Search results for "DEM"
showing 10 items of 16146 documents
Floristic distinctiveness and endemic richness of woody plants highlight the biodiversity value of the herriza among all Mediterranean heathlands
2018
Background: Heathlands are relatively abundant in the landscape of the western Mediterranean region, especially in the Strait of Gibraltar region, where it is locally known as herriza. They are ass...
An integrative approach challenges species hypotheses and provides hints for evolutionary history of two Mediterranean freshwater palaemonid shrimps …
2021
25 pages; International audience; The Mediterranean Region is a biodiversity/endemism hotspot whose freshwater fauna remains largely unexplored. Our integrative study challenges the taxonomic status of two freshwater palaemonid shrimps, Palaemon antennarius and Palaemon minos. Three molecular operational taxonomic units (MOTUs) were defined based on 352 cytochrome oxidase subunit I (COI) sequences and 88 haplotypes. Two belonged to P. antennarius: one inhabiting the Apennine Peninsula and Sicily, and the other from the Balkan Peninsula. Palaemon minos was the third MOTU, found on Crete. The Balkan MOTU of P. antennarius was genetically closer to P. minos than to the other conspecific MOTU. …
Staying alive on an active volcano: 80 years population dynamics of Cytisus aeolicus (Fabaceae) from Stromboli (Aeolian Islands, Italy)
2020
Abstract Cytisus aeolicus is a narrow endemic species restricted to the Aeolian archipelago (SE Tyrrhenian Sea, Italy) and it is one of the most evolutionarily isolated plants in the Mediterranean flora. Historical and literature data suggest that both metapopulations and isolated individuals of C. aeolicus are gradually shrinking. Field investigations and drone images demonstrate that the C. aeolicus metapopulation from Stromboli experienced a strikingly fast increase during the last decades. As of 2019, more than 7000 ± 3000 mature individuals occur on Stromboli, i.e. 14 to 20 times more than those counted during the last census, 25 years ago. The diachronic analysis of aerial photos conc…
Exploring connectivity between spawning and nursery areas ofMullus barbatus(L., 1758) in the Mediterranean through a dispersal model
2017
Connectivity between spawning and nursery areas plays a major role in determining the spatial structure of fish populations and the boundaries of stock units. Here, the potential effects of surface current on a red mullet population in the Central Mediterranean were simulated using a physical oceanographic model. Red mullet larvae were represented as Lagrangian drifters released in known spawning areas of the Strait of Sicily (SoS), which represents one of the most productive demersal fishing-grounds of the Mediterranean. To consider the effect of inter-annual variability of oceanographic patterns, numerical simulations were performed for the spawning seasons from 1999 to 2012. The main goa…
At the Central European-Balkan transition: forest land snail faunas of the Banat contrasted with those of the Carpathian chain
2015
Twenty-nine forest sites in six sampling areas in the Banat region of Romania, adjacent to Serbia, were sampled to obtain inventories of their snail faunas and to make comparisons between these and previously studied faunas in the mountains from the Sudetes in the north-west to the Southern Transylvanian Carpathians in the south. 65 species were recorded overall, with between 13 and 33 at individual sites. Among the six sampling areas that on Schist rock at high altitude differed markedly from the others, and contained mainly species also found in Carpathian forests further north. The remainder, mainly on limestone, also differed among themselves, but contained more species endemic to the r…
Phylogenetic relationships among tetraploid species of Bellevalia (Asparagaceae) endemic to south-central Mediterranean
2017
AbstractIn the south-central Mediterranean four tetraploid species of Bellevalia occur: B. dolichophylla, B. galitensis, B. mauritanica, and B. pelagica. Another group of plants, morphologically similar to B. dolichophylla, has been recently recovered in Zembra Island (Tunisia). A phylogenetic reconstruction involving all these tetraploid taxa was performed using both plastidial and nuclear markers (trnL-trnF and ITS, respectively). For all these taxa, an allopolyploid origin involving B. romana and B. dubia is supported. Regarding plants from Zembra, they may fall within the variability of B. dolichophylla.
Plant invasions on small Mediterranean islands. An overview
2016
Biological invasions have become one of the main drivers of habitat degradation and a leading cause of biodiversity loss in island ecosystems worldwide. The spread of invasive species poses a particular environmental threat on the islands of the Mediterranean Basin, which are hot spots of biodiversity and contain rare habitats and endemic species, especially on small islands, which are highly vulnerable to biodiversity loss. Following a recent survey, in this paper we aim to provide an overview of the present-day non-native vascular flora of small Mediterranean islands based on a sample of 37 islands located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, off the coast of Italy. By comparing the cu…
The increasing temperature as driving force for spatial distribution patterns of Parapenaeus longirostris (Lucas 1846) in the Strait of Sicily (Centr…
2020
Abstract The deep-water rose shrimp Parapenaeus longirostris (DPS), a demersal decapod representing the most important component of crustacean landings in the Mediterranean Sea, has been suggested as a species that may exhibit temperature-driven changes in the spatio-temporal dynamics. Considering that Mediterranean waters are warming up faster than oceans, understanding the relationships of DPS populations with temperature variations and the related changes in spatial patterns is absolutely key for its management. Using a long-term dataset covering 13-years from scientific surveys (International Bottom Trawl-Surveys in the Mediterranean, MEDITS; Italian national trawl surveys, GRUND) in th…
First assessment of the rose shrimp, Parapenaeus longirostris (Lucas, 1846) in the central Mediterranean
1995
Abstract Between June 1989 and May 1990 a 1 year programme based on commercial samples and statistics was carried out to assess Parapenaeus longirostris in the Sicilian Channel (Central Mediterranean), since most trawl-fishing occurs outside the area currently covered by trawl surveys of the National Research Council Institute based in Mazara del Vallo. Fishing takes place on three distinct grounds, where three different sub-stocks belonging to the same population could be identified based on length and maturity data. Length-based methods allowed calculation of all parameters needed to fit Beverton and Holt's (1957) and Thompson and Bell's (1934) models, while natural mortality could be est…
Community size affects the signals of ecological drift and niche selection on biodiversity
2019
AbstractEcological drift can override the effects of deterministic niche selection on small populations and drive the assembly of small communities. We tested the hypothesis that smaller local communities are more dissimilar among each other because of ecological drift than larger communities, which are mainly structured by niche selection. We used a unique, comprehensive dataset on insect communities sampled identically in a total of 200 streams in climatically different regions (Brazil and Finland) that differ in community size by fivefold. Null models allowed us to estimate the magnitude to which beta diversity deviates from the expectation under a random assembly process while taking di…