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This is the dataset used to analyse biomass of fauna collected in farmed and wild kelp at the West coast of Norway (Søre Sunnmøre) in April 2019. Coordinates are given in the fil. 

Digital Annex for the following thesis: Vila-Viçosa, C. (2023). Natural History, Biogeography and Evolution of the Iberian white oak syngameon (Quercus L. Sect. Quercus). Ph.D. Thesis, Faculdade de Ciências da Universidade do Porto, Portugal Abstract: The genus Quercus L. is one of the most diverse and important group of woody plants, particularly when considering that they are the trees that rule the Northern Hemisphere forests. Oaks have an intricate Biogeography that criss-crosses diverse climatic and edaphic gradients, encompassing a huge ambiguity in terms of species delimitation. Frequently, the taxonomic proposals brought by traditional Linnaean Botany are either insufficient or rather inflate the number of species and nomenclatural assignments, which are further diluted into inconsistent taxonomic ranks, varying from species to subspecies and varieties. The supremacy given to morphological characters that are inherently fragile and plastic, spread across the distribution areas of distinct lineages, may carry ambiguity on the identification and proper species delimitation. From the oaks that are distributed across the Western Palearctic region, the ones that are deciduous or brevi-deciduous present higher levels of ambiguity in terms of species number and their delimitation. This ambiguity is particularly strong in the circummediterranean region and in the transitional areas between the two major biogeographic Regions of the western Palearctic region, the Euro-Siberian and Mediterranean. This degree of uncertainty, which increases towards the Southern European Peninsulas, is amplified by the ease that the different species of oaks tend to hybridize among them. The present work provides a holistic framework that covers multiple areas, from the taxonomic and evolutive study of this genus, to biogeography and molecular characterization. Its major objective was to resolve the species delimitation of the Iberian deciduous and marcescent oaks and putative introgression among them, enhancing the available knowledge about species diversity, which can foster suitable species and forest conservation. A specific objective was to cross-reference the natural history revision and the different taxonomic treatments brought by distinct authors, with personal observations. These data were then incorporated into ecological modelling and molecular characterization, which in the end fed a newly updated taxonomic proposal. In Section A we obtained results from extensive field, herbaria, and literature review, updating the nomenclature of the Portuguese and western Mediterranean oaks. Section B was supported by Section A’s in-depth review and enabled finer species distribution models, nurturing both hindcast (since ca. 20 Kyr) and forecast (2070-2100) exercises of the range dynamics of Mediterranean oaks species. The study of past and future range shifts solved important pending biogeographic questions, especially related to past range-shifts. Such past-range shifts improved our knowledge on species responses to climate dynamics and allowed a better anticipation of future responses of range shifts driven by climate change. Section C encompassed the molecular characterization of Iberian white oak species and their hybrids, whose delimitation is often faltering when one intends to infer about species rank, or hypothesize about the participation of parent taxon in natural hybrid swarms. This work allowed us to solve the phylogenetic backbone of western Palearctic white oaks, suggesting a significant segregation of the Iberian pedunculate oaks and unveiling two subsections inside Section Quercus. These subsections are biogeographically well-segregated and present diverse levels of introgression among species. Results demonstrated the efficiency of RADSeq for rebuilding the reticulate phylogeny of the Eurasian white oaks, showcasing the significance of the Iberian Peninsula as a major hotspot for oak diversity. We implemented a circular approach to these methods, which retro-fed themselves in terms of insight generation, enabling a powerful strategy to solve the evolutionary history of this difficult groups of plants. We estimate that the reticulate historical biogeography of the western Palearctic white oaks deserves further scrutiny by adding vicariant oak populations from northern Africa, the Near East and southern European Peninsulas. Methods should again follow this similar additive and sequential process of adjoining deep Natural History examination, with extensive fieldwork in type populations and genome-wide molecular surveys, in order to solve this group of plants. With the present work, we were able to significantly improve on the depiction of the basic unit of Biodiversity (the Species), in the complex Quercus genus. We provided tools to enable further efforts for the conservation of the Mediterranean oak forests, which overwhelm one of the most important (and one of the most threatened) Biomes for plant conservation at the global scale.

Le Meillour & Sinet-Mathiot et al. 2024 Increasing sustainability in palaeoproteomics by optimizing digestion times for large-scale archaeological bone analyses DOI: 10.1016/j.isci.2024.109432 MALDI-ToF MS data (raw data: mzML files, merged spectra: msd files) used for the ZooMS analysis of the bone material from Baishiya Karst Cave (China) and La Draga (Spain), along with the R codes for merging triplicates into one msd file. 

