Sixty years of habitat decline: impact of land-cover changes in northern Italy on the decreasing ortolan bunting <Emphasis Type="Italic">Emberiza hortulana</Emphasis>

Habitat loss and degradation are main global threats to biodiversity, and land-use changes in agriculture-dominated landscapes are crucial for an important portion of biodiversity, especially in Europe. We evaluated the effects of land-use changes (1954–2012) on a threatened species, the ortolan bunting, in an agricultural area crucial for its conservation in Italy. We built a distribution model for ortolan bunting in current landscapes and then re-projected it to past scenarios (1954 and 1999–2000). We evaluated the most important land-use changes occurred and estimated their effects on habitat suitability. Bunting occurrence was mostly affected by the extent of grassland (positively; used as foraging/breeding ground), shrubland (quadratic effect; perches/shelter), forest and urbanized land (negatively), and by solar radiation (positively) and slope (quadratic), consistent with other studies carried out especially in southern Europe. The potential distribution of the species was much larger in the past: the estimated decline in suitable habitat is 44–72 % (since 1999–2000/1954), coherent with historical data suggesting strong decline and contraction. Changes in suitability (1954–2012) were mostly associated with changes in the cover of forest, vineyards and abandoned areas (negatively), and shrubland (positively). Land-use/land-cover changes are the main drivers of species occurrence and of habitat decline. The heterogeneous landscape of hilly/low-mountain sites in this area, characterized by a mix of habitats offering complementary resources to ortolan buntings and other species of conservation concern, is currently threatened by abandonment and intensification, but its maintenance may be promoted by a correct definition of Rural Development Programme measures.     

An enhanced sustainable approach for design and manufacturing with an application to fuselages for mono-seat civil sailplanes

Abstract

A number of tools and software systems have been developed in order to reduce the time for the design and manufacturing of industrial products. Nowadays, virtual modelling by Computer Aided Design (CAD) systems and process simulation by the application of Finite Element Method (FEM) software is a standard routine in order to compress product design activities and to achieve the optimal solution before producing any real components. These developments provided not only a reduction in the time to market but a higher complexity of the project and an improved quality of the industrial products. With the aim to further improve the sustainability of this activity, the implementation of a tool that adds automatic operations into the design activity is demonstrated. This software can interact with any CAD and helps designers when the object dimension and shape can be affected by limits and constraints deriving from different features and targets, such as the spatial collocation of the component and the interaction with other limiting items, for examples the material and the manufacturing issues. The concept was developed into the software SFIDA (Sailplane Fuselage Integrated Design Application) that is a first attempt to automatically manage multiple relations and optimise their combination.     

Interrupted aortic arch type A with 22q11 deletion: prenatal detection of an unusual association

Interrupted aortic arch is a rare, severe congenital heart defect subdivided into three types, A, B and C, according to the site of interruption. Type C is by far the least common form of interrupted aortic arch (less than 5% of cases), type A is commonly an isolated defect whereas type B is frequently associated with 22q11 deletion. Differentiation of interrupted aortic arch type A from type B by prenatal echocardiography is possible but difficult; it needs to be done on the basis of observation of reliable morphological indicators which point to the correct diagnosis. Here we report the first case of prenatal diagnosis of interrupted aortic arch type A associated with 22q11 deletion. The significance of this association is not yet clear, since 22q11 genes mainly affect embryonic cardiovascular morphogenesis of those regions whose development is critically dependent on neural crest cell migration and function, affected in type B defect but not in type A. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Mapping Ecological Processes and Ecosystem Services for Prioritizing Restoration Efforts in a Semi-arid Mediterranean River Basin

Semi-arid Mediterranean regions are highly susceptible to desertification processes which can reduce the benefits that people obtain from healthy ecosystems and thus threaten human wellbeing. The European Union Biodiversity Strategy to 2020 recognizes the need to incorporate ecosystem services into land-use management, conservation, and restoration actions. The inclusion of ecosystem services into restoration actions and plans is an emerging area of research, and there are few documented approaches and guidelines on how to undertake such an exercise. This paper responds to this need, and we demonstrate an approach for identifying both key ecosystem services provisioning areas and the spatial relationship between ecological processes and services. A degraded semi-arid Mediterranean river basin in north east Spain was used as a case study area. We show that the quantification and mapping of services are the first step required for both optimizing and targeting of specific local areas for restoration. Additionally, we provide guidelines for restoration planning at a watershed scale; establishing priorities for improving the delivery of ecosystem services at this scale; and prioritizing the sub-watersheds for restoration based on their potential for delivering a combination of key ecosystem services for the entire basin.     

