Search results for "PINUS"

Temperature differences associated with colour do not determine where the acorn ant Temnothorax crassispinus (Hymenoptera: Formicidae) chooses to nest

2021

Temperature is an important factor for invertebrates. Social insects build nests, which along with their ability to thermoregulate, provide shelter from extreme temperatures. However, for many species of ants the most common method of controlling the temperature inside a nest is to choose a suitable nest site. During a fi eld experiment, the choice of nest site by the acorn ant Temnothorax crassispinus, a species which lives in coniferous and mixed forests, was studied. It typically occupies ephemeral nest sites and can move to a new nest site several times in one season. It was predicted that in early spring, dark coloured nest sites would be warmer and thus more frequently occupied by ant…

Coping styles in farmed fish: consequences for aquaculture

2017

Individual differences in physiological and behavioural responses to stressors are increasingly recognised as adaptive variation and thus raw material for evolution and fish farming improvements including selective breeding. Such individual variation has been evolutionarily conserved and is present in all vertebrate taxa including fish. In farmed animals, the interest in consistent trait associations, that is coping styles, has increased dramatically over the last years because many studies have demonstrated links to performance traits, health and disease susceptibility and welfare. This study will review (i) the main behavioural, neuroendocrine, cognitive and emotional differences between …

Grazing and abandonment determine different tree dynamics in wood-pastures

2016

Wood-pastures are threatened biotopes in which trees and livestock grazing maintain high conservation values. However, browsing may threaten tree regeneration, whereas abandonment leads to tree encroachment. We studied the regeneration of trees in a grazed and abandoned boreal wood-pastures. In grazed sites, the density of young spruces (Picea abies) was high, while the density of young birches (Betula spp.) was very low. Sprucification can be prevented only by removing spruces. The number of young birches and pines (Pinus sylvestris) was correlated with the number of junipers (Juniperus communis), probably because thorny junipers protect palatable seedlings from browsing. In abandoned site…

Influence of Two N-Fixing Legumes on Plant Community Properties and Soil Nutrient Levels in an Alpine Ecosystem

2013

Abstract Low nitrogen (N) supply is a limiting factor for plant growth in most terrestrial ecosystems. N-fixing legumes therefore have the potential to facilitate surrounding vegetation by increasing soil N levels. This effect should be especially pronounced in low-productivity habitats where ambient soil N levels are low, such as in alpine areas. We examined whether plant species composition, community diversity measures, and soil N levels differed with and without the presence of two alpine legumes, Oxytropis lapponica (Wahlenb.) Gay and Astragalus alpinus L., in a Dryas octopetala heath at Finse, Norway. Species composition and richness differed between plots with and without Oxytropis i…

Introduction of Mysis relicta (Mysida) reduces niche segregation between deep-water Arctic charr morphs

2019

This is a post-peer-review, pre-copyedit version of an article published in Hydrobiologia. The final authenticated version is available online at https://doi.org/10.1007/s10750-019-3953-4. Niche diversification of polymorphic Arctic charr can be altered by multiple anthropogenic stressors. The opossum-shrimp (Mysis relicta) was introduced to compensate for reduced food resources for fish following hydropower operations in Lake Limingen, central Norway. Based on habitat use, stomach contents, stable isotopes (δ13C, δ15N) and trophically transmitted parasites, the zooplanktivorous upper water-column dwelling ‘normal’ morph was clearly trophically separated from two sympatric deep-water morphs…

Corsican Pine (Pinus laricio Poiret) Stand Management: Medium and Long Lasting Effects of Thinning on Biomass Growth

2018

Originally published in Forests: Picchio R, Venanzi R, Latterini F, Marchi E, Laschi A, Lo Monaco A (2018). Corsican pine (Pinus laricio Poiret) stand management: medium and long lasting effects of thinning on biomass growth. Forests 9 (5), article number 257, p. 1-17 (open access) DOI: 10.3390/f9050257 This article can be downloaded at: https://www.mdpi.com/1999-4907/9/5/257 Abstract With the aim of acquiring better comprehension of the ecological and productive aspects of the management of pine forests, we monitored logging damage and evaluated the effects of thinning on stand growth 20 years after the treatment in a Pinus laricio Poiret stand in central Italy. The objectives of the p…

Climate–human interactions contributed to historical forest recruitment dynamics in Mediterranean subalpine ecosystems

2020

Long-term tree recruitment dynamics of subalpine forests mainly depend on temperature changes, but little is known about the feedbacks between historical land use and climate. Here, we analyze a southern European, millennium-long dataset of tree recruitment from three high-elevation pine forests located in Mediterranean mountains (Pyrenees, northeastern Spain; Pollino, southern Italy; and Mt. Smolikas, northern Greece). We identify synchronized recruitment peaks in the late 15th and early 16th centuries, following prolonged periods of societal and climate instability. Major European population crises in the 14th and 15th centuries associated with recurrent famines, the Black Death pandemic,…

High-elevation inter-site differences in Mount Smolikas tree-ring width data

2017

Abstract We present the longest high-elevation tree-ring width dataset in the Mediterranean reaching back to the 6th century CE. The network includes 101 living and 92 relict Pinus heldreichii Christ trees from four differently exposed sites in the 2100–2200 m a.s.l. elevation range of Mt. Smolikas in the Pindus Mountains in Greece. Though the sites were all sampled within a distance of 1550–2014  = 0.65–0.87), indicating site exposure might affect tree-ring formation. We here explore the consequence of exposure differences on the climate signals in an eastern Mediterranean treeline ecotone. Temporally stable growth/climate relationships reveal similar seasonal patterns among the four sites…

Holocene history of Aleppo pine (Pinus halepensis Mill.) woodlands in the Ebro Basin (NE Spain). Climate-biased or human-induced?

2020

Abstract This paper reviews the past distribution of Aleppo pine woodlands in the Ebro Basin, Northeastern Iberia, from the Mesolithic to Modern times based on wood charcoal data. The aim is to detail the chronological timing and the drivers explaining the long-term presence of Aleppo pine woodlands and associated thermophilous flora. The available charcoal data support the early spread of Pinus halepensis during the Mesolithic (ca. 9000 cal BP) accompanied by Mediterranean trees and shrubs like Quercus sp. evergreen, Juniperus sp., Arbutus unedo, Pistacia lentiscus, Rhamnus/Phillyrea, Cistaceae, and Rosmarinus officinalis, as a local response to global climate change in the Early Holocene.…

2021

Maximum latewood density (MXD) measurements from long-lived Black pines (Pinus nigra spp. laricio) growing at the upper treeline in Corsica are one of the few archives to reconstruct southern European summer temperatures at annual resolution back into medieval times. Here, we present a compilation of five MXD chronologies from Corsican pines that contain high-to-low frequency variability between 1168 and 2016 CE and correlate significantly (p < 0.01) with the instrumental April–July and September–October mean temperatures from 1901 to 1980 CE (r = 0.52−0.64). The growth–climate correlations, however, dropped to −0.13 to 0.02 afterward, and scaling the MXD data resulted in a divergence of…