From the British debate on the depletion of coal in 1865 to the First World Power Conference held in London in 1924, scientists, engineers, industrialists, and politicians produced new interpretations of the past, present, and future in terms of the mobilisation of energy resources. This thesis identifies an emerging ‘energy developmentalism’, which called for maximising energy use to maintain or improve a nation’s place in international competition. Energy developmentalism was not a marginal worldview confined to ‘energeticists’, but a coherent set of claims, measurements, and arguments that informed energy governance on an international scale. Rather than focusing on a single resource, energy developmentalism applied a unified schema to all energy sources, including those like solar and tidal energy that were still mostly theoretical. Drawing on sources from across Europe, while staying grounded in political changes in Britain and France, makes it possible to understand how a general formula for transforming raw materials with maximum efficiency was applied differently depending on specific political contexts. This period saw the articulation of problems like the depletion of resources, the difference between renewable and nonrenewable energy, the intermittency of renewables, the overreliance on a single source of energy, and the centrality of energy to modern economies – problems that are often associated with later periods. Scientific measurements of efficiency, horsepower, and kilowatts became operators in political debates centred on questions of national standing and progress. Even as oil became increasingly important in the world economy, the delegates at the First World Power Conference transformed a vision of a renewable energy future into one of a general expansion of energy consumption as the basis of progress. In so doing, they downplayed the continued importance of fossil fuels and equated ‘conservation’ with the fullest possible use of all energy sources, renewable or not.

This research aimed to analyze attitudes and sustainable purchasing behaviors when purchasing food among Portuguese consumers of Generations Z, Y and X. Specifically, to identify statistically significant differences on the interest in ecological knowledge, level of knowledge of ecological issues, ecological purchasing habits and conscious purchasing planning and, consequently, sustainable attitudes and behaviors when purchasing food considering the generation factor. To achieve these objectives, a quantitative and cross-sectional approach was used. In this context, a questionnaire adapted from Kuźniar, Surmacz and Wierzbiński (2021) was used to collect the data. The data collection instrument was applied between September 2022 and the first fortnight of January 2023. Thus, primary data was collected based on a non-probabilistic sample for convenience that included 686 Portuguese consumers from Generations Z (n = 487), Y (n = 82) and X (n = 117). Later, the Mann-Whitney and Kruskal-Wallis tests were used to identify statistically significant differences between two and three independent groups, respectively. The results confirm that generation is a differentiating factor in sustainable attitudes and behaviors. In fact, the existence of statistically significant differences between Generations Z, Y and X regarding the interest in ecological knowledge, ecological purchasing habits and sustainable attitudes and behaviors when purchasing food, are proof of this. Furthermore, it was found that Generations X and Y had identical attitudes and behaviors, differentiating them from Generation Z. Regarding the level of knowledge of ecological issues and conscious purchasing planning, attitudes were similar in the three generations analyzed. The authors are grateful to the Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT, Portugal) for financial support through national funds FCT/MCTES (PIDDAC) to CIMO (UIDB/00690/2020 and UIDP/00690/2020) and SusTEC (LA/P/0007/2020). info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion

In the recent years, some experimental forms of housing (cohousing and social housing) have developed in Italy, which also take on the features of real energy communities. These initiatives have been planned and implemented thanks to the active participation and investments of the people involved in the project. Their primary aim is to implement new form of shared housing, but by adopting renewable generation systems and sharing both energy production and consumption, they are contributing to foster the energy transition process. In this research, we studied the management of the energy resource and the social interactions among the cohousers. Moreover, we analysed the social impacts on the surrounding territory in order to know as they can widespread the clean energy technologies and social innovation processes. To do this, we compared two experiences of collaborative housing: the first one, active since some years in Northern Italy, is a bottom-up initiative set up by the voluntary action of some families and individuals. Its goal is to share common spaces and activities, but also to produce and use renewable energy with a view to economic and environmental sustainability. The second one is a social cohousing, established in Messina (Southern Italy) and implemented by the Fondazione di Comunità di Messina. The project involves people who live in socio-economic difficulties. Through the ESCO Solidarity & Energy, the Fondazione has designed and applied energy systems to allow the tenants to become prosumers and prosumagers.

