Search results for "WETLANDS"
showing 10 items of 73 documents
Charophytes for description and monitoring of inland waters in Sicily
2017
The island of Sicily, in the center of the Mediterranean basin, is a well-known biodiversity hotspot (Médail & Quézel, 1997). Unfortunately, the knowledge of its charophyte flora is absolutely unsatisfactory. The few available data derive from some scattered phytosociological works and some articles published more than 100 years ago. According to the last national synthesis (Bazzichelli & Abdelahad, 2009) a total of 19 Charophytes species should occur in the island, distributed in 4 genera: Chara L. (11), Nitella Agardh (5), Tolypella (A. Braun) A. Braun (2) and Lamprothamnium J. Groves (1). However an updated list of the species occurring in the island, together with their distribu…
The effect of peatland drainage and restoration on Odonata species richness and abundance
2015
Background Restoration aims at reversing the trend of habitat degradation, the major threat to biodiversity. In Finland, more than half of the original peatland area has been drained, and during recent years, restoration of some of the drained peatlands has been accomplished. Short-term effects of the restoration on peatland hydrology, chemistry and vegetation are promising but little is known about how other species groups apart from vascular plants and bryophytes respond to restoration efforts. Results Here, we studied how abundance and species richness of Odonata (dragonflies and damselflies) respond to restoration. We sampled larvae in three sites (restored, drained, pristine) on each o…
The superior effect of nature based solutions in land management for enhancing ecosystem services
2017
The rehabilitation and restoration of land is a key strategy to recover services -goods and resources- ecosystems offer to the humankind. This paper reviews key examples to understand the superior effect of nature based solutions to enhance the sustainabilit y of catchment systems by promoting desirable soil and landscape functions. The use of concepts such as connectivity and the theory of system thinking framework allowed to review coastal and river management as a guide to evaluate other strategies to achieve sustainability. In land management NBSs are not mainstream management. Through a set of case studies: organic farming in Spain; rewilding in Slovenia; land restoration in Iceland, s…
Fighting carbon loss of degraded peatlands by jump-starting ecosystem functioning with ecological restoration
2015
Degradation of ecosystems is a great concern on the maintenance of biodiversity and ecosystem services. Ecological restoration fights degradation aiming at the recovery of ecosystem functions such as carbon (C) sequestration and ecosystem structures like plant communities responsible for the C sequestration function. We selected 38 pristine, drained and restored boreal peatland sites in Finland and asked i) what is the long-term effect of drainage on the peatland surface layer C storage, ii) can restoration recover ecosystem functioning (surface layer growth) and structure (plant community composition) and iii) is the recovery of the original structure needed for the recovery of ecosystem f…
The role of power line rights-of-way as an alternative habitat for declined mire butterflies
2011
Habitat loss is one of the greatest threats for biodiversity. In Finland, two thirds of natural mires have been drained for silviculture, which transforms open wetlands into dense forests. However, vegetation management of power line rights-of-way (ROW) maintain the drained mires as open areas. The aim of this study was to determine the effect of the power line ROW vegetation management on butterfly abundance, species richness and community structure by comparing the managed power line ROWs to unmanaged drained control sites and to natural mires. The species richness or abundance of mire butterflies did not differ between the power line ROWs and natural mires. In contrast, both species rich…
Current anthropogenic pressures on agro-ecological protected coastal wetlands
2015
Coastal wetlands are areas that suffer from great pressure. Much of it is due to the rapid development of the surrounding artificial landscapes, where socio-economic factors lead to alterations in the nearby environment, affecting the quality of natural and agricultural systems. This work analyses interconnections among landscapes under the hypothesis that urban-artificial impacts could be detected on soils and waters of an agro-ecological protected area, L'Albufera de Valencia Natural Park, located in the vicinity of the City of Valencia, Spain. The methodological framework developed addresses two types of anthropogenic pressure: (1) direct, due to artificialisation of soil covers that cau…
Benefits of the European Agri-Environment Schemes for Wintering Lapwings : A Case Study from Rice Fields in the Mediterranean Region
2020
Mediterranean European rice fields provide important habitats for migrating waterbirds. In winter. one waterbird species that particularly benefits from rice fields is the Northern Lapwing (VaneIlus vanellas), a species threatened in Europe. To assess the effect of agii-environmental measures on rice field selection and use by wintering lapwings, bird counts were conducted in northeastern Spain during two consecutive winters (2005-2006 and 2006-2007). Information on two mandatory post-harvest management prescriptions of the agri-environment schemes was collected, namely winter flooding (percent ground surface covered by water) and whether fields were rolled or not. The number of lapwings in…
Vibrio palustris sp. nov. and Vibrio spartinae sp. nov., two novel members of the Gazogenes clade, isolated from salt-marsh plants (Arthrocnemum macr…
2017
Two bacterial strains, EAod9T and SMJ21T, isolated from salt-marsh plants, were determined to be related to species of the genus Vibrio from from 16S rRNA sequence comparisons. Their closest phylogenetic relatives are members of the Gazogenes clade, Vibrio mangrovi and Vibrio rhizosphaerae , which show the greatest similarity to the SMJ21TrRNA sequence (97.3 and 97.1 %, respectively), while EAod9T had less than 97.0 % similarity to any other species of the genus Vibrio . Both strains share the basic characteristics of the genus Vibrio , as they are Gram-stain negative, motile, slightly halophilic, facultatively anaerobic bacteria. In addition, they are oxidase-negative and unable to grow on…
Subsurface nitrate reduction under wetlands takes place in narrow superficial zones
2017
This study aims to investigate the depth distribution of the Nitrate Reduction Potential (NRP) on a natural and a re-established wetland. The obtained NRP provides a valuable data of the driving factors affecting denitrification, the Dissimilatory Nitrate Reduction to Ammonium (DNRA) process and the performance of a re-established wetland. Intact soil cores were collected and divided in slices for the determination of Organic Matter (OM) through Loss of Ignition (LOI) as well as Dissolved Organic Carbon (DOC) and NRP spiking nitrate in batch tests. The Nitrate Reduction (NR) was fitted as a pseudo-first order rate constant (k) from where NRPs were obtained. NR took place in a narrow superfi…
High Nitrogen Removal in a Constructed Wetland Receiving Treated Wastewater in a Cold Climate
2018
Constructed wetlands provide cost-efficient nutrient removal, with minimal input of human labor and energy, and their number is globally increasing. However, in northern latitudes, wetlands are rarely utilized, because their nutrient removal efficiency has been questioned due to the cold climate. Here, we studied nutrient retention and nitrogen removal in a boreal constructed wetland (4-ha) receiving treated nitrogen-rich wastewater. On a yearly basis, most of the inorganic nutrients were retained by the wetland. The highest retention efficiency was found during the ice-free period, being 79% for ammonium-nitrogen (NH4+-N), 71% for nitrate-nitrogen (NO3--N), and 88% for phosphate-phosphorus…