Search results for "Shrubland"
showing 10 items of 51 documents
Long-term erosional responses after fire in the Central Spanish Pyrenees
2005
Abstract This paper reports the results of a study on how fire effects water and sediment losses in the Central Spanish Pyrenees where land abandonment results in an increase of the scrubland and fire-affected surfaces. In 1991, two plots (control and burnt) were installed to collect runoff, suspended sediments and solutes. One of the plots was burnt (burnt-1) and the other was covered by shrubs and herbs (control). During 1993, another burnt plot was installed (burnt-2). Data was collected from the three plots until 1999 and is used as the basis for assessing the soil erosion changes after the fire. Runoff, solute and suspended sediment concentration and erosion rates were slightly greater…
Fitting the Stocking Rate with Pastoral Resources to Manage and Preserve Mediterranean Forestlands: A Case Study
2015
Pasture practices have affected Mediterranean forest ecosystems for millennia, and they are still quite widespread in mountainous areas. Nevertheless, in the last decades, the stability of forest ecosystems has been jeopardized due to the abandonment of traditional agro-pastoral practices, so that the gradual reduction of open areas due to progressive succession processes has caused a high increase of grazing pressure by livestock and wild ungulates feeding on forest areas. This paper aims at showing a methodological approach for evaluating the effect of applying measures in order to improve the grazing value of grasslands and ecotonal patches and lower the grazing impact on native woodland…
Past cover modulates the intense and spatially structured natural regeneration of woody vegetation in a pastureland
2020
Made available in DSpace on 2020-12-12T02:34:44Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 2020-03-01 Università degli Studi di Palermo Ministero dell’Istruzione, dell’Università e della Ricerca Vegetation natural regeneration after agricultural abandonment is changing the landscape patterns in many areas worldwide. However, the expansion rate, spatio-temporal dynamics, and the role of past vegetation cover in shaping such patterns are still barely quantified in fine and meso scales. Here, we aim to quantify the expansion rate and assess the spatio-temporal patterns and the effects of past cover on natural woody vegetation cover increase. We sampled woodland and shrubland cover from …
Bird abundance and richness in ten Mediterranean agroforestry systems
2019
Since the last century agriculture is strongly promoting the simplification of the landscape. The LIFE Desert Adapt project is been developed across 1000 hectares in Italy, Spain, Portu-gal and has the objective of implementing integrative agroforestry-based land use planning and management, and one of the indicators to evaluate the project effectiveness is birds richness and abundance. Here we present the results of the first assessment and explore the relationships with the main vegetation cover types. We established 68 sampling points where we recorded bird abundance and richness. In total we registered 57 bird species, sampling points surrounded by woodlands presented 50 species, while …
Redescription of the rare European harvestman Dicranopalpus brevipes Marcellino, 1970, based on first records from Sardinia (Arachnida: Opiliones)
2020
New records of the small, enigmatic harvestman Dicranopalpus brevipes are presented, the male is redescribed and the female is described for the first time. The species originates from Sicily, while the novel findings are from Sardinia, where it may have been introduced by man. Paedomorphic modifications such as reduced sexual dimorphism in colouration and pedipalpal morphology, regression of genital structures and shortening of the legs, appear to result from its ground-dwelling habits induced by xeric climatic conditions. Avoiding the dry and hot season, D. brevipes matures in autumn and winter and has completed its lifecycle in April. Additional information on phenology, ecology, distrib…
Determining the potential impacts of fire and different land uses on splash erosion in the margins of drylands
2021
Abstract This research aimed to estimate the splash erosion and its evolution during the first months in specific land uses after a forest fire. The study area was located in Congosto (North-West Spain), in the margins of Spanish drylands, after a wildfire occurred in May 2012, which burned 15.56 ha of scrubland and Pinus reforestation. Two different burned land uses were selected and compared to control areas: i) burned pine forest; and, scrublands. Rainfall intensity and the number, sizes and speed of raindrops were measured by an optical disdrometer and soil loss by funnels. Moreover, infiltration, soil moisture content, aggregate stability, water repellence, pH and organic matter were a…
The Role of Fire in Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations
2019
The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the United Nations do not mention Fire as a key factor in achieving an environmentally-friendly human society. This paper reviews the key aspects of the impact of fire that make it necessary to update the SDGs. Upon reviewing the scientific literature, it was found that fire has been part of the Earth System for the last 400 million years, and that it is part of biogeochemical cycles. From a geological perspective, fire shaped the current Earth System. Humans have used fire in the last million years as hunter-gatherers, and the last Pleistocene period evolved with the presence of fire. Since the Neolithic revolution, humankind spread the use of fi…
Syntaxonomy and ecology of mesophilous scrub vegetation in Tajikistan (Middle Asia)
2022
Aims: In this paper we propose the first syntaxonomic classification for the mesophilous scrub vegetation in Tajikistan with some remarks on their environmental variability. Methods: Altogether 120 relevés were sampled using the standard, seven-degree cover-abundance scale of Braun-Blanquet, in 2015–2021. They were classified by the modified TWINSPAN method using the four step interval scale with cutoff levels of 0%, 2%, 5% and 10% and total inertia as a measure of cluster heterogeneity. Diagnostic species were identified using the phi coefficient as a fidelity measure. Detrended Correspondence Analysis (DCA) was used to determine the relationship between the sampled plots, vegetation units…
Cementing agents involved in the macro- and microaggregation of a Mediterranean shrubland soil under laboratory heating
2014
The heating effect on aggregation and cementing agents of a Mediterranean soil was studied in two fractions (macro- and microaggregates) in different environments: under Quercus coccifera soil (UQ), under Rosmarinus officinalis soil (UR) and between plants or bare soil (BS). Samples were heated under laboratory conditions at different temperatures (220, 380, 500, 750 and 1000. °C) to establish their effects on the studied soil properties by comparison with unheated control samples (25. °C). Increasing temperature treatments caused significant changes in most soil variables. In both soil fractions, the presence of vegetation contributed to increase of the soil organic matter (SOM) content, w…
Anthropogenic Influences in Land Use/Land Cover Changes in Mediterranean Forest Landscapes in Sicily
2016
This paper analyzes and quantifies the land use/land cover changes of the main forest and semi-natural landscape types in Sicily between 1955 and 2012. We analyzed seven representative forest and shrubland landscapes in Sicily. These study areas were chosen for their importance in the Sicilian forest panorama. We carried out a diachronic survey on historical and current aerial photos; all the aerial images used to survey the land use/land cover changes were digitalized and georeferenced in the UTM WGS84 system. In order to classify land use, the Regional Forest Inventory 2010 legend was adopted for the more recent images, and the CORINE Land Cover III level used for the older, lower resolut…