Search results for "conservation."

High rates of short-term dynamics of forest ecosystem services

2021

Currently, the main tools for assessing and managing ecosystem services at large scales are maps providing snapshots of their potential supply. However, many ecosystems change over short timescales; thus, such maps soon become inaccurate. Here we show high rates of short-term dynamics of three key forest ecosystem services: wood production, bilberry production and topsoil carbon storage. Almost 85% of the coldspots and 65% of the hotspots for these services had changed into a different state over a ten-year period. Wood production showed higher rates of short-term dynamics than bilberry production and carbon storage. The high rates of dynamics mean that static snapshot ecosystem service map…

High boreal forest multifunctionality requires continuous cover forestry as a dominant management

2021

Intensive extraction of forest resources lowers biodiversity and endangers the functioning of forest ecosystems. As such, alternative management regimes have emerged, aspiring to promote forest biodiversity and nature protection in managed forests. Among them, continuous cover forestry, (i.e. selective logging), has received considerable attention and is being promoted by some researchers and NGOs. Yet, the full consequences of banning clear-cuts (i.e. rotation forestry) and replacing it entirely with continuous cover forest remains uncertain. We explore how restricting forest management alternatives (either rotation forestry or continuous cover forestry) will affect landscape-scale forest …

Hotspots in cold climate: Conservation value of woodland key habitats in boreal forests

2011

The concept of Woodland Key Habitats (WKH, small-scaled presumed hotspots of biodiversity) has become an essential component of biodiversity conservation in Fennoscandian and Baltic forests. There have been debates over the importance of WKHs in relation to the conservation of biodiversity in production forests. We applied a systematic review protocol and meta-analysis to summarize knowledge on comparisons of biodiversity qualities, such as dead wood and species richness, between WKHs and production forests in relevant countries. We also summarized the knowledge on the impact of edge effects by comparing WKHs surrounded by production forests to WKHs surrounded by clear cuts. Studies had bee…

Soil Biology as Related to Land-Use Practices (Eighth International Colloquium on Soil Zoology), held in Syracuse, New York, USA, during 30 July-3 Au…

1979

Systemic silviculture and Mediterranean forest complexity: the need for a new paradigm in forestry

2011

La crescente minaccia di riduzione, semplificazione e scomparsa dei fondamentali caratteri di diversita biologica che caratterizza l’ambiente mediterraneo, e segnatamente le sue formazioni forestali, rende necessario rivedere le strategie di intervento colturale e gestione. In passato hanno prevalso, in specie nei boschi pubblici, forme di gestione e di applicazione della selvicoltura alquanto semplificate e volte a massimizzare soprattutto la funzione produttiva e a “normalizzare “ le formazioni forestali. Viceversa emerge sempre piu chiaramente la complessita dei sistemi mediterranei. Pertanto e necessario uscire dagli schemi preordinati e adottare un approccio che comprenda e rispetti ta…

Assessing physical surrogates for biodiversity: Do tributary and stream type classifications reflect macroinvertebrate assemblage diversity in runnin…

2006

Landscape classifications are increasingly being used in conservation planning and biodiversity management, although there is a dearth of studies actually showing concordant patterns between such classifications and biodiversity. We studied the utility of tributary and stream type classifications in accounting for the variability of invertebrate biodiversity in a boreal drainage system. We found that only weak, although significant, differences existed between the studied three tributaries and four stream types in macroinvertebrate assemblage structure, species distributions, and taxonomic richness. Further, the classification strengths, calculated as mean within-group-similarity minus mean…

A new species of Isatis (Brassicaceae) from the Pollino National Park (Basilicata, S Italy)

2015

A new species, Isatis raimondoi (Brassicaceae) is described from Mt Alpi in the Pollino National Park (Basilicata, Southern Italy). Its relationships with the other species of Isatis occurring in Italy are examined.

Hybrid WENO schemes for polydisperse sedimentation models

2015

International audience; Polydisperse sedimentation models can be described by a strongly coupled system of conservation laws for the concentration of each species of solids. Typical solutions for the sedimentation model considered for batch settling in a column include stationary kinematic shocks separating layers of sediment of different composition. This phenomenon, known as segregation of species, is a specially demanding task for numerical simulation due to the need of accurate numerical simulations. Very high-order accurate solutions can be constructed by incorporating characteristic information, available due to the hyperbolicity analysis made in Donat and Mulet [A secular equation fo…

Geoconservation in Sicily (Italy): the Example of the Isola delle Femmine (Palermo)

2022

Abstract The Regional Administration of Sicily recently erected Isola delle Femmine—a small island of the Tyrrhenian Sea, close to Palermo—as a geosite. A detailed geological survey has been carried out in order to define the most important geological features of the island together with the development of a new geological map based on topographic data and a digital model at 1:2.000 scale specially processed. Finally, a geological pathway through the island has been traced and illustrated. The geological substrate of Isola delle Femmine consists of a Mesozoic carbonate succession belonging to the Panormide Carbonate Platform. Two lithostratigraphic units have been differentiated. The lowest…

Preliminary identification of self-incompatibility genotypes of Sicilian almond landraces

2018

Sicily is the main almond producer in Italy. The almond tree is one of the main protagonists of the Sicilian agrarian landscape, especially in the winter, when the bare branches are covered by white or pinkish flowers. Its presence is particularly significant in the province of Agrigento, in Syracuse and in Ragusa areas, where the almond nut is used for fresh consumption and for the preparation of typical sweets. The extremely rich Sicilian almond germplasm can be useful for genetic improvement, since many local landraces possess aromatic characteristics of the nuts of high value. Self-incompatibility in this species is gametophytic and controlled by a multi-allelic S locus, coding for the …