Bridging the Gap Between National and Ecosystem Accounting Application in Andalusian Forests, Spain

National accounting either ignores or fails to give due values to the ecosystem services, products, incomes and environmental assets of a country. To overcome these shortcomings, we apply spatially-explicit extended accounts that incorporate a novel environmental income indicator, which we test in the forests of Andalusia (Spain). Extended accounts incorporate nine farmer activities (timber, cork, firewood, nuts, livestock grazing, conservation forestry, hunting, residential services and private amenity) and seven government activities (fire services, free access recreation, free access mushroom, carbon, landscape conservation, threatened biodiversity and water yield). To make sure the valuation remains consistent with standard accounts, we simulate exchange values for non-market final forest product consumption in order to measure individual ecosystem services and environmental income indicators. Manufactured capital and environmental assets are also integrated. When comparing extended to standard accounts, our results are 3.6 times higher for gross value added. These differences are explained primarily by the omission in the standard accounts of carbon activities and undervaluation of private amenity, free access recreation, landscape and threatened biodiversity ecosystem services. Extended accounts measure a value of Andalusian forest ecosystem services 5.4 times higher than that measured using the valuation criteria of standard accounts

A crowdsourcing database for the copy-number variation of the spanish population

Background: Despite being a very common type of genetic variation, the distribution of copy-number variations (CNVs) in the population is still poorly understood. The knowledge of the genetic variability, especially at the level of the local population, is a critical factor for distinguishing pathogenic from non-pathogenic variation in the discovery of new disease variants. Results: Here, we present the SPAnish Copy Number Alterations Collaborative Server (SPACNACS), which currently contains copy number variation profiles obtained from more than 400 genomes and exomes of unrelated Spanish individuals. By means of a collaborative crowdsourcing effort whole genome and whole exome sequencing data, produced by local genomic projects and for other purposes, is continuously collected. Once checked both, the Spanish ancestry and the lack of kinship with other individuals in the SPACNACS, the CNVs are inferred for these sequences and they are used to populate the database. A web interface allows querying the database with different filters that include ICD10 upper categories. This allows discarding samples from the disease under study and obtaining pseudo-control CNV profiles from the local population. We also show here additional studies on the local impact of CNVs in some phenotypes and on pharmacogenomic variants. SPACNACS can be accessed at: http://csvs.clinbioinfosspa.es/spacnacs/. Conclusion: SPACNACS facilitates disease gene discovery by providing detailed information of the local variability of the population and exemplifies how to reuse genomic data produced for other purposes to build a local reference database.This work is supported by Grants PID2020-117979RB-I00 from the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation; by the Institute of Health Carlos III (project IMPaCT-Data, exp. IMP/00019, IMP/00009 and PI20/01305), co-funded by the European Union, European Regional Development Fund (ERDF, “A way to make Europe”)

Estimation of shrub biomass availability along two geographical transects in the Iberian Peninsula for energy purposes

In this paper we estimate the availability of shrub biomass along two different geographical transects in the Iberian Peninsula, i) North transect: NE-NW and ii) an Atlantic-Mediterranean transect: NW-S. To determine the available shrub area, the legal, technical, economic and environmental restrictions pertinent to the study areas were identified and their relative thresholds were established. Additionally, the amount of available shrub biomass (tonnes dry matter per hectare) along both geographical transects was calculated using equations specifically created for Spanish shrub formations. The NE-NW transect gave shrub biomass accumulations ranging from 11 to 16 t ha_x0001_1 , while the NW-S transect displayed much lower values, from 3 to 16 t ha_x0001_1 . Furthermore, the stored energy potential (gigajoules per hectare) for each shrub formation was calculated at each location. This paper provides realistic information, by shrub formation, on shrub biomass availability in the Mediterranean basin, highlighting the suitability of scrublands as potential sources of biomass, as well as the strengths and weaknesses of harvesting such biomass using machinery specifically designed for shrubs

Spontaneous Coronary Artery Dissection: A Disease-Specific, Social Networking Community–Initiated Study

OBJECTIVE: To develop and assess the feasibility of a novel method for identification, recruitment, and retrospective and prospective evaluation of patients with rare conditions