Can understorey native woodland plant species regenerate under exotic pine plantations using natural succession?

Forestry industry in many European countries has begun to focus on sustainable forest management practices, and consequently, a greater emphasis is now being placed on the restoration and enhancement of native woodlands in places where intensive forestry is nowadays not highly profitable. In this context, we evaluate the natural regeneration of native oak woodland vegetation under cultivated stands of Pinus radiata in the Biscay region, Northern Iberian Peninsula. We compared vegetation composition and diversity on 60 stands representing the three commonly observed habitats: regenerating Quercus robur woodlands, old-growth native Q. robur woodlands, and their adjacent P. radiata plantations at different successional stages. The aim was to assess the potential of natural successional processes to restore the native oak woodland species under pine plantations, determining whether natural regeneration is sufficient or some management interventions are needed. The results reveal significant differences in understorey species composition between pine plantations and oak habitats. However, these understorey compositional differences were reduced during natural successional process (from young to old age plantations), being especially important in the case of tree and fern growth-forms. The successional trends are driven by an increase of tree, fern and native species cover during pine plantations succession, although the richness was always higher in plantations mainly by the presence of a great number of generalist and opportunistic species. Nevertheless, some typical woodland species, such as Ulmus minor and Lamiastrum galeobdolon, did not appear in plantations. Here, the natural successional process produced a slowly convergence in understorey species composition between plantations and oak habitats. However, the old pine plantations and oak habitats still differed considerably in understorey composition, suggesting that using only natural succession a much longer time frame is needed to achieve our ecological restoration objective. Natural succession could be used to achieve the restoration objectives at relatively low costs almost for tree and fern growth-forms, although in the case of ancient woodland species especial actions would be needed. The reorientation of pine plantations towards species compositional states that are more similar to native oak habitats could be faster using adaptive forest management practices (e.g. single tree selection).This work was financed by the Spanish Ministerio de Innovación y Ciencia, MCIN-CGL2008-05579-C02-01/BOS and the Basque Government-University and Research Department (Grupos de Investigación IT734-13). JGA was founded by the Basque-Country Government (Programa de Perfeccionamiento Post-doctoral en el Extranjero DEUI; BFI-2010-245)

Mapping and Assessment of forest Ecosystem and Their Services. Applications and guidance for decision making in the framework of MAES

The aim of this report is to illustrate by means of a series of case studies the implementation of mapping and assessment of forest ecosystem services in different contexts and geographical levels. Methodological aspects, data issues, approaches, limitations, gaps and further steps for improvement are analysed for providing good practices and decision making guidance. The EU initiative on Mapping and Assessment of Ecosystems and their Services (MAES), with the support of all Member States, contributes to improve the knowledge on ecosytem services. MAES is one of the building-block initiatives supporting the EU Biodiversity Strategy to 2000

Intestinal and multivisceral transplantation in children with severe gastrointestinal dysmotility

Severe gastrointestinal dysmotility (GID) impairs patients' quality of life and is almost uniformly fatal after complications of parenteral nutrition. Intestinal and multivisceral transplants have been used as alternative treatment of these disorders. We studied patients with GID treated with transplantation in our center, and reviewed their outcome to determine the therapeutic efficacy of multivisceral transplants. The transplant database was searched for patients with GID from 1994 to 2001. We excluded patients with Hirschsprung disease, scleroderma, and diabetic enteropathy. We reviewed explanted organs, histochemistry, and immunohistochemistry and classified cases by etiology. We selected 12 children with GID from 124 patients transplanted. Nine presented before 1 year and 3 started with symptoms between 2 and 8 years. By combined clinical and histopathological features, 6 were classified as megacystis microcolon intestinal hypoperistalsis syndrome, 4 as chronic idiopathic intestinal pseudoobstruction, and 2 as intestinal neuronal dysplasias. Six patients died during the follow-up from 21 to 546 days after transplant. The Kaplan-Meier actuarial survival rates were 66.7% at 1 year and 50% at 3 years. Multivisceral transplantation is a valuable therapeutic alternative for children with severe GID who cannot be adequately managed with parenteral nutrition

Assessing the Impact of Land Use Changes on Ecosystem Services Value

Land use change significantly affects ecosystem services provision. This impact, however, is difficult to assess and thus often neglected in policy making. It is therefore the task of territorial planning discipline to explore methodological approaches capable of making explicit complex relationships in order to use them as tools for effectively designing the sustainable development. In this paper, we report changes in land use over a 28-year period considering the territory of the Basilicata region. Our aim is to translate these changes in ecosystem services values, highlighting potentials of a framework able to integrate monetary figures into a larger approach based on the interactions between biomes and the meaning of human well-being more closely linked to the economics sector. The results show that the greatest loss occurred at the detriment of wooded areas and agricultural mosaic while bare land and arable land increased. Several municipalities experienced significant changes involving above all the classes in the agricultural compartment. The growth of urban settlements took place everywhere affecting to a much greater extent the most important centers, the only ones not subject to depopulation. Our estimate quantifies these changes in a total annual loss of ecosystem service delivery higher than €39 million with some municipalities where this loss corresponds to a significant part of GDP. Reversing the perspective, moreover, the internal areas emerge where, also due to depopulation, the monetization of ecosystem services leads to pro capita amounts equivalent to multiples of GDP per capita. The study sets the basis for an approach oriented towards defining tangible criteria for assessing the sustainability of territorial transformations and land use change