Search results for "Adapta"

Probabili impatti del cambiamento climatico sulla biodiversità delle foreste italiane

2012

The likely impact of climate change on the biodiversity of Italian forests. Based on literature results and our expert evaluation, we report some likely impacts of climate change on the biodiversity of forest communities in Italy by the end of this century. In the Mediterranean region and on the Apennines: at low altitudes, vulnerability of Pinus sp. and Quercus ilex forests, with loss of intraspecific genetic variability; transition from Mediterranean closed-canopy macchia to scattered shrublands; risk of local extinction for coastal populations of mesic/relic hardwood species (e.g., Quercus robur, Carpinus betulus, Zelkova sicula, Fraxinus sp.); ’eastern’ relic species like Quercus troian…

Project LIFE11 ENV/IT/0002215 ResilForMed - Resilience of Mediterranean Forests to Climate Change

2017

Forest and pre-forest ecosystems of Sicily are characterized by a high structural simplification and fragility, reduced species diversity, high density, pest and diseases that are expected to worsen according to the ongoing anthropogenic climate change. In this work we present the achievements of the project LIFE ResilForMed (Resilience of Mediterranean Forests to climate change), as Sicilian response on adaptation and mitigation to climate change. ResilForMed project is co-funded by the LIFE Initiative (2007-2014) and started June 1st 2012 with an expected conclusion on June 30th 2017. The project consortium involves: (i) the Department of Rural and Land Development of the Sicilian Region,…

Genetic diversity of Mediterranean cattle breeds related to geography and climate

2015

In recent decades, changes in climate have caused impacts on natural and human systems. Mediterranean countries will be particularly affected by this phenomenon, with growing temperatures and reduced rainfall. Understanding how species and ecosystems respond to climate change has become a crucial focus in biodiversity conservation and management. The genome-wide SNP panels allows providing background information on genome structure in domestic animals, opening new perspectives to livestock genetics. The International Project GALIMED "Genetic Adaptation of Bovine Livestock and production systems in MEDiterranean region", develops an integrated approach that combines the analysis of SNP marke…

Plant morphology: outdated or advanced discipline in modern plant sciences?

2019

In the last decades, with the increase of molecular studies, the study of plant forms has gone through a steady decline in interest, and researches on this topic are often neglected and underestimated. Notwithstanding, comparative morphology as integrative discipline still assumes a pivotal role in modern sciences, remaining fundamentally relevant to nearly all fields of plant biology, such as systematics, evolutionary biology, ecology, physiology, genetics, molecular biology, not to mention also agriculture, bioengineering, and forensic botany. Contrary to common belief, plant morphology is not a conservative finished science, but, like other sciences, it is open to constant innovations in…

On the origin and evolution of the Mediterranean dry grasslands.

2006

A synthesis on the functional types of Mediterranean dry grasslands is outlined. Three different types are outlined: wintergreen perennial dry grasslands, wintergreen ephemeral dry grasslands, summergreen perennial dry grasslands. The first type is the most primitive, including several relict species, often characterized by very disjoint, sometimes anfi-saharian distribution ranges. The second type is resulting from an evolutionary trend towards short-lived life strategy, triggered by climatic and topographic perturbations that affected the Mediterranean region in the Plio- and Pleistocene. The third type, only marginally occurring in the Mediterranean region, is deriving from Holarctic and…

Bright spots as climate‐smart marine spatial planning tools for conservation and blue growth

2021

Marine spatial planning that addresses ocean climate-driven change (‘climate-smart MSP’) is a global aspiration to support economic growth, food security and ecosystem sustainability. Ocean climate change (‘CC’) modelling may become a key decision-support tool for MSP, but traditional modelling analysis and communication challenges prevent their broad uptake. We employed MSP-specific ocean climate modelling analyses to inform a real-life MSP process; addressing how nature conservation and fisheries could be adapted to CC. We found that the currently planned distribution of these activities may become unsustainable during the policy's implementation due to CC, leading to a shortfall in its s…

Thermal adaptation and physiological responses to environmental stress in tunicates

2017

Understanding the multifaceted nature of environmental fluctuations is crucial to predicting the physiological adjustments utilised by organisms in resisting or adapting to changes over time. Here we investigate the effects of 2 environmental stressors on tunicates, whose fitness can have important repercussions on the quality of habitat. Specifically, we report respiration rate (RR), clearance rate (CR), and assimilation efficiency (AE) of the ascidian Styela plicata in response to a range of temperatures and varying food availability. Temperature-dependent RR was observed only within a portion of the thermal window of the species. Significant differences in clearance rates were detected a…

Climate change and Mediterranean coastal areas: understanding the impacts and developing adaptation strategies

2013

Evaluation of benefits and limitations of a Desertification Adaptation Model framework for sustainable land management in areas under desertification…

2022

The LIFE project Desert-Adapt (LIFE16 CCA/IT/000011) has designed a Desertification Adaptation Model (DAM) framework of land management to respond to two of the most critical problems experienced by farmers, public land and communities of the Mediterranean Basin, given the need to adapt to current Climate Change and reduce or counteract the increasing phenomenon of land degradation and desertification risk. These two issues are interrelated, as land degradation often characterizes fragile areas where the co-occurrence of climatically unfavourable conditions, mostly prolonged aridity and high temperatures, and inappropriate land management, leads to loss of ecosystem quality, biodiversity, p…

Immediate biomarker responses to benzo[a]pyrene in polluted and unpolluted populations of the blue mussel (Mytilus edulis L.) at high-latitudes.

2008

Immediate biomarker responses of two high-latitude populations of the blue mussel Mytilus edulis to benzo[a]pyrene (B[a]P) were evaluated. Mussels collected from a clean and a polluted site in southwest Iceland were exposed to the nominal dose of 100 μg B[a]P L−l for 3 h, after 4 days of acclimatization in clean seawater. To test the sensitivity to the toxicant and immediate biological responses, the following biomarkers were used: DNA single strand breaks, heart rate and feeding rate.All the biomarkers revealed differences between the study sites. Irrespective of the origin of the organisms, the short time exposure to the high B[a]P concentration did not induce DNA single strand breaks or …