Long-term data prove useful to keep track of non-indigenous seaweed fate

The Mar Piccolo of Taranto (southern Italy, Mediterranean Sea), a site of the European LTER network, is a transitional water system, where a century-old intensive mussel farming activity has been carried out, together with an intense import-export business of bivalve mollusks. Previous studies showed that this basinisthirdforNISseaweedintroductionintheMediterraneanSea,aftertheThau LagoonandtheVeniceLagoon.Thepresentpaperdealswiththeresultsof11-year monitoring activity on non-indigenous species (NIS) of seaweeds, which was performed in the Mar Piccolo. In the studied period (2011–2021), two different time frames (i.e., 2011–2015 and 2016–2021) were considered, since they were based on a different number of sampling sites. To investigate spatial and temporal differences in the seaweed assemblage, a multivariate analysis was performed considering the NIS and the most important native species in terms of temporal occurrence. Fourteen NIS were recorded in total in the Mar Piccolo of Taranto duringthisperiod,withvariableabundancesamongsitesandyears:ninespeciesin the firsttimeperiod,andthirteenspeciesinthesecondone.Caulerpacylindracea, recorded with negligible biomass in the first period, was absent in the secondperiod samplings. Molecular analyses confirmed the taxonomy of three species (i.e., Grateloupia minima, Neopyropia koreana, and Polysiphonia morrowii), previously identified only through morphological features. The most abundant specieswasHypneacorona,whichalmostdoubleditsbiomassinthesecondtime period compared to the first one. Three species (i.e., Caulacanthus okamurae, G. minima, and P. morrowii) increased their biomass by an order of magnitude in the second time period. No significant differences were found over years. Site 1 resulted in significant differences among the sites and different seasonal pattern occurred among the investigated sites. No significant long-term changes occurred in the seaweed assemblages, suggesting the absence of strong disturbances due to the settlement of NIS

Il Sistema Informativo Territoriale della Rete Integrata Nazionale GPS (RING)

Since 2004, an important technological infrastructure has been created in Italy by INGV in order to investigate active tectonics targets. A Continuous GPS network constituted by about 130 stations has been deployed all over Italy. The development and the realization of a stable GPS monumentation, the integration with other classical seismological instruments and the choice of both satellite and internet data transmission make this network one of the most innovative and reliable CGPS networks in the world. The development of the CGPS network has been accompanied by a technologically advanced development of all the aspects related to the data acquisition and the data information mining: a database and a SIT. Based on the recent techniques of Knowledge Management, the database has been developed to manage the data and the data information of all the sites of the RING network, thus allowing us to centralize information in a single common data bank and to create an unique service of access point to the data from different remote sites by internet connections. The SIT has been developed to be fully integrated with the Knowledge Management technology and it is aimed to synthesize and to display in a geographic interface the information of the RING sites. This work has been integrated with all other spatial data, such as topographic and geo-thematic maps, geological, seismological and seismo-tectonic databases. In this work, the technological aspects of the SIT of the RING network will be detailed and some examples of thematic maps will be shown

Unsteady analysis of hydrogen/air mild combustion by means of Large Eddy simulation

Paper presented at the 6th International Conference on Heat Transfer, Fluid Mechanics and Thermodynamics, South Africa, 30 June - 2 July, 2008.Combustion processes are essential for power generation, since an overwhelming majority of energy-producing devices rely on the combustion of fossil or renewable fuels. Thus the development of a combustion technology able to accomplish improvement of efficiency with reduction of pollutant emissions, such as NOx, is a main concern. MILD combustion is one of the promising techniques proposed to achieve these goals. In this combustion regime the reactants are preheated above the self-ignition temperature and enough inert combustion products are entrained in the reaction region. As a result, the characteristic times of chemical kinetics and turbulent mixing are comparable and the combustion region is no longer identifiable in a flame front but extended over a wide region, so that MILD combustion is often denoted as flameless combustion. Importantly, pollutants emissions can easily reduce because of the small temperature difference between burnt and unburnt and of the lean conditions in the combustion chamber. In this work Large Eddy Simulation (LES) of a Hydrogen/Air burner operating in the MILD combustion regime is performed. Turbulent mixing controls most of the global flame properties, so computing large scale structures by means of LES is an important key to capture mixing properties. The filtered mass, momentum, energy and species equations are discretized with a 2nd order accurate central finite difference scheme over a cylindrical non-uniform grid. Unclosed terms due to subgrid-scales are modeled using a fractal model approach (FM). Radiant transfer of energy is taken into account. The predictions of temperature and pollutant formation are compared with available experimental results.vk201

Spatial Re-Establishment Dynamics of Local Populations of Vectors of Chagas Disease

