New and little known Cerambycidae (Coleoptera Chrysomeloidea) from Pantelleria Island (Sicily Channel, Italy)

Cerambycidae (Coleoptera Chrysomeloidea) nuovi e poco conosciuti dell’isola di Pantelleria (Cana-le di Sicilia, Italia).In questa nota riportiamo nuovi dati di due specie di Cerambycidae raccolte sul-l’isola di Pantelleria (Canale di Sicilia, Italia). In particolare, la presenza di Trichoferus holosericeus(Rossi, 1790) è confermata e Cephalocrius syriacus(Reitter, 1895) è riportato come nuovo recor

Trophic and spatial complementarity on seed dispersal services by birds, wild mammals, and cattle in a Mediterranean woodland pasture

Most earth surfaces have undergone intensive land-use changes, creating habitat mosaics. Seed dispersal by animals is a crucial process in such mosaics, but community-wide studies comparing the functional complementarity and response to man-imposed habitat heterogeneity are rare. Here, we investigate the trophic and spatial seed dispersal networks underpinning a strong, woody vegetation expansion over a pastureland inside the largest forest remnant in western Sicily, Italy. Over two fruiting seasons, we surveyed transects in three distinct biomes within our study area: forest, pastureland, and unpaved road. In total, we collected 659 feces and tested for differences in defecation patterns and seed rain density of birds, wild mammals, and cattle. We also tested the degree of trophic and spatial specialization and modularity using a network approach. Overall, birds dispersed 1208 seeds/ha of nine plant species, including six exclusive. Mammals dispersed 679 seeds/ha from four wild species, three of which also dispersed by birds, and 38 seeds/ha of three cultivated species. In turn, mammals dispersed exclusively the seeds of wild pear (Pyrus amygdaliformis), the most abundant tree in the woodland pasture. Cattle only dispersed wild pear, but accounting for 56% of the dispersed seeds. Seed rain densities were significantly higher in woodland pastures than in forests. However, almost of half the seeds dispersed by cattle and red fox were deposited on unpaved roads. While both trophic and spatial networks were more specialized than expected, we did detect distinct modules. Our study demonstrated the magnitude of the effects of man-made habitat heterogeneity on seed dispersal services, giving baseline information for restoration programs as well as high nature value pastureland management strategies

Priorities and gaps in Mediterranean bat research evidence: a systematic review for the early twenty-first century

Bat conservation is one of the top global concerns for research today; however, conservation efforts may still be limited and impotent due to inadequacy and scarcity of data. Hence, identifying research trends, threatening factors, species status, and geographical priorities is an essential tool for future conservation, protection and prioritization. Here we conduct a comprehensive systematic review to identify current research priorities, trends, general patterns and gaps regarding Mediterranean bat researches. A total of 97 studies were found in the years spanning between 2000 and 2021. There were 18 studies with sufficient data for qualitative statistical analysis to investigate the impact of different habitat and land managements on bat activity and species richness. A yearly average of 4.6 articles were published, with a slight increase post-2010. Out of 61 identified species, 21% of species are threatened. Approximately, 65% of studieswere conducted in the Mediterranean European region, primarily in Spain (29%), Italy (15.5%), and Portugal (10.3%), largely focusing on forest habitats (38%). We found that Mediterranean bat species received uneven research attention, with only 15% of research allocated to threatened bats. Around half of the studies focused on the following bat species; Pipistrellus pipistrellus, Pipistrellus kuhlii, Miniopterus schreibersii, Rhinolophus hipposideros, Pipistrellus pygmaeus, Myotis myotis, and Rhinolophus ferrumequinum. Our statistical analysis showed that riparian areas had higher bat activity than forest and agriculture areas. Bat population responded positively to forest management and organic agriculture practices. To reduce future research misalignment between current local research status and future global conservation priorities, we strongly advocate for urgent and additional collaborative efforts to target under-researched species and areas. Finally, our review will provide a general overview and an objective synthesis on the current status of bats in the Mediterranean and serve as a baseline for further effective research

Strategies for the re-naturalization of reforestation: the case study of the Sicilian clay hills

Over the last decades many areas have been reforested along Europe, with great proportion been made with exotic species. Very often these reforestations do not evolve in more diverse configurations, where some kind of management can be necessary to try to enhance this evolution. The hole is a silvicultural technique consisting in open small gaps to create favourable conditions for the establishment of other species changing the former structure, microclimate and competitive conditions mirroring this natural processes that occurs in structured and mature forests. The best size of the hole seems to be around 500 m\ub2, as small holes may not change significantly the conditions and larger holes seems to favour degradation processes like soil erosion and loss of organic layers. The afforestaion of the Santa Ninfa Natural Reserve (Trapani Province, W-Sicily) were made using essentially Pinus spp. and Eucalyptus camaldulensis. Particularly, this last specie occur in high density monospecific forest structure covering 19 ha (8% of the reserve), where practically no kind of management has been made until now and very few natural regenerations is observed. The aim of the study was to verify the effectiveness of the restoration actions combining the hole technique and planting native species with different management levels

Vegetation dynamics within afforested coastal areas: regeneration by native species or invasion by alien species?

