Search results for "Europe"
showing 10 items of 6186 documents
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…
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…
Measuring environmental performance in the treatment of municipal solid waste: The case of the European Union-28
2021
Abstract This paper proposes a measure of environmental performance in the treatment of municipal solid waste, which is defined as a ratio between a composite indicator of waste treated through environmentally desirable operations –recycling and recovery in our case study– and a composite indicator of waste treated through undesirable operations –landfill and incineration. Moreover, it contributes both overall and treatment-specific indicators of performance. Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) techniques are used to compute the environmental performance indicators and they are illustrated with an empirical assessment of the environmental performance of the European Union-28 (EU-28) members in …
Depuration of geosmin- and 2-methylisoborneol-induced off-flavors in recirculating aquaculture system (RAS) farmed European whitefish Coregonus lavar…
2019
European whitefish Coregonus lavaretus has increasingly become an important species for aquatic food production, especially in the Nordic countries. Whitefish is produced in traditional cage and pond operations, and in recirculating aquaculture system (RAS) in which, unfortunately, off-flavors and odors, mostly caused by geosmin (GSM) and 2-methylisoborneol (MIB), can accumulate in fish flesh from the circulating water. GSM and MIB have very low human sensory detection limits and, therefore, often disliked by consumers even at low concentrations. In this study, concentrations of GSM and MIB in RAS farmed European whitefish were studied by an analytical method based on headspace solid phase …
Winter movement patterns of a globally endangered avian scavenger in south-western Europe
2020
AbstractPartial migration, whereby some individuals migrate and some do not, is relatively common and widespread among animals. Switching between migration tactics (from migratory to resident or vice versa) occurs at individual and population levels. Here, we describe for the first time the movement ecology of the largest wintering population of Egyptian Vultures (Neophron percnopterus) in south-west Europe. We combined field surveys and GPS tracking data from December to February during four wintering seasons (2014–2018). The wintering population consisted on average of 85 individuals (range 58–121; 76% adults and 24% subadults). Individuals were counted at five different roosting sites lo…
Identifying potential areas of expansion for the endangered brown bear (Ursus arctos) population in the cantabrian mountains (NW Spain)
2019
Many large carnivore populations are expanding into human-modified landscapes and the subsequent increase in coexistence between humans and large carnivores may intensify various types of conflicts. A proactive management approach is critical to successful mitigation of such conflicts. The Cantabrian Mountains in Northern Spain are home to the last remaining native brown bear (Ursus arctos) population of the Iberian Peninsula, which is also amongst the most severely threatened European populations, with an important core group residing in the province of Asturias. There are indications that this small population is demographically expanding its range. The identification of the potential are…