Search results for " relations"

Pest management under climate change: The importance of understanding tritrophic relations.

2018

11 pages; International audience; Plants and insects depend on climatic factors (temperature, solar radiation, precipitations, relative humidity and CO2) for their development. Current knowledge suggests that climate change can alter plants and insects development and affect their interactions. Shifts in tritrophic relations are of particular concern for Integrated Pest Management (IPM), because responses at the highest trophic level (natural enemies) are highly sensitive to warmer temperature. It is expected that natural enemies could benefit from better conditions for their development in northern latitudes and IPM could be facilitated by a longer period of overlap. This may not be the ca…

Studying illegal online trades in plants: market characteristics, organisational and behavioural aspects, and policing challenges

2020

AbstractIllegal commerce in plants and their derivatives threatens and destroys numerous species and important natural resources, and may cause phytosanitary and health problems. This illegal trade, which has been boosted by the commercialisation of the Internet, has been relatively overlooked in criminological research. Furthermore, the policing of illegal plant markets remains limited and poorly resourced, with law enforcement agencies lacking awareness and technical capacity in investigation and prosecution services. Based on semi-structured interviews with law enforcement officers and other relevant experts, this study, developed in the context of the ESRC-funded project “FloraGuard: Ta…

Detecting Mild Water Stress in Olive with Multiple Plant-Based Continuous Sensors.

2021

A comprehensive characterization of water stress is needed for the development of automated irrigation protocols aiming to increase olive orchard environmental and economical sustainability. The main aim of this study is to determine whether a combination of continuous leaf turgor, fruit growth, and sap flow responses improves the detection of mild water stress in two olive cultivars characterized by different responses to water stress. The sensitivity of the tested indicators to mild stress depended on the main mechanisms that each cultivar uses to cope with water deficit. One cultivar showed pronounced day to day changes in leaf turgor and fruit relative growth rate in response to water w…

Species–area relationship and small-island effect of vascular plant diversity in a young volcanic archipelago

2021

International audience; Aims: Aeolian islands form an active volcanic archipelago. By using updated vascular plant checklists for islands and islets, we tested four hypotheses: (i) Island speciesarea relationship (ISAR) of alien species has lower c-and higher z-values than native species, (ii) islands with active volcanoes have lower species richness than expected for native and alien species, (iii) ISAR of native species shows lower c-and higher z-values than ISARs of Mediterranean land bridge archipelagos and (iv) species richness of smaller islets is independent of area.Location: Aeolian Archipelago, Mediterranean Basin.Taxon: Vascular plants, identified and named according to the Flora …

2016

By altering or eliminating delicate ecological relationships, non-indigenous species are con- sidered a major threat to biodiversity, as well as a driver of environmental change. Global cli- mate change affects ecosystems and ecological communities, leading to changes in the phenology, geographic ranges, or population abundance of several species. Thus, predicting the impacts of global climate change on the current and future distribution of invasive species is an important subject in macroecological studies. The African clawed frog (Xenopus laevis), native to South Africa, possesses a strong invasion potential and populations have become established in numerous countries across four contin…

Ecological niche features override biological traits and taxonomic relatedness as predictors of occupancy and abundance in lake littoral macroinverte…

2018

The degree to which species ecological and biological traits determine their distribution and abundance has intrigued ecologists for a long time, and it has seen a revival in recent years. This topic is important because it provides information about the determinants of species rarity and their conservation implications. We examined the effects of niche breadth, niche position, biological traits and taxonomic relatedness on the interspecific occupancy–abundance relationship, as well as on occupancy and abundance, in lake littoral macroinvertebrates. We sampled 48 lakes in a boreal lake district, found altogether 155 species, and calculated regional occupancy (as the proportion of sites occu…

Behaviour of consumers of conventional and organic flowers and ornamental plants in Italy

2013

The paper analyses preferences and motivations of Italian consumers of flowers and ornamental plants, both conventional and organic. The results helped to outline their profile. Purchases are still done in the traditional places (flower shops for cut flowers and plant nurseries for potted plants), however positive trend is found for potted plants purchases at large distribution chains. Some differences came out as to purchase motivations: cut flowers are mainly bought in special occasions whereas potted plants purchases are linked to personal use. The results confirm a positive relationship between the purchase of flowers and plants and the age of the interviewees, besides showing that wome…

Kinetic studies on protoporphyrinogen oxidase inhibition by diphenyl ether herbicides

1991

Diphenyl ethers (DPEs) and related herbicides are powerful inhibitors of protoporphyrinogen oxidase, an enzyme involved in the biosynthesis of haems and chlorophylls. The inhibition kinetics of protoporphyrinogen oxidase of various origins by four DPEs, (methyl)-5-[2-chloro-4-(trifluoromethyl)phenoxy]-2-nitrobenzoic acid (acifluorfen and its methyl ester, acifluorfen-methyl), methyl-5-[2-chloro-4-(trifluoromethyl) phenoxy]-2-chlorobenzoate (LS 820340) and methyl-5-[2-chloro-5-(trifluoromethyl)phenoxy]-2-nitrobenzoic acid (RH 5348), were studied. The inhibitions of the enzymes from maize (Zea mays) mitochondrial and etiochloroplastic membranes and mouse liver mitochondrial membranes were com…

Assessment of UV Biological Spectral Weighting Functions for Phenolic Metabolites and Growth Responses in Silver Birch Seedlings

2009

In research concerning stratospheric ozone depletion, action spectra are used as biological spectral weighting functions (BSWFs) for describing the effects of UV radiation on plant responses. Our aim was to evaluate the appropriateness of six frequently used BSWFs that differ in effectiveness with increasing wavelength. The evaluation of action spectra was based on calculating the effective UV radiation doses according to 1-2) two formulations of the generalized plant action spectrum, 3) a spectrum for ultraviolet induced erythema in human skin, 4) a spectrum for the accumulation of a flavonol in Mesembryanthemum crystallinum, 5) a spectrum for DNA damage in alfalfa seedlings and 6) the pla…

Detection of Allee effects in marine fishes: analytical biases generated by data availability and model selection

2017

The demographic Allee effect, or depensation, implies positive association between per capita population growth rate and population size at low abundances, thereby lowering growth ability of sparse populations. This can have far-reaching consequences on population recovery ability and colonization success. In the context of marine fishes, there is a widespread perception that Allee effects are rare or non-existent. However, studies that have failed to detect Allee effects in marine fishes have suffered from several fundamental methodological and data limitations. In the present study, we challenge the prevailing perception about the rarity of Allee effects by analysing nine populations of …