Search results for "Ecosystem health"
showing 10 items of 12 documents
Reevaluating the Role of Organic Matter Sources for Coastal Eutrophication, Oligotrophication, and Ecosystem Health
2019
Organic matter (OM) in aquatic systems is either produced internally (autochthonous OM) or delivered from the terrestrial environment (ter-OM). For eutrophication (or the reverse – oligotrophication), the amount of autochthonous OM plays a key role for coastal ecosystem health. However, the influence of ter-OM on eutrophication or oligotrophication processes of coastal ecosystems is largely unclear. Therefore, ter-OM, or ter-OM proxies are currently not included in most policies or monitoring programs on eutrophication. Nevertheless, ter-OM is increasingly recognized as a strong driver of aquatic productivity: By influencing underwater light conditions and nutrient- and carbon availability,…
Ecosystem processes are rarely included in tactical fisheries management
2015
Fish stock productivity, and thereby sensitivity to harvesting, depends on physical (e.g. ocean climate) and biological (e.g. prey availability, competition and predation) processes in the ecosystem. The combined impacts of such ecosystem processes and fisheries have lead to stock collapses across the world. While traditional fisheries management focuses on harvest rates and stock biomass, incorporating the impacts of such ecosystem processes are one of the main pillars of the ecosystem approach to fisheries management (EAFM). Although EAFM has been formally adopted widely since the 1990s, little is currently known to what extent ecosystem drivers of fish stock productivity are actually imp…
Effectiveness of European Atlanto-Mediterranean MPAs: Do they accomplish the expected effects on populations, communities and ecosystems?
2008
The success of MPAs in conserving fishing resources and protecting marine biodiversity relies strongly on how well they meet their planned (or implicit) management goals. From a review of empirical studies aiming at assessing the ecological effects of Mediterranean and Macaronesian MPAs, we conclude that establishing an MPA is successful for (i) increasing the abundance/biomass, (ii) increasing the proportion of larger/older individuals, and (iii) enhancing the fecundity of commercially harvested populations; also, MPAs demonstrated to be effective for (iv) augmenting local fishery yields through biomass exportation from the protected area, and (v) inducing shifts in fish assemblage structu…
Impacts and adaptation options of climate change on ecosystem services in Finland: a model based study
2013
At a global level, it is estimated that nearly two-thirds of ecosystem services have been degraded in just fifty years. The additional stresses imposed by climate change will require extraordinary adaptation. This paper synthesises main result of a large Finnish project studying the vulnerability of key ecosystem services to climate change and the possibilities for the individual sectors to adapt to these changes. The project based its work on data and infrastructures of nine intensively studied areas belonging to the Finnish LTER (Long-Term Ecological Research) network. The methods developed and used included remote sensing, derivation of impact scenarios, dynamic modelling, laboratory exp…
Designing, Developing, and Implementing Software Ecosystems: Towards a Step-wise Guide
2016
The notion of software ecosystems has been popular both in research and industry for more than a decade, but how software ecosystems are created still remains unclear. This becomes more of a challenge if one examines the “creation” of ecosystems that have high probability in surviving in the future, i.e. with respect to ecosystem health. In this paper, we focus on the creation of software ecosystems and propose a process for designing, developing, and establishing software ecosystems based on three basic steps and a set of activities for each step. We note that software ecosystem research identifies that ecosystems typically emerge from either a company deciding to allow development on thei…
The relevance of ecological status to ecosystem functions and services in a large boreal lake
2014
Summary Environmental conventions aim to protect ecosystem structures and functions to provide goods and services for mankind. The degree of aquatic ecosystem naturalness, or ecological status as it is defined in the Water Framework Directive (WFD) of the European Union, is notionally linked to supplies of ecosystem services. In practice, these links have rarely been documented or even investigated, and to justify conservation and management objectives based on the status indicators, it is essential to demonstrate their relationships to ecosystem functions and services. The WFD requires member states to classify their surface waters aiming to achieve good ecological status of water bodies. …
ECOLOGICAL ASSESSMENT AS A FIRST STEP IN THE EVALUATION OF ECOSYSTEM SERVICES PROVIDED BY LOTIC ECOSYSTEMS
2013
ABSTRACT The ecosystems offer to the socio-economic system a series of goods and services derived from their processes and biodiversity. Ecosystem services offered by a river are at their highest potential when the river status is close to the natural one. Once the river is affected by human impact due to resources exploitation, hydro technical works, water abstraction or improper land use, the ecological status declines and the ecosystem services become scarce. This is why an ecological assessment is necessary in order to establish the connection between the ecosystem services and the human impact. In this paper, the ecological assessment of Timiș River was done, allowing the classificatio…
Assessment of water shortage in urban areas
2007
Recent history has demonstrated that extreme hydrological events such as floods and droughts can create additional stress on water supplies essential for human and ecosystem health. As stated several times by European Environmental Agency, the prudent and efficient use of water is thus an important issue in Europe and a number of policies and mechanisms have been used or have been formulated to ensure sustainable use of water in the long term. Urban uses are responsible of almost the 17% of the total European fresh water consumption and they are rapidly growing depending on the extension of urban areas and concentration of population in cities. The present chapter will discuss the phases in…
Impact of Plastic Debris on the Gut Microbiota of Caretta caretta From Northwestern Adriatic Sea
2021
Plastic pollution is nowadays a relevant threat for the ecological balance in marine ecosystems. Small plastic debris (PD) can enter food webs through various marine organisms, with possible consequences on their physiology and health. The loggerhead sea turtle (Caretta caretta), widespread across the whole Mediterranean Sea, is a “flagship species,” useful as indicator of the general pollution level of marine ecosystems. Ingested PD accumulate in the final section of turtles’ digestive tract before excretion. During their transit and accumulation, PD also interact with the residing microbial community, with possible feedback consequences on the host’s health. To explore the possible relati…
Bridging the knowledge gap on the distribution and typology of vermetid bioconstructions along the Maltese coastline : an updated assessment
2022
In the Maltese Islands, insufficient attention has been paid to vermetid reefs, endemic Mediterranean bioconstructions widely distributed along the southern part of the basin. As a result, this is a largely-overlooked coastal ecosystem despite the multitude of ecosystem services it provides. The perennial urban development in the Maltese Islands calls for the adoption of urgent action to protect coastal habitats, in particular bioconstructions that increase biodiversity and contribute to mitigating the effects of climate change. The objective of our study was to extensively document the presence and typology of the vermetid reef ecosystems along the coast of Malta and Gozo, assessing the oc…