The Tordera Delta, a hotspot to storm impacts in the coast northwards ofBarcelona (NW Mediterranean)

The Catalan coast, as most of the developed Mediterranean coastal zone, can be characterized as a high-risk area to the impact of storms due to the large concentrationof values together with the dominance of eroding shorelines. In consequence, any long-term coastal management scheme must include a risk analysis to permitdecision makers to better allocate resources. This can be done in a nested approach in which hotspots are first identified along the coast at a regional scale andsecondly, they are further analysed to produce dedicated risk reduction strategies. In this work, we apply the methodology developed within the RISC-KIT project foridentifying and analysing coastal hotspots in the Catalan coast as a test for applying it to Mediterranean conditions. Obtained results show that this methodology isvery efficient in identifying hotspots of storm-induced flooding and erosion at a regional scale. The adoption of the response approach resulted in the direct assessmentof the hazards' probability distributions, which allowed for the selection of the severity of the hotspots to be identified. When a given coastal stretch behaves as ahotspot for both hazards, it is identified as a very highly-sensitive area to storm impacts. In the study area, the Tordera Delta possesses this condition of very high“hotspotness.” This has been demonstrated by the large and frequent damages suffered by the site during the past decades. The paper analyses different aspects related to the risk management of this area, including stakeholder actions

A multi-component flood risk assessment in the Maresme coast (NW Mediterranean)

Coastal regions are the areas most threatened by natural hazards, with floods being the most frequent and significant threat in terms of their induced impacts, and therefore, any management scheme requires their evaluation. In coastal areas, flooding is a hazard associated with various processes acting at different scales: coastal storms, flash floods, and sea level rise (SLR). In order to address the problem as a whole, this study presents a methodology to undertake a preliminary integrated risk assessment that determines the magnitude of the different flood processes (flash flood, marine storm, SLR) and their associated consequences, taking into account their temporal and spatial scales. The risk is quantified using specific indicators to assess the magnitude of the hazard (for each component) and the consequences in a common scale. This allows for a robust comparison of the spatial risk distribution along the coast in order to identify both the areas at greatest risk and the risk components that have the greatest impact. This methodology is applied on the Maresme coast (NW Mediterranean, Spain), which can be considered representative of developed areas of the Spanish Mediterranean coast. The results obtained characterise this coastline as an area of relatively low overall risk, although some hot spots have been identified with high-risk values, with flash flooding being the principal risk process

The Arabidopsis thaliana Homeobox Gene ATHB12 Is Involved in Symptom Development Caused by Geminivirus Infection

BACKGROUND: Geminiviruses are single-stranded DNA viruses that infect a number of monocotyledonous and dicotyledonous plants. Arabidopsis is susceptible to infection with the Curtovirus, Beet severe curly top virus (BSCTV). Infection of Arabidopsis with BSCTV causes severe symptoms characterized by stunting, leaf curling, and the development of abnormal inflorescence and root structures. BSCTV-induced symptom development requires the virus-encoded C4 protein which is thought to interact with specific plant-host proteins and disrupt signaling pathways important for controlling cell division and development. Very little is known about the specific plant regulatory factors that participate in BSCTV-induced symptom development. This study was conducted to identify specific transcription factors that are induced by BSCTV infection. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: Arabidopsis plants were inoculated with BSCTV and the induction of specific transcription factors was monitored using quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction assays. We found that the ATHB12 and ATHB7 genes, members of the homeodomain-leucine zipper family of transcription factors previously shown to be induced by abscisic acid and water stress, are induced in symptomatic tissues of Arabidopsis inoculated with BSCTV. ATHB12 expression is correlated with an array of morphological abnormalities including leaf curling, stunting, and callus-like structures in infected Arabidopsis. Inoculation of plants with a BSCTV mutant with a defective c4 gene failed to induce ATHB12. Transgenic plants expressing the BSCTV C4 gene exhibited increased ATHB12 expression whereas BSCTV-infected ATHB12 knock-down plants developed milder symptoms and had lower ATHB12 expression compared to the wild-type plants. Reporter gene studies demonstrated that the ATHB12 promoter was responsive to BSCTV infection and the highest expression levels were observed in symptomatic tissues where cell cycle genes also were induced. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: These results suggest that ATHB7 and ATHB12 may play an important role in the activation of the abnormal cell division associated with symptom development during geminivirus infection

Impact of introduction pathways on the spread and geographical distribution of alien species: Implications for preventive management in mediterranean ecosystems

Aim: To test whether alien species with contrasting introduction pathways differ in range size, geographical distribution and their relationship with environmental variables. Location: Catalonia (NE Spain). Methods: We obtained records of 869 alien species from the Catalan alien species database at the 10-km UTM cell scale. For each species, we assigned its introduction pathways and minimum residence time (MRT). We then analysed species' range sizes in relation to their pathways and taxonomic group while accounting for MRT through linear models. We identified hotspots of alien species richness across pathways through local Gi* statistics, and we analysed their spatial congruence. We assessed the environmental drivers of alien species richness across pathways, by means of ordination methods. Results: Range size was mostly equivalent among pathways, with species that escape or spread unaided reaching smaller range size than species introduced with contaminated commodities. Among taxonomic groups, range was smaller for terrestrial invertebrates compared to plants. The spatial pattern of hotspots of alien species richness showed low congruence across pathways. Proxies that pool the effect of colonization and propagule pressure were the main drivers increasing alien species richness across pathways (except for the unaided pathway). Main conclusions: Differences among pathways can be related to a lack of human aid (unaided and contaminant pathways) and to trait selection (escape and contaminant pathways), while differences among taxonomic groups (terrestrial invertebrates and plants) may be related to dispersal capacity. The remaining pathways and taxonomic groups were similar in range size, suggesting shared underlying factors. Invasion risk from different human socio-economic activities is spread over our study area rather than concentrated in unique high-risk areas This can be the foundation for a prevention scheme that monitors areas susceptible to invasion for the different pathways