Abstract Background Among the third-generation biodiesel feed stock, oleaginous marine yeasts are the least studied microorganisms for such purpose. Results Wild strains yeasts were isolated from various Tunisian marine sources including fish waste (Candida tenuis CtTun15, Debaryomyces hansenii DhTun2015, Trichosporon asahii TaTun15 and Yarrowia lipolytica YlTun15) and seawater (Rhodotorula mucilaginosa RmTun15). Following incubation with ethyl methanesulfonate (EMS: 75 mM) for various periods of time (T15, T30, T45, T60 min), the cell viability of these strains responded differentially according to yeast species. For instance, mutated CtTun15 did not survive after 30 min of EMS treatment; …
Water Status and Yield Response to Deficit Irrigation and Fertilization of Three Olive Oil Cultivars under the Semi-Arid Conditions of Tunisia
2019
Sustainability of olive production is possible by adopting the modern techniques of irrigation and fertilization. In Tunisia, olive trees are usually cultivated in poor soils, under semi-arid conditions characterized by water scarcity. This study investigated the effects of different water supply and fertilization on leaf water status and crop yield of three different olive oil varieties cultivated in central Tunisia, during four experimental seasons (2014&ndash
Coping styles in farmed fish: consequences for aquaculture
2017
Individual differences in physiological and behavioural responses to stressors are increasingly recognised as adaptive variation and thus raw material for evolution and fish farming improvements including selective breeding. Such individual variation has been evolutionarily conserved and is present in all vertebrate taxa including fish. In farmed animals, the interest in consistent trait associations, that is coping styles, has increased dramatically over the last years because many studies have demonstrated links to performance traits, health and disease susceptibility and welfare. This study will review (i) the main behavioural, neuroendocrine, cognitive and emotional differences between …
Rehabilitating boreal forest structure and species composition in Finland through logging, dead wood creation and fire: The EVO experiment
2007
This paper reviews an ongoing, large-scale multidisciplinary experiment designed to study the possibilities of rehabilitating forest structure and species composition through logging, dead wood creation and fire in managed Norway spruce (Picea abies) forests in southern Finland. These forests have been utilized for several centuries with intensive management and clear-cut harvesting, which has been the dominant practice in Finland since World War II. During this era, the forest structure has become relatively even-aged, and the amount of dead wood has been reduced considerably. Simultaneously, due to an effective fire suppression policy, the role of fire in Finnish nature has been almost co…
Artificial germination activation of Dialium corbisieri by imitation of ecological process.
2013
11 pages; International audience; Species of the gender Dialium commonly are trees found in Central African rainforests. They produce tasty sugary fruits, feeding numerous frugivores, but are, despite their valuable nutritional value, rarely exploited by humans. A potential reason for this could be the complexity of symbiotic dependence between trees and pollinators, germination activators, and dispersers causing problems in ancestral and contemporary domestication. We investigated Dialium corbisieri reproduction in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Bandundu Province. Here we give a key for an artificial activation of germination of these trees ecologically adapted to the digestive syst…
Retrospective environmental biomonitoring – Mussel Watch expanded
2016
Abstract Monitoring bioavailable contaminants and determining baseline conditions in aquatic environments has become an important aspect of ecology and ecotoxicology. Since the mid-1970s and the initiation of the Mussel Watch program, this has been successfully accomplished with bivalve mollusks. These (mostly) sessile organisms reliably and proportionately record changes of a range of organic and inorganic pollutants occurring in the water, food or sediment. The great majority of studies have measured the concentration of pollutants in soft tissues and, to a much lesser extent, in whole shells or fractions thereof. Both approaches come with several drawbacks. Neither soft tissues nor whole…
Sustainable Mixed Cropping Systems for the Boreal-Nemoral Region
2020
Mixed cropping, including intercropping, is the oldest form of systemized agricultural production and involves the growing of two or more species or cultivars of the same species simultaneously in the same field. However, mixed cropping has been little by little replaced by sole crop systems, especially in developed countries. Some of the advantages of mixed cropping are, for example, resource use efficiency and yield stability, but there are also several challenges, such as weed management and competition. The boreal-nemoral region lies within the region 55° to 70° N. In this area, for example in Finland, the length of the thermal growing season varies from less than 105 to over 185 days. …
A mixture of human and climatic effects shapes the 250-year long fire history of a semi-natural pine dominated landscape of Northern Latvia
2019
Abstract Fire has been shown to shape successional pathways and dynamics of forest vegetation. However, its role in European hemiboreal forests remains poorly understood. Here we provide the first annually resolved reconstruction of fire history from the Eastern Baltic Sea region, developed in the pine-dominated landscape of Slitere National Park (SNP), northwestern Latvia, over the last 250 years. Our results suggest that forest fires have been a common disturbance factor in the studied landscape. In total, we dated 62 single fire years, with the mean-point scale fire return interval of 46 years and the length of the fire cycle ranging from 45 to 80 years. We identified periods of high (17…
Litter quality, land-use history, and nitrogen deposition effects on topsoil conditions across European temperate deciduous forests
2019
Topsoil conditions in temperate forests are influenced by several soil-forming factors, such as canopy composition (e.g. through litter quality), land-use history, atmospheric deposition, and the parent material. Many studies have evaluated the effects of single factors on physicochemical topsoil conditions, but few have assessed the simultaneous effects of multiple drivers. Here, we evaluate the combined effects of litter quality, land-use history (past land cover as well as past forest management), and atmospheric deposition on several physicochemical topsoil conditions of European temperate deciduous forest soils: bulk density, proportion of exchangeable base cations, carbon/nitrogen-rat…