Search results for "ECOSYSTEM"

Influence of waste water in marine ecosystem: preliminary data on benthic foraminifera assemblages and metal concentration in marine sediments

2007

Effects of microplastics on the functional traits of aquatic benthic organisms: A global-scale meta-analysis

2021

Microplastics are widespread in the aquatic environment and thus available for many organisms at different trophic levels. Many scientific papers focus their attention on the study of the effects of microplastics on different species at individual level. Here we performed a global scale meta-analysis focusing our work on the study of the effect of microplastics on the functional traits of aquatic benthic organisms. Overall, microplastics showed a moderate negative effect on the examined functional traits of benthic organisms. Our results show that some crucial functional traits, such as those linked to behaviour and feeding, appear to be unaffected by microplastics. In contrast, traits rela…

Influences of landscape structure on diversity of beetles associated with bracket fungi in Brazilian Atlantic Forest

2015

Abstract Brazilian Atlantic forest ecosystem is a global biodiversity hotspot. We studied the effects of area, connectivity and habitat quality of conservation areas on the diversity of beetles associated with basidiomes of wood-decaying fungi. Moreover, we analyzed the beetles' composition to verify what the process that produces the differentiation between the patches (β diversity). Species richness of fungivorous beetles increased the larger the area and the better the connectivity of conservation areas; however, neither area nor connectivity had an independent effect on beetle richness. Furthermore, the fungivorous beetle community was affected by the reduction in resource availability …

Relationship between soil microarthropod species diversity and plant growth does not change when the system is disturbed

2002

Soil microarthropods influence vital ecosystem processes, such as decomposition and nutrient mineralisation. There is evidence, however, that proper functioning of ecosystems does not require the presence of all its constituent species, and therefore some species can be regarded as functionally redundant. It has been proposed that species redundancy can act as an insurance against unfavourable conditions, and that functionally redundant species may become important when a system has faced a disturbance (the “insurance hypothesis”). We conducted a laboratory microcosm experiment with coniferous forest soil and a seedling of silver birch (Betula pendula). A gradient of microarthropod diversit…

The role of vineyards in the carbon balance throughout Italy

2015

A common belief is that agricultural fields cannot be net carbon sinks, but perennial tree crops, growing a permanent woody structure with a life cycle of decades could act as carbon sink. Vineyards are good candidates to test this hypothesis, because they are often grown with limited soil cultivation and produce plenty of woody pruning material that can be left on the ground. Three Eddy Covariance sites were established in different vineyards, along a north-south transect, in Italy, to study the role of vine cultivation in the carbon balance of the Italian penisula. The year 2009 was chosen as a reference year for the three sites, in order to compare carbon budget estimates in areas charac…

Agro-biodiversity evaluation in Sicilian farmlands entered into agri-environment scheme agreements

2009

To test if the application of Rural Development Regulation 1257/1999 played a possible role in maintaining or increasing biodiversity, monitoring of the avifauna has been carried out in 2004-2005. On the whole, 836 point counts were carried out, 418 in spring and 418 in winter, evenly shared between 16 farmlands entered into F2 and F4 agri-environmental measures, and an equal number of “not enhanced” farmlands, which represented test-farms and control-farms, respectively. Between bird frequencies within test-farms and control-farms statistical differences have been dected; farms entered in agri-environmental measures showed, on average, higher values of species, frequency of occurrence and …

Raccolta, conservazione e caratterizzazione agrobotanica delle antiche cultivar di Phaseolus vulgaris L. (Fabaceae) nel comprensorio dei Nebrodi (Sic…

2015

Hot spots, indicator taxa, complementarity and optimal networks of taiga

2000

If hot spots for different taxa coincide, priority-setting surveys in a region could be carried out more cheaply by focusing on indicator taxa. Several previous studies show that hot spots of different taxa rarely coincide. However, in tropical areas indicator taxa may be used in selecting complementary networks to represent biodiversity as a whole. We studied beetles (Coleoptera), Heteroptera, polypores or bracket fungi (Polyporaceae) and vascular plants of old growth boreal taiga forests. Optimal networks for Heteroptera maximized the high overall species richness of beetles and vascular plants, but these networks were least favourable options for polypores. Polypores are an important gro…

Mammal assemblage composition predicts global patterns in emerging infectious disease risk

2021

Abstract As a source of emerging infectious diseases, wildlife assemblages (and related spatial patterns) must be quantitatively assessed to help identify high‐risk locations. Previous assessments have largely focussed on the distributions of individual species; however, transmission dynamics are expected to depend on assemblage composition. Moreover, disease–diversity relationships have mainly been studied in the context of species loss, but assemblage composition and disease risk (e.g. infection prevalence in wildlife assemblages) can change without extinction. Based on the predicted distributions and abundances of 4466 mammal species, we estimated global patterns of disease risk through …

Mapping and determinism of soil microbial community distribution across an agricultural landscape.

2015

Article en open access; International audience; Despite the relevance of landscape, regarding the spatial patterning of microbial communities and the relative influence of environmental parameters versus human activities, few investigations have been conducted at this scale. Here, we used a systematic grid to characterize the distribution of soil microbial communities at 278 sites across a monitored agricultural landscape of 13km(2). Molecular microbial biomass was estimated by soil DNA recovery and bacterial diversity by 16S rRNA gene pyrosequencing. Geostatistics provided the first maps of microbial community at this scale and revealed a heterogeneous but spatially structured distribution…