Climate drives temporal replacement and nested‐resultant richness patterns of Scottish coastal vegetation

Beta diversity quantifies spatial and/or temporal variation in species composition. It is comprised of two distinct components, species replacement and nestedness, which derive from opposing ecological processes. Using Scotland as a case study and a β-diversity partitioning framework, we investigate temporal replacement and nestedness patterns of coastal grassland species over a 34-yr time period. We aim to 1) understand the influence of two potentially pivotal processes (climate and land-use changes) on landscape-scale (5 × 5 km) temporal replacement and nestedness patterns, and 2) investigate whether patterns from one β-diversity component can mask observable patterns in the other.

We summarised key aspects of climate driven macro-ecological variation as measures of variance, long-term trends, between-year similarity and extremes, for three important climatic predictors (minimum temperature, water-balance and growing degree-days). Shifts in landscape-scale heterogeneity, a proxy of land-use change, was summarised as a spatial multiple-site dissimilarity measure. Together, these climatic and spatial predictors were used in a multi-model inference framework to gauge the relative contribution of each on temporal replacement and nestedness patterns.

Temporal β-diversity patterns were reasonably well explained by climate change but weakly explained by changes in landscape-scale heterogeneity. Climate was shown to have a greater influence on temporal nestedness than replacement patterns over our study period, linking nestedness patterns, as a result of imbalanced gains and losses, to climatic warming and extremes respectively. Important climatic predictors (i.e. growing degree-days) of temporal β-diversity were also identified, and contrasting patterns between the two β-diversity components revealed.

Results suggest climate influences plant species recruitment and establishment processes of Scotland's coastal grasslands, and while species extinctions take time, they are likely to be facilitated by climatic perturbations. Our findings also highlight the importance of distinguishing between different components of β-diversity, disentangling contrasting patterns than can mask one another.

The notion of space in urban housing markets

O mercado imobiliário tem um papel importante nas economias modernas, tanto a nível macro como a nível micro. Ao nível macro, a construção de habitação representa um sector importante e influente na economia, com efeitos multiplicadores significativos sobre a produção e o emprego. Ao nível micro, uma residência representa o activo mais valioso da maioria dos indivíduos e uma parcela muito relevante da riqueza das famílias. Para estas, o custo e a qualidade das suas habitações influencia directa e indirectamente a sua qualidade de vida. A habitação é por isso mesmo um tema, que avaliado nas suas múltiplas dimensões, se caracteriza por ser bastante complexo, mas também ao mesmo tempo desafiante. De modo a delimitar o objecto de análise do trabalho de investigação, esta tese realça os aspectos de localização e distribuição espacial das habitações urbanas. Será desenvolvido um quadro conceptual e respectiva metodologia para a compreender a estrutura espacial da habitação urbana realçando os três aspectos fundamentais da análise espacial: heterogenidade espacial, dependência espacial e escala espacial. A metodologia, aplicada à área urbana de Aveiro e Ílhavo é baseada numa análise hedónica factorial de preços e na noção não geométrica do espaço. Primeiro, é fixada uma escala territorial e são definidos submercados habitacional. Posteriormente, quer a heterogeneidade quer a dependência espaciais são estudados utilizando métodos econométricos, sem considerar qualquer padrão fixo e conhecido de interações espaciais. Em vez disso, são desenvolvidos novos métodos,tendo como base o modelo hedónico factorial, para inferir sobre os potenciais drivers de difusão espacial no valor de uma habitação. Este modelo, foi aplicado a duas diferentes escalas espaciais, para compreender as preferências dos indivíduos em Aveiro ao escolher os seus locais de residencia, e como estas afectam os preços da habitação. O trabalho empírico, utilizando duas bases de dados de habitação distintas, aplicadas ao mercado de habitação de Aveiro mostram: i) em linha com a literatura, a dificuldade de definir submercados e compreender as inter-relações entre esses mercados; ii) a utilidade de uma abordagem híbrida, combinando análise factorial com regressão; iii) a importância fundamental que o efeito escala espacial desempenha no estudo da heterogeneidade e dos spillovers e, finalmente, iv) uma metodologia inovadora para analisar spillovers sem assumir aprioristicamente uma estrutura espacial específica de difusão espacial. Esta metodologia considera a matriz de pesos espaciais (W) desconhecida e estimatima as interações espaciais dentro e entre submercados habitação.

