Search results for "mediterranean environment"

Landscape Systems and Human Land-Use Interactions in Mediterranean Highlands and Littoral Plains during the Late Holocene: Integrated Analysis from t…

2012

The main goal of the InterAmbAr reseach project is to analyze the relationships between landscape systems and human land-use strategies on mountains and littoral plains from a long-term perspective. The study adopts a high resolution analysis of small-scale study areas located in the Mediterranean region of north-eastern Catalonia. The study areas are distributed along an altitudinal transect from the high mountain (above 2000m a.s.l.) to the littoral plain of Empordà (Fig. 1). High resolution interdisciplinary research has been carried out from 2010, based on the integration of palaeoenvironmental and archaeological data. The micro-scale approach is used to understand human-environmental r…

Reversing agriculture from intensive to sustainable improves soil quality in a semiarid South Italian soil

2010

Intensive agriculture (IA) is widespread in South Italy, although it requires frequent tillage, large amounts of fertilizers and irrigation water. We have assessed the efficacy of reversing IA to sustainable agriculture (SA) in recovering quality of a typical South Italy soil (Lithic Haploxeralf). This reversion, lasting from 2000 to 2007, replaced 75% of nutrients formerly supplied inorganically by farmyard manuring and reduced the tillage frequency. Several chemical and biochemical properties, functionally related to C and N mineralisation–immobilisation processes and to P and S nutrient cycles, were monitored annually from 2005 to 2007 in the spring. Reversing IA to SA decreased soil bul…

Microbial biomass carbon dynamics in a long-term tillage and crop rotation experiment under semiarid Mediterranean conditions

2015

Microbial biomass carbon (MBC) of soil is an important ecological indicator of nutrient cycling and soil fertility. In addition, it responds to the changes of soil fertility more rapidly than soil organic matter. The aim of the present work was to evaluate the effect of a long-term implementation of a conservative soil management strategy (No Tillage [NT]) compared to the inversion tillage (conventional tillage [CT]) on the soil MBC in a range of crops - continuous durum wheat (WW), wheat after fababean (FW) and faba bean after wheat (WF). MBC of NT plots was higher than CT. In addition, the content of MBC varied with sampling time during the growing season; this variation did not show a co…

Sulla (Hedysarum coronarium L.) leaves and stems as a potential biofuel feedstock

2014

Sulla (Hedysarum coronarium L. syn., Sulla coronaria [L.] Medik.) is a short-lived perennial legume native to the Mediterranean basin, where it is extensively grown as a 2-year forage crop playing a key role in cereal-based systems of semi-arid regions thanks to its versatility, (e.g., used for grazing, hay and silage production, and grazing associated with hay production), good-quality forage, and environmental benefits. To date, sulla has not been considered as a bioenergy crop. This research aimed to evaluate the potential of sulla biomass as a biofuel feedstock; in addition, due to the possibility to separate the leaves from the stems as suggested for alfalfa, the biomass composition wa…

Modifications over years of volatile compounds and agronomic features in a Sicilian Clary sage biotype.

2006

Clary sage is a biennial native to Mediterranean area, spontaneous and often ubiquitous in many environments of inner Sicily. The large white-pinkish flowers are used, besides for ornamental purposes, for extracting a strongly-scented essential oil largely used by perfume industries. This work has been carried out with the aim to observe over several years the behaviour of a Sicilian Clary sage biotype, grown on experimental plots laid out in Sparacia (Cammarata - AG - Sicily). For this purpose seeds of Clary sage collected from a wild population growing in Pietraperzia (EN) were sown in experimental plots each year for seven consecutive years (from 1998 to 2005). Since Clary sage is a bien…

Actual provision as an alternative criterion to improve the efficiency of payments for ecosystem services for C sequestration in semiarid vineyards

2016

The aim of this paper is to evaluate the efficiency of the PES scheme actually used in the Sicilian rural development program, based on an egalitarian criterion, and proposing an alternative scheme in order to guarantee a greater equity and fairness of premium distribution in relation to soil carbon (C) sequestration potential. We, first, assessed the ecosystem services (ES) provided by agri-environmental measures (AEM) in terms of SOC stock increase in Sicilian vineyards. Based on these data we evaluated the efficiency of agro-environmental payments according to an egalitarian criterion and simulated the effects of the actual provision criterion adoption. Results showed that the adoption o…

Multifunctional role of medicinal and aromatic plants: Perspectives and constraints

2008

Multifunctionality is one of the newest claims addressed to agricultural practices, that are nowadays requested to overpass their classical role to furnish food and fibers for human needs, also addressing to the fulfillment of other human necessities, such as to accomplish recreational services and to give a contribute for environmental safeguard. Medicinal and aromatic plants (MAPs) may be an important tool for the advancement of agricultural practice towards multifunctionality: they represent a mean for crop (and economical) diversification, contribute to land valorization by means of their aesthetical value, may fit into integrated agro-industrial pathways, may give raw matters and inter…

Rhynchophorus ferrugineus attack affects a group of compounds rather than rearranging Phoenix canariensis metabolic pathways.

2016

The red palm weevil (RPW; Rhynchophorus ferrugineus) is spreading worldwide and severely harming many palm species. However, most studies on RPW focused on insect biology, and little information is available about the plant response to the attack. In the present experiment, we used metabolomics to study the alteration of the leaf metabolome of Phoenix canariensis at initial (1st stage) or advanced (2nd stage) attack by RPW compared with healthy (unattacked) plants. The leaf metabolome significantly varied among treatments. At the 1st stage of attack, plants showed a reprogramming of carbohydrate and organic acid metabolism; in contrast, peptides and lipid metabolic pathways underwent more c…

Trend of inter-arrival times of rainfall events for Italian Sub-Alpine and Mediterranean areas

2011

No-Till Soil Organic Carbon Sequestration Patterns as Affected by Climate and Soil Erosion in the Arable Land of Mediterranean Europe

2022

No-tillage (NT) has been considered an agronomic tool to sequester soil organic carbon (SOC) and match the 4p1000 initiative requirements of conservative soil management. Recently, some doubts have emerged about the NT effect on SOC sequestration, often because observations and experimental data vary widely depending on climate and geographic characteristics. Therefore, a suitable SOC accounting method is needed that considers climate and morphology interactions. In this study, the yearly ratio between SOC in NT and conventional tillage (CT) (RRNT/CT) collected in a previous study for flat (96 samples) and sloping (44 samples) paired sites was used to map the overestimation of SOC sequestra…