Regulating agro-forest areas for a sustainable cork harvest

In this study an agro-forestry area of cork oak partial affected by fire was considered. Even though having a forest management plan, the existing management compartments didn’t allow for a sustainable cork annual harvest. To achieve sustainability the area control method for forest regulation was first applied, using a cycle of nine years through a 27 years planning horizon. Later, cork annual yield was also considered in the forest regulation analysis. Cork yield was simulated along the 27 years period using the individual tree growth and yield model Suber. Finally, the proposed management unit compartments were produced as vector layer a GIS and the attribute table organized with all the information available in order to support forest management

The <i>Ectocarpus</i> genome and the independent evolution of multicellularity in brown algae

Brown algae (Phaeophyceae) are complex photosynthetic organisms with a very different evolutionary history to green plants, to which they are only distantly related1. These seaweeds are the dominant species in rocky coastal ecosystems and they exhibit many interesting adaptations to these, often harsh, environments. Brown algae are also one of only a small number of eukaryotic lineages that have evolved complex multicellularity (Fig. 1).We report the 214 million base pair (Mbp) genome sequence of the filamentous seaweed Ectocarpus siliculosus (Dillwyn) Lyngbye, a model organism for brown algae, closely related to the kelps (Fig. 1). Genome features such as the presence of an extended set of light-harvesting and pigment biosynthesis genes and new metabolic processes such as halide metabolism help explain the ability of this organism to cope with the highly variable tidal environment. The evolution of multicellularity in this lineage is correlated with the presence of a rich array of signal transduction genes. Of particular interest is the presence of a family of receptor kinases, as the independent evolution of related molecules has been linked with the emergence of multicellularity in both the animal and green plant lineages. The Ectocarpus genome sequence represents an important step towards developing this organism as a model species, providing the possibility to combine genomic and genetic2 approaches to explore these and other aspects of brown algal biology further