Ecological assessment of the red deer population in the Lousã Mountain

Durante o último século, as populações de cervídeos têm aumentado substancialmente um pouco por toda a Europa. O veado Cervus elaphus não foi exceção, apresentando atualmente uma ampla distribuição geográfica. Após a quase extinção de todas as populações selvagens desta espécie em Portugal, o número de efetivos de veado e a área de distribuição da espécie têm aumentado significativamente nas últimas décadas. Esta proliferação deveu-se fundamentalmente aos processos de reintrodução implementados em algumas zonas do país, como foi o caso da Serra da Lousã. Dez anos após a reintrodução, a expansão geográfica e demográfica é já uma realidade e a espécie assume um papel relevante tanto do ponto de vista cinegético como turístico. Com o aumento das populações de ungulados, surge a necessidade de aumentar o conhecimento existente sobre estas espécies, particularmente ao nível das estimativas populacionais, do uso e seleção de habitat, do comportamento e da fisiologia das populações. Neste sentido, um dos objetivos foi comparar quatro métodos de contagem de excrementos em termos de estimativa populacional, aplicabilidade e eficiência. Face aos resultados obtidos, o método de transectos lineares com distance sampling revelou-se o mais eficiente, providenciando uma boa precisão num menor tempo. Relativamente ao uso e seleção do habitat, recorrendo a transectos de contagem de excrementos e a observações diretas, verificou-se que o veado seleciona positivamente habitats que lhe proporcionam simultaneamente alimento e refúgio, como é o caso das áreas de ecótono. A preferência por áreas de ecótono evidencia um comportamento adaptativo de maximização de energia, no qual os animais optam por procurar refúgio na proximidade das áreas de alimentação de forma a minimizarem os dispêndios energéticos. Em termos de dinâmica populacional, verificou-se uma relação entre a densidade de veado e o tamanho dos seus grupos, bem como o efeito nos mesmos do coberto vegetal. Contudo, dado o seu alto dimorfismo sexual em termos de tamanho corporal, as preferências de habitat podem também ser em parte responsáveis pela segregação sexual fora da época de reprodução. Face aos resultados obtidos através do método de observação direta de animais, a segregação sexual surge como consequência da interação entre fatores sociais e de habitat, que resultam de diferentes estratégias reprodutivas por parte de ambos os sexos. As diferentes estratégias reprodutivas são também notórias em termos de condição física e imunológica, com os machos a aumentarem a sua condição durante as épocas de primavera e verão de forma a melhorarem a sua performance durante o cio, e as fêmeas a viverem grande parte do ano no limiar da condição física devido ao seu investimento na sobrevivência da sua descendência. Globalmente, o veado apresenta uma boa adaptação à Serra da Lousã e representa um importante recurso natural para esta região. Contudo, para que a proliferação desta população selvagem continue, é necessária a implementação de medidas de gestão adequadas a este ecossistema mediterrâneo.

Land grabbing, investors, and indigenous peoples: new legal strategies for an old practice?

This article examines how new legal strategies need to be adopted by indigenous peoples to react to the increasing phenomenon of ‘land grabbing’ taking place across the globe. In examining the specificity of the ‘land grab’ and how it particularly affects indigenous peoples, it analyses how new legal strategies targeting the investors need to be adopted by communities to mitigate some of the negative aspects of land grabbing. It argues that since the current ‘land grab’ is driven by investors it is important that indigenous peoples, and their supportive organisations, target investors and lending institutions which are behind the massive investments in land acquisitions.