Chagas disease is transmitted by blood-sucking bugs (vectors) and presents a severe public health threat in the Americas. Worldwide there are approximately 10 million people infected with Chagas disease, a disease for which there is currently no effective cure. Vector suppression is the main strategy to control the spread of this disease. Unfortunately, the vectors have been resurgent in some areas. It is important to understand the dynamics of reinfestation where it occurs. Here we show how different models fitted to patch-level bug infestation data can elucidate different aspects of re-establishment dynamics. Our results demonstrated a 6-month time lag between detection of a new infestation and dispersal events, seasonality in dispersal rates and effects of previous vector infestation on subsequent vector establishment rates. In addition we provide estimates of dispersal distances and the effect of insecticide spraying on rates of vector re-establishment. While some of our results confirm previous findings, the effects of season and previous infestation on bug establishment challenge our current understanding of T. infestans ecology and highlight important gaps in our knowledge of T. infestans dispersal

Key Source Habitats and Potential Dispersal of Triatoma infestans Populations in Northwestern Argentina: Implications for Vector Control

Background Triatoma infestans —the principal vector of the infection that causes Chagas disease— defies elimination efforts in the Gran Chaco region. This study identifies the types of human-made or -used structures that are key sources of these bugs in the initial stages of house reinfestation after an insecticide spraying campaign. Methodology and Principal Findings We measured demographic and blood-feeding parameters at two geographic scales in 11 rural communities in Figueroa, northwest Argentina. Of 1,297 sites searched in spring, 279 (21.5%) were infested. Bug abundance per site and female fecundity differed significantly among habitat types (ecotopes) and were highly aggregated. Domiciles (human sleeping quarters) had maximum infestation prevalence (38.7%), human-feeding bugs and total egg production, with submaximal values for other demographic and blood-feeding attributes. Taken collectively peridomestic sites were three times more often infested than domiciles. Chicken coops had greater bug abundance, blood-feeding rates, engorgement status, and female fecundity than pig and goat corrals. The host-feeding patterns were spatially structured yet there was strong evidence of active dispersal of late-stage bugs between ecotopes. Two flight indices predicted that female fliers were more likely to originate from kitchens and domiciles, rejecting our initial hypothesis that goat and pig corrals would dominate. Conclusions and Significance Chicken coops and domiciles were key source habitats fueling rapid house reinfestation. Focusing control efforts on ecotopes with human-fed bugs (domiciles, storerooms, goat corrals) would neither eliminate the substantial contributions to bug population growth from kitchens, chicken coops, and pig corrals nor stop dispersal of adult female bugs from kitchens. Rather, comprehensive control of the linked network of ecotopes is required to prevent feeding on humans, bug population growth, and bug dispersal simultaneously. Our study illustrates a demographic approach that may be applied to other regions and triatomine species for the design of innovative, improved vector control strategies

Factors Affecting Infestation by Triatoma infestans in a Rural Area of the Humid Chaco in Argentina: A Multi-Model Inference Approach

Vector-borne transmission of Chagas disease remains a major public health problem in parts of Latin America. Triatoma infestans is the main vector in the countries located in the South American Cone, particularly in the Gran Chaco ecoregion where residual insecticide control has achieved only a moderate, irregular impact. To contribute to improved control strategies, we analyzed the factors associated with the presence and abundance of T. infestans in 327 inhabited houses in a well-defined rural area with no recent vector control interventions in the humid Argentine Chaco. Bugs were found mainly in domiciles, kitchens, storerooms, and chicken coops and nests, particularly where adequate refuge and animal hosts (humans, dogs, cats or poultry) were available. Domiciles constructed from mud were the most often infested, but brick-and-cement domiciles, even in good conditions, were also found infested. Availability of refuge and hosts for T. infestans are key targets for vector control. Ten-fold variations in domestic infestation observed across neighboring villages, and differences in the relevant factors for T. infestans presence with respect to other areas of the Gran Chaco region suggest that host management, building techniques and insecticide use need to be tailored to the local environment, socio-economic characteristics, and climatic conditions

Analysis of Movement Recursions to Detect Reproductive Events and Estimate Their Fate in Central Place Foragers