Seasonal variation and source estimation of organic compounds in urban aerosol of Augsburg, Germany

This study reports a general assessment of the organic composition of the PM_2.5 samples collected in the city of Augsburg, Germany in a summer (August-September 2007) and a winter (February-March 2008) campaign of 36 and 30 days, respectively. The samples were directly submitted to in-situ derivatisation thermal desorption gas chromatography coupled with time of flight mass spectrometry (IDTD-GC-TOFMS) to simultaneously determine the concentrations of many classes of molecular markers, such as n-alkanes, iso- and anteiso-alkanes, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), oxidized PAHs, n-alkanoic acids, alcohols, saccharides and others.The PCA analysis of the data identified the contributions of three emission sources, i.e., combustion sources, including fossil fuel emissions and biomass burning, vegetative detritus, and oxidized PAHs. The PM chemical composition shows seasonal trend: winter is characterized by high contribution of petroleum/wood combustion while the vegetative component and atmospheric photochemical reactions are predominant in the hot season.     

New developments on emerging organic pollutants in the atmosphere

BACKGROUND: The continuous progress in analytical techniques has improved the capability of detecting chemicals and recognizing new substances and extended the list of detectable contaminants widespread in all environmental compartments by human activities. Most concern is focused on water contamination by emerging compounds. By contrast, scarce attention is paid to the atmospheric sector, which in most cases represents the pathway of diffusion at local or global scale. Information concerning a list of organic pollutants is provided in this paper. METHODS: The volatile methyl tert-butyl ether and siloxanes are taken as examples of information insufficient with regard to the potential risk induced by diffusion in the atmosphere. Illicit drugs, whose presence in the air was ascertained although by far unexpected, are considered to stress the needs of investigating not solely the environmental compartments where toxic substances are suspected to display their major influence. Finally, the identification of two recognized emerging contaminants, i.e., tris(2-chloroisopropyl) phosphate and N,N-diethyl-m-toluamide, in aerosols originally run to characterize other target compounds is presented with the purpose of underlining the wide diffusion of the organic emerging contaminants in the environment.     

Sampling and analytical methods for assessing the levels of organic pollutants in the atmosphere: PAH, phthalates and psychotropic substances: a short review

This short review presents the procedures used to monitor PAHs, phthalates and psychotropic substances in the air, and the results of some measurements made in Italy and abroad. Organic contaminants are characterized by a variety of physical and chemical properties, including aggregation phase, concentration level, and life time. This variety widens the spectrum of procedures developed to assess their occurrence in the environment and biota, but prevents the complete speciation of the "organic fraction" of air, waters and particulates, and attention is paid to a few substances. The progress in health sciences stimulates the concern on contaminants and the development of new instrumental apparatuses and methods; new chemicals are continuously identified or recognized as capable of injuring the environment and organisms. Persistent organic pollutants and persistent biologically active toxicants are subject to regulation and extensively measured by means of standard procedures. For instance, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, polychlorobiphenyls and polychlorodibenzodioxins are recovered from air through phase partition, thermal desorption or solvent extraction, then separated and detected through GC-MS or HPLC-MS procedures. By contrast, dedicated methods must be still optimized to monitor candidates or possible candidates as emerging organic pollutants, e.g. phthalates, flame retardants and perfluoroalkanes. Also, psychotropic substances appear of potential concern. Legal and illicit substances are commonly detected in the urban air besides waste and surface waters. If nicotine, caffeine and cocaine will result to enough persistence in the air, their monitoring will become an important issue of global chemical watching in the next future.