During the last century, massive reforestation projects along the dunes of the southern Sicily have been carried out. Such interventions, far from being in line with the current trends of close-to-nature silviculture, are, however, particularly interesting to assess the vegetation dynamics in afforestation areas. Furthermore, these kind of interventions may determine two opposite effects, that is renaturalization by native woody species or invasion by alien species. Acacia spp. are among the most widespread and prominent invaders within Mediterranean-climate areas, where they have already shown the capability to deeply change the characters and the functioning of native ecosystems. For instance, Acacia longifolia (Andrews) Willd. may successfully invade the understory of pine forests, causing the alteration of the water balance and carbon storage of the whole forest ecosystem. In Sicily, especially in the last decades, Acacia saligna started to abundantly regenerate in many natural and semi-natural areas, with a stark preference for dune and coastal afforested sites. The nature reserve \u201cFoce del Fiume Platani\u201d represents an excellent case study in this respect

Towards a Model of Open and Reliable Cognitive Multiagent Systems: Dealing with Trust and Emotions

 Open multiagent systems are those in which the agents can enter or leave the system freely. In these systems any entity with unknown intention can occupy the environment. For this scenario trust and reputation mechanisms should be used to choose partners in order to request services or delegate tasks. Trust and reputation models have been proposed in the Multiagent Systems area as a way to assist agents to select good partners in order to improve interactions between them. Most of the trust and reputation models proposed in the literature take into account their functional aspects, but not how they affect the reasoning cycle of the agent. That is, under the perspective of the agent, a trust model is usually just a “black box” and the agents usually does not take into account their emotional state to make decisions as well as humans often do. As well as trust, agent’s emotions also have been studied with the aim of making the actions and reactions of the agents more like those of humans being in order to imitate their reasoning and decision making mechanisms. In this paper we analyse some proposed models found in the literature and propose a BDI and multi-context based agent model which includes emotional reasoning to lead trust and reputation in open multiagent systems

The cork oak in the Mountains of Palermo (Italy): ecological insights from the south-eastern edge of its distribution range

The uneven presence of the cork oak (Quercus suber L.) within its distribution range is not only determined by its climatic requirements but also by specific edaphic needs. Although most of the natural populations thrive in acidic soils deriving from metamorphic or volcanic rock outcrops, some cork oak populations are found growing in soils deriving from calcareous bedrock, which are considered less suitable. We carried out a multidisciplinary investigation at the south eastern edge of the Q. suber distribution range (Mountains of Palermo, NW Sicily), including soil, floristic, and vegetation surveys, aimed at: (i) assessing the native or introduced origin of some peculiar cork oak populations; (ii) describing the associated plant communities and soils; (iii) identifying the ecological factors which could explain the local adaptation to soils deriving from calcareous bedrock; (iv) discussing the ecological role played by this species in the study area and within its distribution range. The collected information suggest that the detected cork oak stands are native to these areas. We hypothesized that the co-occurrence of high fire frequency, high soil calcium content and erosion, which caused the intermixing of different parent materials, might favor its competitive interactions with other Mediterranean tree species, thus accounting for the local presence of Q. suber. The study of cork oak populations thriving in peculiar substrates at the driest end of the range could be of great importance for the future conservation of this species, which is expected to face growing threats in the coming decades

Bats of Sicily: historical evidence, current knowledge, research biases and trends

Insular bat communities are a preeminent conservation taxon due to their ecological role and intriguing and unique species composition. Sicily is the largest island in the Mediterranean. However, research on Sicilian bats is still scattered, with substantial information being overlooked. Here we present a systematic review of all available bibliographic information from 1810 to 2022, including grey literature, archives, and peer-reviewed publications. The analyses of bibliographic sources permitted us to evaluate the status of research on bats using the Bat Research Efficiency (BRE) and Species-Research Effort Allocation (SREA) metrics. A total of 81 documents were obtained. Since 1955, an average of 1.2 contributions have been issued per year. Over half of the documents are in Italian. The studies are primarily conducted in north-western (40%) and south-eastern (28%) Sicily, mainly in the provinces of Palermo and Siracusa. Most of the contributions concern “Species records” (61%) and “Ecology” (21%). There were 28 species reported, but a significant bias exists towards Myotis myotis, Miniopterus schreibersii, Rhinolophus ferrumequinum, Myotis capaccinii, and Rhinolophus euryale. Around 31.5% of the studies focused on threatened species, while 68.5% concentrated on non-threatened species, with an overall preference for cave-dwelling species. Yet, SREA analysis demonstrates a lack of research efforts for all species. We encourage the use of a multidisciplinary approach towards under-studied species while covering geographical gaps and increasing public awareness of the functional role of bats in natural ecosystems. Cover Image: credits Saxifraga - Rudmer Zwerve

