Forest landscape ecology and global change: an introduction

Forest landscape ecology examines broad-scale patterns and processes and their interactions in forested systems and informs the management of these ecosystems. Beyond being among the richest and the most complex terrestrial systems, forest landscapes serve society by providing an array of products and services and, if managed properly, can do so sustainably. In this chapter, we provide an overview of the field of forest landscape ecology, including major historical and present topics of research, approaches, scales, and applications, particularly those concerning edges, fragmentation, connectivity, disturbance, and biodiversity. In addition, we discuss causes of change in forest landscapes, particularly land-use and management changes, and the expected structural and functional consequences that may result from these drivers. This chapter is intended to set the context and provide an overview for the remainder of the book and poses a broad set of questions related to forest landscape ecology and global change that need answers

Gender differences in the use of cardiovascular interventions in HIV-positive persons; the D:A:D Study

Peer reviewe

Comparison Between Two Rural-Suburban Landscapes from Brussels and Milan

This chapter reports a research done by Ingegnoli V (university of Milan) and Marcheggiani E, Gulinck H, Lerouge F. (university of Leuven). Many queries arise on the bionomic state of these landscapes, presenting similar historical and climatic characters. A question regards the high amount of private gardens, as a “cultural” protective compensation to the urban expansion. Another question is the bionomic evaluation of forests, and whether there might be protected areas with lower ecological efficiency than non-protected one. A third question is concerned with the landscape type: does it remain in a range of agricultural types or does it reach the rural–suburban structure? Mostly, we have to check if the present condition of Asse could be similar to the bionomic state of Bollate, or in case they differ, how their transformation dynamics during the past two centuries would have been different. The diagnostic index (DI) of Asse resulted today 68.33 % of the optimum referred to the landscape type “agriculture-productive”, very similar to the value of Bollate in 1954: but, after this period, Bollate overcame the threshold and passed into the other landscape type “suburban–rural”, referring to which DI arises now to 70.0, while Asse is now in a belt of instability, that is the threshold between the two types, being not completely structured as suburban–rural but under the influence of Brussels. Pay attention that only through the reconstruction of the historical dynamics of those two landscapes, we are able to correctly understand the ecological significance of the “position” assumed by the two LU within the plane of the state of the system, going today towards a convergence