1,720,981 research outputs found
The use of remote sensing for monitoring Posidonia oceanica and Marine Protected Areas: A systemic review
No full textPosidonia oceanica is a priority habitat (Habitat Directive 92/43/CEE) that needs to be protected by conservation tools such as Marine Protected Areas (MPAs). Remote Sensing (RS) is a useful tool allowing for mapping seagrass meadows and other important marine habitats. In this study, we explore the global scientific literature on RS applied to both P. oceanica and MPAs tracking its evolution and trends by applying network analysis to bibliometric science. The software VOSviewer was used to create maps based on network data of scientific publications displaying relationships among authors and countries. In addition, specific keywords were used to explore the co-occurrence of different terms characterizing the application of RS in marine science. Results showed that France is the main country publishing on RS applied to Posidonia oceanica while Pergent Gérard and Pergent-Martini Cristine resulted the top authors. The co-occurrences analysis highlighted that RS is primarily used for seagrasses mapping, while few studies are focused on their monitoring. Furthermore, investigating RS in connection with MPAs the main country resulted Australia while the top author was Andréfouet. The network map of keywords showed that RS is widely applied to MPAs to study coral reefs and their biodiversity and for mapping marine ecosystems. The use of RS for monitoring Posidonia oceanica beds and MPAs resulted a poorly explored research area, probably due to the low resolution of available data determining large scale habitat mapping. In conclusion, we maintain that RS applications can provide useful information about the effects of local human activities and global climate change on marine ecosystem
Spatial Analyses of An Integrated Landscape-seascape Territorial System: The Case of The Gulf of Naples, Southern Italy
No full textLandscape ecology investigates spatial patterns of natural and anthropo-genic ecosystems (anthromes). However, most studies focused on terres-trial environment, while submarine landscape (seascape) was poorly tak-en into account. This study represents a first attempt to perform an inte-grated landscape/seascape spatial analysis of the densely populated Gulf of Naples. Multivariate analyses on landscape metrics were used to detect differences in the spatial patterns of ecosystem patches between land-scape and seascape and to compare the effects of anthropogenic impact in terms of spatial heterogeneity. Results showed that landscape, mainly composed by humans perturbed ecosystems, presents higher patch edge dimension, diversity and evenness, and a lower fractal dimension than seascape. Significant differences on edges, diversity metrics, and hetero-geneity among patches were also detected between land- and seascape. Landscape showed low γ-variability (a measure of heterogeneity) due to the highly homogenous distribution of ecosystem patches, a characteristic feature of impacted anthropogenic system with low resilience. Converse-ly, seascape showed high γ-variability, a feature of systems with low an-thropogenic impact and high resilience. These outcomes suggest that an-thropogenic impact on integrated territorial systems is inversely related to γ-variability, and consequently to resilience. In addition, they also sug-gest that seascape is more resilient than landscape, also in a highly ex-ploited and overcrowded territorial system like the gulf of Naples. Such findings can also be useful in support of environmental accounting and management at landscape scale
Meiobenthic communities as indicators of the ecological quality status in the Apulian coasts.
No full textAssessing molluscs functional diversity within different coastal habitats of Mediterranean marine protected areas
Full text linkMolluscs assemblages inhabiting subtidal habitats (sandy bottoms, photophilic and sciaphilic hard bottoms, Posidonia oceanica seagrass beds) represent a valuable part of coastal biodiversity and were studied in four Italian Marine Protected Areas. Quantitative samplings were carried out in late spring - summer of 2015. A total of 776 individuals were identified, belonging to the classes of Polyplacophora (5 species, 24 individuals), Gastropoda (62 sp., 240 ind.), Bivalvia (51 sp., 488 ind.), and Scaphopoda (3 sp., 24 ind.). Multivariate analyses revealed significant inter-habitat differences in the composition of mollusc assemblages, especially between soft bottom and all the other habitats. In all MPAs, the highest species richness and feeding guilds occurred in the photophilic hard bottom, where, in contrast, a lower number of individuals was found. On the contrary, in the soft bottom the highest number of individuals and the lower species richness and feeding guilds were found. Although the results pointed out some intra-habitat differences among MPAs, the molluscan assemblages showed a valuable degree of taxonomic and trophic similarity, especially in vegetated habitats. These results are of primary importance for ecosystem functioning and management as the considered habitats are the most relevant of the coastal zones
Deep coralligenous assemblages off Punta Campanella (Tyrrhenian Sea), with special reference to some facies with fan corals
No full textSoft bottom benthic communities under potentially anthropic and natural pressures in Terra Nova Bay (Ross Sea, Antarctica)
No full textBenthic communities have a key function in the Antarctic marine ecosystem since they play a central role in the food web pathway and represent the main “environmental biological memory”. The goal of the study is to evaluate differences in macrozoobenthic community structure, along the Antarctic coasts of Tethys Bay (Ross Sea), potentially affected by two types of pressures: anthropic, due to the presence of a scientific station, and natural, due to the presence of a penguin colony. In the austral summer of 2017/2018 and 2018/2019, four sites were sampled in order to detect the effects of these two types of pressure (anthropic vs. natural vs. two control non-impacted areas). The Road Bay site, near the Italian Station, is rich in macro- and micronutrients and NO3− and Cd2+; the Adélie Cove site, characterized by organic loads from a close penguin colony, is rich in PO43−. Lower values of NO3− and PO43−, as well as Cu2+ and Pb2+ heavy metals occurred in control sites, between Road Bay and Adélie Cove. The benthic community showed different qualitative–quantitative dominances of species among sites, mainly at 50 m depth. The results clearly show the dominance of different opportunistic species of macrobenthos where penguins or humans’ presence occurred. Therefore, benthic communities may be considered good biological indicators of the overall environmental conditions
Characterization of the vermetid bioconstructions at Licosa Island (Santa Maria di Castellabate MPA)
No full textAree marine protette e pianificazione spaziale marittima: il caso della zonazione dell’AMP di Ventotene e Santo Stefano
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Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
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