Il ruolo delle precipitazioni occulte nella formazione e mantenimento della vegetazione forestale: il caso studio di Pantelleria

Le testimonianze storiche indicano per le isole circumsiciliane la presenza di floridi boschi che sono stati distrutti a seguito dei processi di deforestazione. In alcuni casi, dopo gli interventi di rimboschimento, la vegetazione riesce a ricostituirsi con difficoltà come a Lampedusa mentre in altri casi i processi di recupero sono molto rapidi. Un ruolo non indifferente viene svolto dalla presenza di piante in grado di diffondere propaguli ma anche dalle condizioni climatiche locali determinate sia dalla morfologia delle singole isole come, ad esempio, la presenza di rilievi montuosi, che dal particolare contesto oceanografico. I dati medi riportati dalle stazioni climatiche in termini di piovosità non giustificano in molti casi la presenza di una vegetazione forestale confermando il contributo, al ciclo idrologico, di componenti note come “precipitazioni occulte” (da condensa atmosferica o da nebbia) ed identificate correntemente come “Non-Rainfall-Water” (NRW). A dispetto dell’importanza data a questo fattore sono pochissime le informazioni quantitative, anche in ragione dello scarso grado di standardizzazione dei sistemi di misura dei processi di deposizione dell’acqua atmosferica. Nell’ambito delle indagini condotte su finanziamento del “Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique” francese (CNRS) - “Site d’Étude en Ecologie Globale, Pantelleria” e del programma CNRS-Mob-Île abbiamo avviato una indagine a Pantelleria collocando 8 microstazioni metereologiche lungo un transect ambientale dalla costa alla sommità del più importante rilievo dell’Isola (Montagna Grande, 830 m s.l.m.). La collocazione del sistema di rilevamento (umidità, temperatura, sensori di condensa e micro-lisimetri) ha reso necessaria una fase di messa a punto della strumentazione, che ha implicato anche l’individuazione e la caratterizzazione di sistemi e sensori per il rilievo ed il monitoraggio dei fenomeni di condensa atmosferica secondo approcci diversificati. Anche se ancora in modo non quantitativo, i risultati iniziali (in termini di frequenza e di durata dei fenomeni di deposizione registrati) suggeriscono come la componente NRW possa svolgere a Pantelleria un ruolo determinante nel ciclo idrologico generale, ma ulteriori osservazioni saranno necessarie per caratterizzare i fenomeni di deposizione sulle più importanti componenti del paesaggio dell’isola (vegetazione, muretti a secco, suolo

New species of Ehrlichia isolated from Rhipicephalus (Boophilus) microplus shows an ortholog of the E. canis major immunogenic glycoprotein gp36 with a new sequence of tandem repeats

Background: Ehrlichia species are the etiological agents of emerging and life-threatening tick-borne human zoonoses that inflict serious and fatal infections in companion animals and livestock. The aim of this paper was to phylogeneticaly characterise a new species of Ehrlichia isolated from Rhipicephalus (Boophilus) microplus from Minas Gerais, Brazil. Methods: The agent was isolated from the hemolymph of Rhipicephalus (B.) microplus engorged females that had been collected from naturally infested cattle in a farm in the state of Minas Gerais, Brazil. This agent was then established and cultured in IDE8 tick cells. The molecular and phylogenetic analysis was based on 16S rRNA, groEL, dsb, gltA and gp36 genes. We used the maximum likelihood method to construct the phylogenetic trees. Results: The phylogenetic trees based on 16S rRNA, groEL, dsb and gltA showed that the Ehrlichia spp isolated in this study falls in a clade separated from any previously reported Ehrlichia spp. The molecular analysis of the ortholog of gp36, the major immunoreactive glycoproteins in E. canis and ortholog of the E. chaffeensis gp47, showed a unique tandem repeat of 9 amino acids (VPAASGDAQ) when compared with those reported for E. canis, E. chaffeensis and the related mucin-like protein in E. ruminantium. Conclusions: Based on the molecular and phylogenetic analysis of the 16S rRNA, groEL, dsb and gltA genes we concluded that this tick-derived microorganism isolated in Brazil is a new species, named E. mineirensis (UFMG-EV), with predicted novel antigenic properties in the gp36 ortholog glycoprotein. Further studies on this new Ehrlichia spp should address questions about its transmissibility by ticks and its pathogenicity for mammalian hosts