Search results for "VEGETATION"

Long-term monitoring reveals topographical features and vegetation explain winter habitat use of an Arctic rodent

2021

AbstractCollapsing lemming cycles have been observed across the Arctic, presumably due to global warming creating less favorable winter conditions. The quality of wintering habitats, such as depth of snow cover, plays a key role in sustaining population dynamics of arctic lemmings. However, few studies so far investigated habitat use during the arctic winter. Here, we used a unique long-term time series to test whether lemmings are associated with topographical and vegetational habitat features for their winter refugi. We examined yearly numbers and distribution of 22,769 winter nests of the collared lemming Dicrostonyx groenlandicus from an ongoing long-term research on Traill Island, Nort…

Context-dependent foraging habitat selection in a farmland raptor along an agricultural intensification gradient

2021

Abstract Gradients of agricultural intensification in agroecosystems may determine uneven resource availability for predators relying on these man-made habitats. In turn, these variations in resource availability may affect predators’ habitat selection patterns, resulting in context-dependent habitat selection. We assessed the effects of gradients of landscape composition and configuration on habitat selection of a colonial farmland bird of prey, the lesser kestrel (Falco naumanni), relying on 76 GPS-tracked nestling-rearing individuals from 10 populations scattered along an agricultural intensification gradient. Analyses were conducted considering two ecological levels of aggregation (the …

Mapping a-priori defined plant associations using remotely sensed vegetation characteristics

2014

Abstract Incorporation of a priori defined plant associations into remote sensing products is a major challenge that has only recently been confronted by the remote sensing community. We present an approach to map the spatial distribution of such associations by using plant indicator values (IVs) for salinity, moisture and nutrients as an intermediate between spectral reflectance and association occurrences. For a 12 km 2 study site in the Netherlands, the relations between observed IVs at local vegetation plots and visible and near-infrared (VNIR) and short-wave infrared (SWIR) airborne reflectance data were modelled using Gaussian Process Regression (GPR) (R 2 0.73, 0.64 and 0.76 for sali…

On the use of unmanned aerial systems for environmental monitoring

2018

[EN] Environmental monitoring plays a central role in diagnosing climate and management impacts on natural and agricultural systems; enhancing the understanding of hydrological processes; optimizing the allocation and distribution of water resources; and assessing, forecasting, and even preventing natural disasters. Nowadays, most monitoring and data collection systems are based upon a combination of ground-based measurements, manned airborne sensors, and satellite observations. These data are utilized in describing both small-and large-scale processes, but have spatiotemporal constraints inherent to each respective collection system. Bridging the unique spatial and temporal divides that li…

SMOS-IC: An Alternative SMOS Soil Moisture and Vegetation Optical Depth Product

2017

© 2017 by the authors. The main goal of the Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity (SMOS) mission over land surfaces is the production of global maps of soil moisture (SM) and vegetation optical depth (τ) based on multi-angular brightness temperature (TB) measurements at L-band. The operational SMOS Level 2 and Level 3 soil moisture algorithms account for different surface effects, such as vegetation opacity and soil roughness at 4 km resolution, in order to produce global retrievals of SM and τ. In this study, we present an alternative SMOS product that was developed by INRA (Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique) and CESBIO (Centre d'Etudes Spatiales de la BIOsphère). One of the main go…

Effect of 30 years of road traffic abandonment on epiphytic moss diversity

2014

Road traffic emits a cocktail of pollutants that can influence the vegetation and plant diversity in neighboring areas. However, the recovery potential of bryophytes after traffic abandonment is still little explored. In addition, the effects of the main pollutants of road verges, such as metals and salinity, on moss flora need to be investigated. In our study, we compared the moss richness and diversity in two closely related veteran tree allees of high conservation importance. The allees in Gryżów and Lubrza, Poland, were chosen because of their similarity in age, geographical location, type of surrounding areas, and tree species. The only difference was that the trees in Gryżów had not b…

Role of vegetation on erosion processes: experimental investigation

2014

Urban Services to Ecosystems: An Introduction

2021

Green infrastructure is a structural system of naturally developed human societies, capable of preserving and ensuring as much space as possible to the local biodiversity. For this reason, green infrastructure shall be planned and designed so that the urban built environment is in harmony with the surrounding biotic communities. The challenge is to sustain nature-based solutions in order to improve citizens’ awareness towards natural and semi-natural ecosystems while providing our society with a more liveable, healthier, safer and fairer environment. This book puts an emphasis on the services the city can offer to nature, thanks to a multidisciplinary approach involving scientists and pract…

Flow velocity and turbulence intensity distribution in a vegetated straigth laboratory channel

2009

Changes in the benthic algal flora and vegetation of a semi-enclosed Mediterranean coastal lagoon (Stagnone di Marsala, Western Sicily)

2014

È stato condotto uno studio sulla flora e vegetazione macroalgale dello Stagnone di Marsala (Trapani) con l’obiettivo di fornire una revisione dei dati riportati in letteratura ed esaminare i principali cambiamenti che si sono verificati nell’intera area negli ultimi tre decenni. La flora algale è risultata più povera rispetto al passato (94 taxa contro 108), mostrando un incremento delle Cloroficee e una riduzione delle Rodoficee e delle Feoficee. Solo 48 taxa sono stati riportati precedentemente, mentre 46 sono nuovi per lo Stagnone. Tra questi, è interessante sottolineare sia da un punto di vista floristico che ecologico, il ritrovamento per la prima volta dell’alga bruna Cystoseira comp…