Search results for "Agroforestry"

The Impact of Vineyard Abandonment on Soil Properties and Hydrological Processes

2017

Soil organic carbon stock on the Majorca Island: temporal change in agricultural soil over the last 10 years

2019

8 Pags.- 5 Tabls.- 3 Figs.

New data about the landscape of the first occupation of Mallorca: Coval Simó (Escorca, Mallorca)

2020

The Coval Simó shelter provides some of the oldest evidence for settlement on the island of Mallorca and the Balearic archipelago. It also has the peculiarity of being a habitat in a mountain area, so that the human groups that settled there had to adapt their agricultural and farming sys­tem to this environment. The plant remains (wood charcoal and seeds) recovered in the occupation levels allow us to address these issues, since they are the result of the different activities developed in this cavity: fuel for domestic activities, food for livestock, etc. The results of this study show that between the III and II millennium cal BC, an agricultural system based on livestock and cereal farmi…

Carbon sequestration potential of Italian orchards and vineyards

2017

From 2004 to 2012 carbon (C) fluxes between the soil-vegetation system and the atmosphere in apple, grape, olive and orange orchards planted in different Italian regions were measured. Above-ground net primary productivity (ANPP) ranged from 4 (olive) to 9 (apple) Mg C ha-1. Alley grass contribution to total ANPP significantly varied among the systems, reaching a maximum of 60% in vineyards. The harvest index ranged from 46% for apple, to 58% for orange, 60% for grape and 41% for olive, while abscised leaves accounted for 30% of ANPP, on average. Soil respiration fluxes ranged from 6 (orange) to 10 (grape) Mg C ha-1. Results indicate the potential of these fruit crop to sequester atmospheri…

Patterns of drought tolerance in major European temperate forest trees: climatic drivers and levels of variability

2013

The future performance of native tree species under climate change conditions is frequently discussed, since increasingly severe and more frequent drought events are expected to become a major risk for forest ecosystems. To improve our understanding of the drought tolerance of the three common European temperate forest tree species Norway spruce, silver fir and common beech, we tested the influence of climate and tree-specific traits on the inter and intrasite variability in drought responses of these species. Basal area increment data from a large tree-ring network in Southern Germany and Alpine Austria along a climatic cline from warm-dry to cool-wet conditions were used to calculate indi…

Continuous cover forestry is a cost-efficient tool to increase multifunctionality of boreal production forests in Fennoscandia

2017

Abstract Earlier research has suggested that the diversification of silvicultural strategies is a cost-efficient tool to ensure multifunctionality in production forests. This study compared the effects of continuous cover forestry and conventional rotation forestry on ecosystem services and biodiversity in boreal forests in Finland. We simulated over 25,000 commercial forest stands for 100 years under continuous cover and rotation forest management. Forests without management were used as a reference. We compared the effects of silvicultural practices over space and time on ecosystem services, biodiversity indicators and multifunctionality. Our results revealed that continuous cover forestr…

Managing boreal forests for the simultaneous production of collectable goods and timber revenues

2016

Timber Production is an economically important provisioning ecosystem service in forests, but is often in conflict with the provision of other ecosystem services. In multifunctional forestry, the production of timber and non-timber ecosystem services should coexist in the same landscape. To this end, we explored the capacity of a boreal landscape to simultaneously produce collectable goods − bilberry (Vaccimium myrtillus L.), cowberry (Vaccinium vitis-idaea L.) and cep (Boletus edulis Bull.) − alongside timber revenues. We also identified optimal forest management plans to achieve this. Furthermore, we analyzed trade-offs between collectable good yields and timber production, as well as bet…

2021

Climate change is having a serious impact on many ecosystems. In the summer of 2018 and 2019, around two thirds of European beech trees were damaged or killed by extreme drought. It is critical to keep these beech woods healthy, as they are central to the survival of over 6,000 other species of animals and plants. The level of damage caused by the drought varied between forests. However, not all the trees in each forest responded in the same way, with severely damaged trees often sitting next to fully healthy ones. This suggests that the genetic make-up of each tree determines how well it can adapt to drought rather than its local environment. To investigate this further, Pfenninger et al. …

Olive Growing in a Time of Change: From Empiricism to Genomics

2016

Since its beginning, the olive crop has been a long-lived agricultural system in the Mediterranean Basin being well adapted to this area. Traditional olive growing, still prevalent in most producing areas, is characterized by low tree density and rainfed orchards with low yield and manually harvested. The traditional olive growing technology is local, diverse, and empirically based. New high density, irrigated, and mechanically harvested orchards has been progressively planted since the end of World War II. These plantations produce high crops at low costs, but they reduce the diversity of cultivars, increase the demand of inputs and the risk of environment unbalances. The expansion and int…

Algerian Olive Germplasm and Its Relationships with the Central-Western Mediterranean Varieties Contributes to Clarify Cultivated Olive Diversificati…

2021

Olive tree with its main final product, olive oil, is an important element of Mediterranean history, considered the emblematic fruit of a civilization. Despite its wide diffusion and economic and cultural importance, its evolutionary and phylogenetic history is still difficult to clarify. As part of the Mediterranean basin, Algeria was indicated as a secondary diversification center. However, genetic characterization studies from Maghreb area, are currently underrepresented. In this context, we characterized 119 endemic Algerian accessions by using 12 microsatellite markers with the main goal to evaluate the genetic diversity and population structure. In order to provide new insights about …