Background Recursive movement patterns have been used to detect behavioral structure within individual movement trajectories in the context of foraging ecology, home-ranging behavior, and predator avoidance. Some animals exhibit movement recursions to locations that are tied to reproductive functions, including nests and dens; while existing literature recognizes that, no method is currently available to explicitly target different types of revisited locations. Moreover, the temporal persistence of recursive movements to a breeding location can carry information regarding the fate of breeding attempts, but it has never been used as a metric to quantify recursive movement patterns. Here, we introduce a method to locate breeding attempts and estimate their fate from GPS-tracking data of central place foragers. We tested the performance of our method in three bird species differing in breeding ecology (wood stork (Mycteria americana), lesser kestrel (Falco naumanni), Mediterranean gull (Ichthyaetus melanocephalus)) and implemented it in the R package ‘nestR’. Methods We identified breeding sites based on the analysis of recursive movements within individual tracks. Using trajectories with known breeding attempts, we estimated a set of species-specific criteria for the identification of nest sites, which we further validated using non-reproductive individuals as controls. We then estimated individual nest survival as a binary measure of reproductive fate (success, corresponding to fledging of at least one chick, or failure) from nest-site revisitation histories during breeding attempts, using a Bayesian hierarchical modeling approach that accounted for temporally variable revisitation patterns, probability of visit detection, and missing data. Results Across the three species, positive predictive value of the nest-site detection algorithm varied between 87 and 100% and sensitivity between 88 and 92%, and we correctly estimated the fate of 86–100% breeding attempts. Conclusions By providing a method to formally distinguish among revisited locations that serve different ecological functions and introducing a probabilistic framework to quantify temporal persistence of movement recursions, we demonstrated how the analysis of recursive movement patterns can be applied to estimate reproduction in central place foragers. Beyond avian species, the principles of our method can be applied to other central place foraging breeders such as denning mammals. Our method estimates a component of individual fitness from movement data and will help bridge the gap between movement behavior, environmental factors, and their fitness consequences

Experimental nest cooling reveals dramatic effects of heatwaves on reproduction in a Mediterranean bird of prey

Future climatic scenarios forecast increases in average temperatures as well as in the frequency, duration, and intensity of extreme events, such as heatwaves. Whereas behavioral adjustments can buffer direct physiological and fitness costs of exposure to excessive temperature in wild animals, these may prove more difficult during specific life stages when vagility is reduced (e.g., early developmental stages). By means of a nest cooling experiment, we tested the effects of extreme temperatures on different stages of reproduction in a cavity-nesting Mediterranean bird of prey, the lesser kestrel (Falco naumanni), facing a recent increase in the frequency of heatwaves during its breeding season. Nest temperature in a group of nest boxes placed on roof terraces was reduced by shading them from direct sunlight in 2 consecutive years (2021 and 2022). We then compared hatching failure, mortality, and nestling morphology between shaded and non-shaded (control) nest boxes. Nest temperature in control nest boxes was on average 3.9 degrees C higher than in shaded ones during heatwaves, that is, spells of extreme air temperature (>37 degrees C for =2 consecutive days) which hit the study area during the nestling-rearing phase in both years. Hatching failure markedly increased with increasing nest temperature, rising above 50% when maximum nest temperatures exceeded 44 degrees C. Nestlings from control nest boxes showed higher mortality during heatwaves (55% vs. 10% in shaded nest boxes) and those that survived further showed impaired morphological growth (body mass and skeletal size). Hence, heatwaves occurring during the breeding period can have both strong lethal and sublethal impacts on different components of avian reproduction, from egg hatching to nestling growth. More broadly, these findings suggest that the projected future increases of summer temperatures and heatwave frequency in the Mediterranean basin and elsewhere in temperate areas may threaten the local persistence of even relatively warm-adapted species

Seismic activity in the Pollino region (Basilicata-Calabria border)

The Pollino region and the whole Calabria-Lucania border are known for the absence of destructive (M>6) historical earthquakes. This lack of historical seismicity is noticeable in the analysis of Southern Apennines and Calabria earthquake history (Rovida et al., 2011). At the same time, paleoseismological studies found evidence for significant active faulting (Cinti et al., 1997; Michetti et al., 1997) pointing to the Pollino area as a seismic gap. Instrumental seismicity in the region is characterized by the occurrence of seismic sequences, one of the most significant in the last decades is the Mercure seismic sequence, Mw 5.6 in September 1998 (Brozzetti et al., 2008). For this reason, the sequence started in 2010 raised a big concern in the population and local authorities. INGV is following the evolution of the sequence since its beginning, in March 2010, increasing the seismic monitoring and planning several activities and projects. The area was proposed by INGV to DPC (Dipartimento di Protezione Civile nazionale) for inclusion in the projects to be carried out in the present INGV-DPC agreement. This project has just started and will try to provide better constraints to the active tectonics and fault identification of the region. In this paper we describe what INGV is doing to understand better the tectonics of the region using microseismicity, and try to offer some cue to the discussion about the seismogenic faults in the area.Published5-92T. Tettonica attivaN/A or not JCRope