Application of LOICZ DPSIR framework to South asia Basins and developing typology for coastal vulnerability in South Asia

Dissertação de Mestrado, Gestão da Água e da Costa, Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia, Universidade do Algarve, 2007

Assessing soil erosion due to land use change at the Alqueva reservoir surrounding area

Tese de doutoramento, Ciências do Mar, da Terra e do Ambiente, Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia, Universidade do Algarve, 2015

Population and landscape genetics of the stone marten and red fox in Portugal : implications for conservation management of common carnivores

Tese de doutoramento, Biologia (Biologia da Conservação), Universidade de Lisboa, Faculdade de Ciências, 2015

The river solofrana bicycle network: a project of green mobility

The article presents the “LungoSolofrana” project, carried out during the course “Urban and Mobility” in the academic year 2009/2010, held during the bachelor in Environmental Engineering at the University of Naples “Federico II”. The work has also been chosen as a finalist at the “UrbanPromo 2010” contest, the urban and territorial marketing event sponsored by the National Institute of Urban Planning and Urbit which was held in Venice in 2010. The project consists in a green mobility proposal, developed with an approach based on the integration of the environmental redevelopment of a portion of river Solofrana, located in the Salerno Province, and of the renewal of seven local stations of the railway line Mercato San Severino – Nocera Inferiore, including the realization of a cycle-path network for the natural environment fruition. Furthermore the work drew attention to the local and regional administration. The main intent of the project is to integrate sustainable mobility themes with the environment recovery in a territory affected by high environmental troubles. The area includes the municipalities of Nocera Inferiore, Nocera Superiore, Mercato San Severino, Castel San Giorgio and Roccapiemonte, situated in Salerno’s province, with a total population about 114.000 (font Demo ISTAT 2010). The area extension is about 84,30 sqkm and it is crossed by river Solofrana that is the central point of the project idea. The intervention strategy is defined in two kinds of actions: internal and external rail station interventions. The external rail station interventions regard the construction of pedestrian-cycle paths with the scope of increasing the spaces dedicated to cyclists and to pedestrians along the river Solofrana sides and to connect the urban areas with the railway station. In this way, it’s also possible to achieve an urban requalification of the interested area. On the other side, the interventions inside the station , according to Transit Oriented Development principles, aim at redeveloping common spaces with the insertion of new activities and at realizing new automatic cycle parks covered by photovoltaic panels. The project proposal consists of the urban regeneration of small railway stations along the route-Nocera-Codola Mercato San Severino in the province of Salerno, through interventions aimed at improving pedestrian accessibility. The project involves in particular the construction of pedestrian paths protected access to the station and connecting with neighboring towns and installation of innovative bike parking stations in elevation, covering surfaces coated with solar panels and spaces information. The project is aimed to propose a new model of sustainable transport for small and medium shifts as an alternative to private transportation

Adulteration and Poor Quality of Ginkgo biloba Supplements

Adulteration of Ginkgo products sold as unregistered supplements within the very large market of Ginkgo products (reputedly £650 million annually) through the post-extraction addition of cheaper (e.g. buckwheat derived) rutin is suspected to allow sub-standard products to appear satisfactory to third parties, e.g. secondary buyers along the value chain or any regulatory authorities. This study was therefore carried out to identify products that did not conform to their label specification and may have been actively adulterated to enable access to the global markets. 500 MHz Bruker NMR spectroscopy instrumentation combined with Topspin version 3.2 and a CAMAG HPTLC system (HPTLC Association for the analysis of Ginkgo biloba leaf) were used to generate NMR spectra (focusing on the 6–8 ppm region for analysis) and chromatograms, respectively. Out of the 35 samples of Ginkgo biloba analysed, 33 were found to contain elevated levels of rutin and/or quercetin, or low levels of Ginkgo metabolites when compared with the reference samples. Samples with disproportional levels of rutin or quercetin compared with other gingko metabolites are likely to be adulterated, either by accident or intentionally, and those samples with low or non-existent gingko metabolite content may have been produced using poor extraction techniques. Only two of the investigated samples were found to match with the High-Performance Thin-Layer Chromatography (HPTLC) fingerprint of the selected reference material. All others deviated significantly. One product contained a 5-hydroxytryptophan derivative, which is not a natural constituent of Ginkgo biloba. Overall, these examples either suggest a poor extraction technique or deliberate adulteration along the value chain. Investigating the ratio of different flavonoids e.g. quercetin and kaempferol using NMR spectroscopy and HPTLC will provide further evidence as to the degree and kind of adulteration of Gingko supplements. From a consumer perspective the equivalence in identity and overall quality of the products needs to be guaranteed for supplements too and not only for products produced according to a quality standard or pharmacopoeial monograph.

