Search results for "ANN"
showing 10 items of 14573 documents
An integrated analysis of micro- and macro-habitat features as a tool to detect weather-driven constraints: A case study with cavity nesters.
2017
The effects of climate change on animal populations may be shaped by habitat characteristics at both micro- and macro-habitat level, however, empirical studies integrating these two scales of observation are lacking. As analyses of the effects of climate change commonly rely on data from a much larger scale than the microhabitat level organisms are affected at, this mismatch risks hampering progress in developing understanding of the details of the ecological and evolutionary responses of organisms and, ultimately, effective actions to preserve their populations. Cavity nesters, often with a conservation status of concern, are an ideal model because the cavity is a microenvironment potentia…
A Knowledge-Based System as a Sustainable Software Application for the Supervision and Intelligent Control of an Alcoholic Fermentation Process
2020
One goal of specialists in food processing is to increase production efficiency in accordance with sustainability by optimising the consumption of raw food materials, water, and energy. One way to achieve this purpose is to develop new methods for process monitoring and control. In the winemaking industry, there is a lack of procedures regarding the common work based on knowledge acquisition and intelligent control. In the present article, we developed and tested a knowledge-based system for the alcoholic fermentation process of white winemaking while considering the main phases: the latent phase, exponential growth phase, and decay phase. The automatic control of the white wine&rsquo
Length of activity season drives geographic variation in body size of a widely distributed lizard
2013
Understanding the factors that drive geographic variation in life history is an important challenge in evolutionary ecology. Here, we analyze what predicts geographic variation in life-history traits of the common lizard, Zootoca vivipara, which has the globally largest distribution range of all terrestrial reptile species. Variation in body size was predicted by differences in the length of activity season, while we found no effects of environmental temperature per se. Females experiencing relatively short activity season mature at a larger size and remain larger on average than females in populations with relatively long activity seasons. Interpopulation variation in fecundity was largely…
Systems Approach to Eastern Baltic Coastal Zone Management
2020
Relying on the results of multivariate analysis of the re-analysis case studies from the BaltCoast project, specific features of integrated coastal management (ICM) approaches in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and the Kaliningrad Oblast of the Russian Federation are highlighted in this paper. Eleven Eastern Baltic ICM case studies have been re-analyzed in-depth, which was the main focus of the present paper, covering a wide range of coastal landscapes, themes, policy issues, and ICM approaches. Five principal components explaining 84.86% of the total variance of ICM factor scores have been elicited by calculating rotation sums of squared loadings: (1) Stakeholder Involvement
The Monumental Olive Trees as Biocultural Heritage of Mediterranean Landscapes: The Case Study of Sicily
2021
Monumental olive trees, with their longevity and their remarkable size, represent an important information source for the comprehension of the territory where they grow and the human societies that have kept them through time. Across the centuries, olive trees are the only cultivated plants that tell the story of Mediterranean landscapes. The same as stone monuments, these green monuments represent a real Mediterranean natural and cultural heritage. The aim of this paper is to discuss the value of monumental trees as “biocultural heritage” elements and the role they play in the interpretation of the historical stratification of the landscape. We present the results of a survey of the most s…
The history and future of fungi as biodiversity surrogates in forests
2017
Biodiversity surrogates are commonly used in conservation biology. Here we review how fungi have been used as such in forest conservation, emphasizing proposed surrogate roles and practical applications. We show that many fungal surrogates have been suggested based on field experience and loose concepts, rather than on rigorously collected scientific data. Yet, they have played an important role, not only in forest conservation, but also in inspiring research in fungal ecology and forest history. We argue that, even in times of ecosystem oriented conservation planning and molecular tools to analyze fungal communities, fruit bodies of macrofungi have potential as convenient conservation shor…
Revision of the pentacrinid stalked crinoids of the genus Endoxocrinus (Echinodermata, Crinoidea), with a study of environmental control of character…
2006
A revision of the stalked crinoid species attributed to the genus Endoxocrinus A.H. Clark, 1908 (Diplocrininae, Pentacrinitidae, Crinoidea, Echinodermata) is conducted using studies on phenotype variation and its relation with environment. Specimens collected via submersible at five sites in the Bahamas exhibit distinct phenotypes that correlate with different apparent ecological niches and serve as references for interpreting specimens dredged in Atlantic and Pacific Oceans where detailed information on their benthic environment is unknown. Documentation of ecophenotypic convergences or divergences allows us to distinguish between adaptive characters and those revealing genetic affinities,…
Acetogenins from Annonaceae family. Their potential biological applications
2019
The aim of this contribution has been to continue with the knowledge about newly isolated acetogenins from Annonaceae family for the last fifteen years. This review will report classification, extraction, isolation, elucidation of the structure, biological activities and mechanism of action of such interesting natural products. In fact, out of the 532 compounds reviewed, 115 previously non-described annonaceous acetogenins have been added to the list of isolated compounds from 2005 to May 2019.
Occurrence of Two-Year Cyclicity, “Saw-Blade Fluctuation”, in Vendace Populations in Finland
2021
The tendency towards two-year cyclicity is considered typical of many Fennoscandian vendace populations, especially in fluctuation of recruitment, based on time series of individual lakes. We used two robust indicators to identify and quantify two-year cycles in vendace population proxy time series at different life-stages — spawning stock biomass (SB), density of newly hatched larvae (LD) and recruitment (REC) — from 22 Finnish lakes. Then we applied Fisher’s meta-analytical test to assess the adequacy of the evidence to support the hypothesis that vendace population dynam-ics include two-year cyclicity. The results supported this hypothesis for RECbut not for SB or LD. Yet, the indicators…
Pulsed electric field assisted extraction of nutritionally valuable compounds from microalgae Nannochloropsis spp. using the binary mixture of organi…
2015
Abstract This work studies the potential of the pulsed electric field (PEF) assisted extraction of nutritionally valuable compounds from microalgae Nannochloropsis spp. using the binary mixture of organic solvents (dimethyl sulfoxide, DMSO and ethanol, EtOH) and water. The one-stage (E I ) and two stage (E II ) extraction procedures were compared. The procedure E I included the common extraction using the binary mixtures. Two stage (E II ) extraction procedure involved PEF-treatment (20 kV/cm) of microalgae suspension (1% wt.) and extraction in water as the first step. The second step included the common extraction using the binary mixtures. The effects of extraction procedure and concentra…