Search results for "Ecosystem"
showing 10 items of 1752 documents
A review of Payment for Ecosystem Services for the economic internalization of environmental externalities: A water perspective
2016
Abstract The allocation of economic value to environmental goods is intended to internalize the socio-economic and environmental costs of policies implemented and thus recognizes the value of the ecosystem and the consequences of environmental damage. This entails identifying the costs and benefits of management measures for conservation and of degraded ecosystems. The difficulties of this task are: (i) they are goods that have no market and (ii) there is a need for economic funding for conservation purposes. Payment for Ecosystem Services (PES) seeks to internalize the environmental externalities of human actions, ascribing monetary value to Ecosystem Services (ES) and helping decision-mak…
Holocene land-cover reconstructions for studies on land cover-climate feedbacks
2010
The major objectives of this paper are: (1) to review the pros and cons of the scenarios of past anthropogenic land cover change (ALCC) developed during the last ten years, (2) to discuss issues related to pollen-based reconstruction of the past land-cover and introduce a new method, REVEALS (Regional Estimates of VEgetation Abundance from Large Sites), to infer long-term records of past land-cover from pollen data, (3) to present a new project (LANDCLIM: LAND cover – CLIMate interactions in NW Europe during the Holocene) currently underway, and show preliminary results of REVEALS reconstructions of the regional land-cover in the Czech Republic for five selected time windows of the Holocene…
Simulación de flujos de carbono terrestres mediante teledetección y modelización de ecosistemas
2019
[EN] The main goal of this thesis is the establishment of a framework to analyze the forest ecosystems in peninsular Spain in terms of their role in the carbon cycle. In particular, the carbon fluxes that they exchange with atmosphere are modeled to evaluate their potential as carbon sinks and biomass reservoirs. The assessment of gross and net carbon fluxes is performed at 1-km spatial scale and on a daily basis using two different ecosystem models, Monteith and BIOME-BGC, respectively. These models are driven by a combination of satellite and ground data, part of the latter being also employed as a complementary data source and in the validation process. [ES] El objetivo principal de esta…
Global Groundwater-Vegetation Relations
2017
Groundwater is an integral component of the water cycle, and it also influences the carbon cycle by supplying moisture to ecosystems. However, the extent and determinants of groundwater-vegetation interactions are poorly understood at the global scale. Using several high-resolution data products, we show that the spatial patterns of ecosystem gross primary productivity and groundwater table depth are correlated during at least one season in more than two-thirds of the global vegetated area. Positive relationships, i.e., larger productivity under shallower groundwater table, predominate in moisture-limited dry to mesic conditions with herbaceous and shrub vegetation. Negative relationships, …
Climate variability and lake ecosystem responses in western Scandinavia (Norway) during the last Millennium
2017
This paper provides a high-resolution temperature reconstruction for the last Millennium from Lake Atnsjøen, SE Norway (61°52′31″N, 10°10′37″E). The sedimentary record reveals strong influence of the large-scale global climate patterns on the local climate in southern part of Eastern Norway. We reconstructed mean July air temperature using Chironomidae-based transfer function and fossil Chironomidae assemblages. The reconstruction was supported by a selection of climate-sensitive geochemical and paleoecological sedimentary proxies of terrestrial and aquatic origin, including Cladocera, pollen and macrofossils. Presented results revealed that summer temperatures were 1–2 °C warmer than the m…
Response of the aquatic plants and mollusc communities in Lake Kojle (central Europe) to climatic changes between 250 BCE and 1550 CE
2018
Abstract Sediments of Lake Kojle, located in the transition zone between the nemoral and boreal biogeographic zones in NE Poland, were analysed to verify the response of the aquatic ecosystem to major environmental changes. High-resolution plant macrofossil, mollusc and pollen data were derived from two replicate parallel cores and revealed several shifts in the biota composition within the littoral zone between 250 BCE and 1550 CE. The reaction of the aquatic ecosystem to temperature changes was found to be minor, which is ascribed to the mitigating influence of water and the wide ecological tolerance of most of the taxa. Najas marina, considered as an indicator of warmer conditions, was t…
The response of a shallow lake and its catchment to Late Glacial climate changes — A case study from eastern Poland
2015
In this study we investigate how climate fluctuation in the Late Glacial period influenced the development of a lake and its catchment located in the East European Plain. We analyzed the sediments of the lake for pollen, subfossil Cladocera, macrofossils and chemical composition. We aimed at disentangling: (1) the climate changes and their limno-ecological responses, (2) temperature dynamics with the use of Cladocera-based transfer function (MJT) and macrofossil-based reconstruction of mean minimum July temperature (MMJT), (3) timing of the response of different proxies to environmental changes. The results of multiproxy analyses explicitly suggest that the main driver for changes in aquati…
The stable isotope composition of organic and inorganic fossils in lake sediment records: current understanding, challenges, and future directions
2018
This paper provides an overview of stable isotope analysis (H, C, N, O, Si) of the macro- and microscopic remains from aquatic organisms found in lake sediment records and their application in (palaeo)environmental science. Aquatic organisms, including diatoms, macrophytes, invertebrates, and fish, can produce sufficiently robust remains that preserve well as fossils and can be identified in lake sediment records. Stable isotope analyses of these remains can then provide valuable insights into habitat-specific biogeochemistry, feeding ecology, but also on climatic and hydrological changes in and around lakes. Since these analyses focus on the remains of known and identified organisms, they …
The influence of religious identity and socio-economic status on diet over time, an example from medieval France
2019
International audience; In Southern France as in other parts of Europe, significant changes occurred in settlement patterns between the end of Antiquity and the beginning of the Middle Ages. Small communities gathered to form, by the tenth century, villages organized around a church. This development was the result of a new social and agrarian organization. Its impact on lifestyles and, more precisely, on diet is still poorly understood. The analysis of carbon and nitrogen isotopes in bone collagen from the inhabitants of the well-preserved medieval rural site Missignac-Saint Gilles le Vieux (fifth to thirteenth centuries, Gard, France) provides insight into their dietary practices and enab…
Environmental responses of past and recent agropastoral activities on south Greenlandic ecosystems through molecular biomarkers
2016
Paleoenvironmental studies previously performed on Lake Igaliku revealed two agropastoral phases in south Greenland: the Norse settlement from AD 986 to ca. AD 1450 and the recent installation of sheep farmers, since the 1920s. To improve the knowledge of the timing and magnitude of the Greenlandic agropastoral activities, a lipid inventory was realized and compared with biological and geochemical data. During the 12th century, a major increase in deoxycholic acid (DOC) and coprophilous fungal spores revealed a maximum of herbivores. Synchronously, a minimum of the n-C29/ n-C31 alkane ratio and tree and shrub pollen and a maximum of triterpenyl acetates showed a reduction in the tree and s…