Cournot model with investments to change the market size

We present a new deterministic dynamical model on the market size of Cournot competitions, based on Nash equilibria of R&D investment strategies to increase the size of the market of the firms at every period of the game. We compute the unique Nash equilibrium for the second subgame and the profit functions for both firms. Adding uncertainty to the R&D investment strategies, we get a new stochastic dynamical model and we analyse the importance of the uncertainty to reverse the initial advantage of one firm with respect to the other.

The implementation of an Enterprise Geographical Information System to support Cadastre and Expropriation activities.

The processes of mobilization of land for infrastructures of public and private domain are developed according to proper legal frameworks and systematically confronted with the impoverished national situation as regards the cadastral identification and regularization, which leads to big inefficiencies, sometimes with very negative impact to the overall effectiveness. This project report describes Ferbritas Cadastre Information System (FBSIC) project and tools, which in conjunction with other applications, allow managing the entire life-cycle of Land Acquisition and Cadastre, including support to field activities with the integration of information collected in the field, the development of multi-criteria analysis information, monitoring all information in the exploration stage, and the automated generation of outputs. The benefits are evident at the level of operational efficiency, including tools that enable process integration and standardization of procedures, facilitate analysis and quality control and maximize performance in the acquisition, maintenance and management of registration information and expropriation (expropriation projects). Therefore, the implemented system achieves levels of robustness, comprehensiveness, openness, scalability and reliability suitable for a structural platform. The resultant solution, FBSIC, is a fit-for-purpose cadastre information system rooted in the field of railway infrastructures. FBSIC integrating nature of allows: to accomplish present needs and scale to meet future services; to collect, maintain, manage and share all information in one common platform, and transform it into knowledge; to relate with other platforms; to increase accuracy and productivity of business processes related with land property management.

An internationalisation research project into the German market for the Portuguese canned seafood company COFACO.

This project is aimed to analyse the German market of canned fish, in order to find out if there is potential of entering the market for the Portuguese canned seafood company named COFACO. The purpose of this foreign market research, carried out for COFACO, is to highlight the main key aspects of the current German seafood market, founded out through a deep analysis. Moreover, the work project is also aimed to give the company suggestions regarding the Brand, the Product and the Distribution strategy to implement in order to succeed, once considered the opportunity to enter the market.

Students' choice of a master in management in Portugal: A means-end chain approach

In the increasingly competitive market of higher education introduced by the Bologna Declaration, understanding the decision-making of master in management students is at the center of institutional management and marketing efforts on its mission to attract prospective students in a less costly, more efficient manner. The means-end chain approach, applied to the choice of a Portuguese institution in which to pursue a master in management, points to the position in rankings and to the non-specificity of the program as the most important attributes. Additionally, results show that students with distinct demographic, household, or background characteristics choose in significantly different manners.

Genome of an arbuscular mycorrhizal fungus provides insight into the oldest plant symbiosis.

The mutualistic symbiosis involving Glomeromycota, a distinctive phylum of early diverging Fungi, is widely hypothesized to have promoted the evolution of land plants during the middle Paleozoic. These arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) perform vital functions in the phosphorus cycle that are fundamental to sustainable crop plant productivity. The unusual biological features of AMF have long fascinated evolutionary biologists. The coenocytic hyphae host a community of hundreds of nuclei and reproduce clonally through large multinucleated spores. It has been suggested that the AMF maintain a stable assemblage of several different genomes during the life cycle, but this genomic organization has been questioned. Here we introduce the 153-Mb haploid genome of Rhizophagus irregularis and its repertoire of 28,232 genes. The observed low level of genome polymorphism (0.43 SNP per kb) is not consistent with the occurrence of multiple, highly diverged genomes. The expansion of mating-related genes suggests the existence of cryptic sex-related processes. A comparison of gene categories confirms that R. irregularis is close to the Mucoromycotina. The AMF obligate biotrophy is not explained by genome erosion or any related loss of metabolic complexity in central metabolism, but is marked by a lack of genes encoding plant cell wall-degrading enzymes and of genes involved in toxin and thiamine synthesis. A battery of mycorrhiza-induced secreted proteins is expressed in symbiotic tissues. The present comprehensive repertoire of R. irregularis genes provides a basis for future research on symbiosis-related mechanisms in Glomeromycota.

Land Use Map

This map shows the entire campus master plan and details what each area of land would be used for.