In our research we identified 45 business model patterns with the potential to support sustainable business design. These patterns were arranged in groups based on commonalities in the sustainability challenges the patterns address. The following 11 groups will be presented in detail in our forthcoming book:  Group 1: Pricing & Revenue Patterns primarily address the revenue model of a business model, i.e. these patterns define how offerings are priced and revenues generated.  Group 2: Financing Patterns address the financing model within a business model, i.e. these patterns define how equity, debt, and operating capital can be acquired.  Group 3: Eco-Design Patterns integrate ecological aspects into key activities and value propositions, i.e. these patterns define how processes and offerings are designed to improve their ecological performance over their entire life cycle.  Group 4: Closing-the-Loop Patterns help integrate the idea of circular material and energy flows into partnerships, key activities, and customer channels, i.e. these patterns offer alternative ways of how materials and energy flow into, out of, and return to a company.  Group 5: Supply Chain Patterns modify the upstream (partners, resources, capabilities) and/or downstream (customers, relationships, channels) components of a business model, i.e. these patterns define how inputs are sourced and target groups are reached.  Group 6: Giving Patterns help donate products or services to target groups in need, i.e. these patterns define how costs are covered and social target groups are reached.  Group 7: Access Provision Patterns create markets for otherwise neglected target groups, involving modified value propositions, channels, revenue, pricing and cost models, i.e. these patterns define how value propositions are designed, delivered, and to whom.  Group 8: Social Mission Patterns integrate social target groups in need, including otherwise neglected groups, either as customers or productive partners, i.e. these patterns define how customers, partners, and employees are defined and integrated.  Group 9: Service & Performance Patterns emphasize the functional and service value of products and offer performance management, i.e. these patterns are special in how value propositions are defined and delivered.  Group 10: Cooperative Patterns integrate a broad range of stakeholders as co-owners and co-managers, i.e. these patterns are special in how partners are defined and how the organization is governed.  Group 11: Community Platform Patterns substitute resource or product ownership with community-based access to resources and products, i.e. these patterns offer alternatives to how value propositions are defined and delivered.

Photo-electrochemical (PEC) devices allow for converting solar energy into chemical energy and for the production of energetically dense solar fuels. Light absorption, charge separation and transport, electrochemical reactions, and ionic transport are required in such devices, all processes happening simultaneously. PEC devices - compared to competing, conventional PV-electrolysis systems - offer the promise of less complexity in design and implementation and more flexibility in their use. Nevertheless, PEC devices' economic and performance competitiveness is not well understood, given their low technology readiness level. No study has considered accurate multi-physical, multi-scale, and multi-dimensional performance models, degradation aspects, and uncertainty in the performance and cost metrics. Addressing some of these unknowns and focusing on the conversion of solar energy into two different solar fuels (H2 from water and CO from CO2), the objective of this thesis is threefold: (i) conduct a system-level techno-economic analysis based on a systematic and physical performance model (including degradation), and address uncertainty via a probabilistic approach (Monte Carlo (MC) method); (ii) based on the insight gained from the techno-economic analysis, identify most promising design and operational principles, substantiated by experimental investigation of an example case to assess practical feasibility; and (iii) develop two intricate multi-dimensional, multi-physical models: one for an innovative PEC device designed to operate with water vapor, and the other for a PEC device utilizing concentrated solar light engaged in the conversion of CO2 to CO. Overall, this thesis provides a combination of experimental demonstration and simulation tools to conduct feasibility studies, predict costs, and provide design guidelines and operational conditions for PEC devices in diverse electrochemical processes. This scope extends the use of PEC devices beyond the traditional liquid water splitting reaction, encompassing applications such as water vapor splitting, energy storage, and CO2 reduction.

Climate change has been widely recognised as one of the most urgent and growing threats to natural and cultural heritage in the twenty-first century, and the indelible impact of humanity has led to the definition of a new geological epoch, the Anthropocene. Indigenous peoples are disproportionately affected by natural and human-induced changes to the environment. Their vulnerability is exacerbated by centuries of cultural and territorial disenfranchisement within settler-colonial nations. This dissertation aims at understanding Indigenous perceptions of heritage in the face of climate change and its intersection with the impacts of settler- colonialism. It analyses how these on-the-ground perceptions can, in turn, inform heritage organisations and contribute to safeguarding the many facets of tangible and intangible Indigenous heritage for future generations in the Anthropocene. This is accomplished through a comparative, transnational case study of two communities each from the Dehcho First Nations in the Northwest Territories, Canada, and the Aymara and Quechua peoples in northern Chile. I use a multi-method approach consisting of semi-structured interviews, oral histories and participant observation. The data is complemented by environmental and heritage legislation and grey literature at multiple organisational scales for both case studies. Three lines of enquiry are explored through an applied comparative thematic analysis: i) the perceptions of climate change and associated land loss/change among Indigenous groups and how this impacts each group’s notions of challenges to its cultural identity; ii) the intersection of the effects of post- colonialism, ongoing industrial activities and climate change on the intergenerational transmission of ancestral knowledge and notions of place attachment; and iii) how international, national and regional political and sociocultural rhetoric on environmental and heritage conservation affect local, grassroots considerations for safeguarding heritage. The similarities and contrasts of the Dehcho First Nations, Aymara and Quechua experiences of climate change across the North-South divide are related from the grassroots to arrive at redefining heritage practices in the Anthropocene. The results demonstrate that decolonising heritage is not only necessary, but that this decolonisation depends on building and actively engaging in intercultural empathy through the global threat of climate change. In order to understand how Indigenous practices, places, and items are valorised—attributed value—as heritage in the face of climate change, one must empathise with the cultural loss that exists in the temporal and cognitive spaces between Indigenous individuals’ moments of nostalgic reference and today.