• Energy Research
• 15. Life on land close
• US close
• IT close
• CA close
• Aurora Universities Network close

The joint impact of human activities and climate change on natural resources lead to biodiversity loss. Therefore, it is important to select protected areas through systematic conservation planning. The present study assessed how representative natural habitats are protected under the nature conservation network, and to identify new—but so far insufficiently—protected areas containing these habitats for sustainable management. We used the Marxan model to select the most valuable insufficiently protected natural habitats in the Czech Republic as a representative example for a conservation strategy for Central–Eastern European environments. We set three conservation targets (25%, 50%, and 75%), defining how much percent area of valuable representative natural habitats should be added to the area of the habitats already included in the Nature Protection Network. To implement these conservation targets it is necessary to preserve 22,932 ha, 72,429, ha and 124,363 ha respectively of the conservation targets occurring in the insufficiently protected areas, and 17,255 ha, 51,620 ha, and 84,993 ha respectively of the conservation features in the areas without protection status. Marxan was revealed to be an appropriate tool to select the most valuable and insufficiently protected natural habitats for sustainable management.

The influence of compost on the growth of bean plants irrigated with As-contaminated waters and its influence on the mobility of As in the soils and the uptake of As (as NaAs(III)O2) by plant components was studied at various compost application rates (3·10(4) and 6·10(4) kg ha(-1)) and at three As concentrations (1, 2 and 3 mg kg(-1)). The biomass and As and P concentrations of the roots, shoots and beans were determined at harvest time, as well as the chlorophyll content of the leaves and nonspecific and specifically bound As in the soil. The bean plants exposed to As showed typical phytotoxicity symptoms; no plants however died over the study. The biomass of the bean plants increased with the increasing amounts of compost added to the soil, attributed to the phytonutritive capacity of compost. Biomass decreased with increasing As concentrations, however, the reduction in the biomass was significantly lower with the addition of compost, indicating that the As phytotoxicity was alleviated by the compost. For the same As concentration, the As content of the roots, shoots and beans decreased with increasing compost added compared to the Control. This is due to partial immobilization of the As by the organic functional groups on the compost, either directly or through cation bridging. Most of the As adsorbed by the bean plants accumulated in the roots, while a scant allocation of As occurred in the beans. Hence, the addition of compost to soils could be used as an effective means to limit As accumulation in crops from As-contaminated waters.

Climate change affects the phenology of many species. As temperature and precipitation are thought to control autumn color change in temperate deciduous trees, it is possible that climate change might also affect the phenology of autumn colors. Using long-term data for eight tree species in a New England hardwood forest, we show that the timing and cumulative amount of autumn color are correlated with variation in temperature and precipitation at specific times of the year. A phenological model driven by accumulated cold degree-days and photoperiod reproduces most of the interspecific and interannual variability in the timing of autumn colors. We use this process-oriented model to predict changes in the phenology of autumn colors to 2099, showing that, while responses vary among species, climate change under standard IPCC projections will lead to an overall increase in the amount of autumn colors for most species.

Marine fungi are widely distributed in the ocean, playing an important role in the ecosystems, but only little information is available about their occurrence and activity. Seagrass bleaching is also a neglected phenomenon that seems to be linked to warm environments, even though the causes are still to be defined. In this study, the cultivable mycoflora associated to the leaf conditions (bleached, necrotic and live) and section (from the base to the tip) in the seagrass Posidonia oceanica was investigated in a Mediterranean warm-edge location (Cyprus). A total of 17 Ascomycota species/taxon were identified and results highlighted that mycoflora composition changed significantly in relation to both the leaf condition and section. A few known pathogens of terrestrial plants were detected only on bleached leaves, but it remains unknown whether they have any direct connections with P. oceanica bleaching phenomenon.

Purpose In Italy, composting olive mill waste has become a common practice, since it mitigates the environmental problems associated with spreading the waste on land. Compost can be used to prepare growth media for plant nursery cultivation as a substitute for peat, a non-renewable resource whose extraction has long raised environmental concerns. Here, we investigate two common composting procedures--open windrow and static-pile in gas-permeable bags--and compare them to evaluate their environmental impact. Methods We perform a cradle-to-grave life cycle assessment (LCA) in accordance with ISO 14040 and 14044. The LCA considers carbon storage in the soil after 100 years, fugitive greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, and the impacts avoided by substituting for peat. We use cumulative energy demand, global warming potential (GWP), acidification potential, and eutrophication potential indicators in a contribution analysis and explore how the re-use of olive pits for energy production and reduction of commercial fertilizers improves the environmental balance. We also present a scenario analysis that indicates how parameter fluctuations affect the results. Results and discussion Our study shows that peat's impacts can be significantly reduced from 1162.3 to 96.3 kg CO2-eq/Mg for open windrow compost or 43.1 kg CO2-eq/Mg for static-pile compost in gas-permeable bags. For static-pile composting, the lack of volatile organic compound and ammonia emissions and the detection of oxygen concentrations above 12% vol. suggest fully aerobic conditions. Fugitive greenhouse gas emissions were the most important contributions to the GWP. In the contribution analysis for static-pile composting, the avoidance of compost spreading and the carbon storage effect (due to compost usage) contributed 54% of the overall impacts to GWP and between 21 and 45% to the other indicators. Conclusions This LCA study illustrates how horticulturists can improve their resource management practices by recycling olive mill waste materials. Proper management of composting unit aeration can reduce fugitive GHG emissions.

Shifts in rainfall patterns and increasing temperatures associated with climate change are likely to cause widespread forest decline in regions where droughts are predicted to increase in duration and severity. One primary cause of productivity loss and plant mortality during drought is hydraulic failure. Drought stress creates trapped gas emboli in the water transport system, which reduces the ability of plants to supply water to leaves for photosynthetic gas exchange and can ultimately result in desiccation and mortality. At present we lack a clear picture of how thresholds to hydraulic failure vary across a broad range of species and environments, despite many individual experiments. Here we draw together published and unpublished data on the vulnerability of the transport system to drought-induced embolism for a large number of woody species, with a view to examining the likely consequences of climate change for forest biomes. We show that 70% of 226 forest species from 81 sites worldwide operate with narrow (<1 megapascal) hydraulic safety margins against injurious levels of drought stress and therefore potentially face long-term reductions in productivity and survival if temperature and aridity increase as predicted for many regions across the globe. Safety margins are largely independent of mean annual precipitation, showing that there is global convergence in the vulnerability of forests to drought, with all forest biomes equally vulnerable to hydraulic failure regardless of their current rainfall environment. These findings provide insight into why drought-induced forest decline is occurring not only in arid regions but also in wet forests not normally considered at drought risk.