Search results for "Euro"
showing 10 items of 27769 documents
Spatial segregation and realized niche shift during the parallel invasion of two olive subspecies in south-eastern Australia.
2015
12 pages; International audience; AimGreater understanding of the processes underlying biological invasions is required to determine and predict invasion risk. Two subspecies of olive (Olea europaea subsp. europaea and Olea europaea subsp. cuspidata) have been introduced into Australia from the Mediterranean Basin and southern Africa during the 19th century. Our aim was to determine to what extent the native environmental niches of these two olive subspecies explain the current spatial segregation of the subspecies in their non-native range. We also assessed whether niche shifts had occurred in the non-native range, and examined whether invasion was associated with increased or decreased oc…
Habitat fragmentation and anthropogenic factors affect wildcat Felis silvestris silvestris occupancy and detectability on Mt Etna
2019
International audience; Knowledge of patterns of occupancy is crucial for planning sound biological management and for identifying areas which require paramount conservation attention. The European wildcat Felis silvestris is an elusive carnivore and is classified as ‘least concern' on the IUCN red list, but with a decreasing population trend in some areas. Sicily hosts a peculiar wildcat population, which deserves conservation and management actions, due to its isolation from the mainland. Patterns of occupancy for wildcats are unknown in Italy, and especially in Sicily. We aimed to identify which ecological drivers determined wildcat occurrence on Mt Etna and to provide conservation actio…
Spontaneous quantity discrimination of artificial flowers by foraging honeybees
2020
ABSTRACTMany animals need to process numerical and quantity information in order to survive. Spontaneous quantity discrimination allows differentiation between two or more quantities without reinforcement or prior training on any numerical task. It is useful for assessing food resources, aggressive interactions, predator avoidance and prey choice. Honeybees have previously demonstrated landmark counting, quantity matching, use of numerical rules, quantity discrimination and arithmetic, but have not been tested for spontaneous quantity discrimination. In bees, spontaneous quantity discrimination could be useful when assessing the quantity of flowers available in a patch and thus maximizing f…
Risk of predation makes foragers less choosy about their food.
2017
18 pages; International audience; Animals foraging in the wild have to balance speed of decision making and accuracy of assessment of a food item's quality. If resource quality is important for maximizing fitness, then the duration of decision making may be in conflict with other crucial and time consuming tasks, such as anti-predator behaviours or competition monitoring. Individuals facing the risk of predation and/or competition should adjust the duration of decision making and, as a consequence, their level of choosiness for resources. When exposed to predation, the forager could either maintain its level of choosiness for food items but accept a reduction in the amount of food items con…
Multilocus sequence typing confirms the close genetic inter-relatedness between three distinct flavescence doree phytoplasma strain clusters and grou…
2007
ABSTRACT Vineyards of southern France and northern Italy are affected by the flavescence dorée (FD) phytoplasma, a quarantine pathogen transmitted by the leafhopper of Nearctic origin Scaphoideus titanus . To better trace propagation of FD strains and identify possible passage between the vineyard and wild plant compartments, molecular typing of phytoplasma strains was applied. The sequences of the two genetic loci map and uvrB - degV , along with the sequence of the secY gene, were determined among a collection of FD and FD-related phytoplasmas infecting grapevine, alder, elm, blackberry, and Spanish broom in Europe. Sequence comparisons and phylogenetic analyses consistently indicated the…
Proposed Environmental Risk Management Elements in a Carpathian Valley Basin, within the Roşia Montană European Historical Mining Area
2021
Non-ferrous metals mining activities have long accompanied people, and began in the study area of South East Europe over 2000 years ago. The environment quality is significantly affected by both historic mining activities and contemporary impacts. All these problems, inducing synergic negative effects on local organism communities, have created a chronic state of pollution. The Corna Valley has one of the oldest historical human impacts in Romania due to the influence of mining. Fish and benthic macroinvertebrates have exhibited significant responses to long term mining effects on lotic systems. The analysis of macroinvertebrate communities, correlated with the lack of fish and some biotope…
Exploring the presence of pollutants at sea: Monitoring heavy metals and pesticides in loggerhead turtles (Caretta caretta) from the western Mediterr…
2017
Marine turtles are considered good sentinel species for environmental assessment because of their long lifespan, feeding ecology, habitat use and migratory nature. In the present study, we assessed presence of cadmium, lead and mercury, together with organic pollutants, both in fat and muscle tissue of 25 stranded loggerhead turtles (Caretta caretta) stranded along the Valencian Community coast (East Spain) (43.7±13.5cm). Mean concentrations of Cd, Pb and Hg were 0.04μg/g w.w., 0.09μg/g w.w. and 0.03μg/g w.w. in fat and 0.05μg/g, 0.08μg/g and 0.04μg/g in muscle, respectively. These measures indicate a relatively low mean heavy metal concentration, which may be explained by juvenile size and…
Interannual variation and long-term trends in proportions of resident individuals in partially migratory birds
2016
Partial migration - a part of a population migrates and another part stays resident year-round on the breeding site - is probably the most common type of migration in the animal kingdom, yet it has only lately garnered more attention. Theoretical studies indicate that in partially migratory populations, the proportion of resident individuals (PoR) should increase in high latitudes in response to the warming climate, but empirical evidence exists for few species. We provide the first comprehensive overview of the environmental factors affecting PoR and the long-term trends in PoR by studying 27 common partially migratory bird species in Finland. The annual PoR values were calculated by divid…
Can green infrastructure help to conserve biodiversity?
2017
The gradually decreasing connectivity of habitats threatens biodiversity and ecological processes valuable to humans. Green infrastructure is promoted by the European Commission as a key instrument for the conservation of ecosystems in the EU biodiversity strategy to 2020. Green infrastructure has been defined as a network of natural and semi-natural areas, designed and managed to deliver a wide range of ecosystem services. We surveyed Finnish experts' perceptions on the development of green infrastructure within the existing policy framework. Our results show that improving the implementation of existing conservation policy instruments needs to be an integral part of developing green infr…
New populations of the threatened fern Equisetum moorei Newman in the Valencian Community (Spain)
2020
Se aportan nuevas citas del helecho amenazado Equisetum moorei en la Comunidad Valenciana, donde solo se conocían previamente seis localidades con presencia actual de la especie. Una de las nuevas poblaciones amplía notablemente el área de distribución conocida en esta región, ya que la mayor parte de las localidades conocidas se concentraban en el macizo del Peñagolosa (provincia de Castellón). Se describen las características ecológicas y demográficas de las nuevas localidades en el contexto de las poblaciones previamente conocidas en la región valenciana.