Italian marine reserve effectiveness: Does enforcement matter?

Marine protected areas (MPAs) have become popular tools worldwide for ecosystem conservation and fishery management. Fish assemblages can benefit from protection provided by MPAs, especially those that include fully no-take reserves. Fish response to protection can thus be used to evaluate the effectiveness of marine reserves. Most target fish are high-level predators and their overfishing may affect entire communities through trophic cascades. In the Mediterranean rocky sublittoral, marine reserves may allow fish predators of sea urchins to recover and thus whole communities to be restored from coralline barrens to macroalgae. Such direct and indirect reserve effects, however, are likely to be related to the enforcement implemented. In Italy, many MPAs that include no-take reserves have been declared, but little effort has been spent to enforce them. This is a worldwide phenomenon (although more common in some regions than others) that may cause MPAs and reserves to fail to meet their targets. We found that 3 of 15 Italian marine reserves investigated had adequate enforcement, and that patterns of recovery of target fish were related to enforcement. No responses were detected when all reserves were analyzed as a whole, suggesting enforcement as an important factor to be considered in future studies particularly to avoid that positive ecological responses in properly managed reserves can be masked by neutral/negative results in paper parks. Positive responses were observed for large piscivores (e.g. dusky groupers) and sea urchin predators at reserves where enforcement was effective. Those reserves with low or null enforcement did not differ from fished areas.     

Quinolizidine alkaloids in seeds of lupin genotypes of different origins

The intake of lupin-based foods could imply the exposure of consumers to quinolizidine alkaloids. The objectives of this study were to assess the genetic variation among and within 11 geographic regions of Lupinus albus ecotypes, verify the quinolizidine alkaloids amount of alkaloid-poor L. albus and Lupinus angustifolius varieties, and assess the effect of two climatically contrasting Italian environments on the alkaloid content. The quantitation was performed by GC-MS, and in all samples lupanine was the most abundant quinolizidine alkaloid, followed by albine and 13alpha-hydroxylupanine for L. albus and by 13alpha-hydroxylupanine and angustifoline for L. angustifolius. Some regions tended to have a high (Azores) or low (Egypt, Near East, Maghreb) total alkaloids content, but the variation among ecotypes within regions was larger than that among regions following the estimation of variance components. Alkaloid-poor varieties tended to have higher total alkaloid contents when grown in the subcontinental climate site, exceeding in some cases the limit of 0.200 mg/g.     

A simple and selective method for the measurement of azadirachtin and related azadirachtoid levels in fruits and vegetables using liquid chromatography electrospray ionization tandem mass spectrometry

Neem-based insecticides containing azadirachtin and related azadirachtoids are widely used in agriculture. Here, we report an analytical method for the rapid and accurate quantification of the insecticide azadirachtin A and B and other azadirachtoids such as salannin, nimbin, and their deacetylated analogues on tomatoes and peaches. Azadirachtoids were extracted from fruits and vegetables with acetonitrile. Using high-performance liquid chromatography/electrospray ionization tandem mass spectrometer, azadirachtoids were selectively detected monitoring the multiple reaction transitions of sodium adduct precursor ions. For azadirachtin A, calibration was linear over a working range of 1-1000 microg/L with r > 0.996. The limit of detection and limit of quantification for azadirachtin A were 0.4 and 0.8 microg/kg, respectively. The presence of interfering compounds in the peach and tomato extracts was evaluated and found to be minimal. Because of the linear behavior, it was concluded that the multiple reaction transitions of sodium adduct ions can be used for analytical purposes, that is, for the identification and quantification of azadirachtin A and B and related azadirachtoids in fruit and vegetable extracts at trace levels.     

Comparison of volatile concentrations in hand-squeezed juices of four different lemon varieties

Fresh juices of four Italian cultivars of lemons (Citrus limon Burm) have been analyzed by headspace solid phase microextraction coupled to gas chromatography and gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS). The best results have been obtained with the 2 cm 50/30 microm divinylbenzene/carboxen on poly(dimethylsiloxane) fiber, using a homogenization time of 1 h at 40 degrees C and a sampling period of 30 min. A total of 35 volatile compounds have been identified by GC-MS, and their relative amounts have been calculated by adding internal standard to the samples. Differences in composition of lemon juices volatile components have been observed. Verdello Siracusano lemon juice has the highest amount of volatile compounds (50.28 mg/L), followed by Interdonato (8.39 mg/L), Primo Fiore Capo d'Orlando (5.75 mg/L), and Femminello Siracusano (2.62 mg/L) juices. Volatile compounds mainly consist of mono- and sesquiterpene hydrocarbons and oxygenated molecules (aldheydes, monoterpene alcohols, and monoterpene esters). Headspace solid phase microextraction coupled to a gas chromatograph equipped with a specific sulfur detector, a sulfur chemiluminescence detector, let us detect and quantify dimethyl sulfide compound at the microgram/liter level in lemon juices.     

A spatial dataset of forest mensuration collected in black pine plantations in central Italy

Key message

The dataset provides an exhaustive tree inventory with forest mensuration and spatial location carried out in 54 plots sampled in 45- to 55-year-old black pine plantations, located in two areas of Tuscany (central Italy). Forest mensuration includes horizontal and vertical structure measurements and a total of 4171 trees were geo-referenced. The most abundant species was the black pine, Pinus nigra spp. laricio , for which a total of 3631 trees were observed. The dataset was collected as part of the SelPiBio LIFE project (LIFE13 BIO/IT/000282). Dataset access at   http://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.438681 . Associated metadata available at https://metadata-afs.nancy.inra.fr/geonetwork/apps/georchestra/?uuid=73591027-0f1e-40a3-95d0-b614517c1290&hl=eng .

Context

The main aim of the SelPiBio LIFE project (www.selpibio.eu) is to demonstrate the effects of two thinning regimes, selective and from below, on soil biodiversity in young black pine stands. The spatial structure of forests and the relationships between trees are a good proxy of overall biodiversity level. Spatial datasets with geo referenced trees and related mensurational data represent the highest level of information for forest inventories and research activities.

Aims

This dataset has been developed during the A2 Action (Assessment of structural and mensurational parameters of the forest stands and the dead wood) of the project, to record the main mensurational parameters of the studied black pine stands. A tree-level database was compiled to describe the vertical and horizontal structure of 54 monitoring plots before the application of the silvicultural treatment.

Methods

In addition to classical in-field measurements (e.g. diameters at breast height, total height of the tree, crown depth etc.), all trees were georeferenced by means of polar coordinates collected from the centre of each monitoring plot, including crown projection on the ground, described with eight points. Then, a polynomial spline function was fitted across the recorded data to obtain a convex polygon and to calculate crown area and crown perimeter of each measured tree in GIS environment.

Results

A polygonal ESRI shapefile in ETRS89/UTM32N reference system (EPSG: 25832) with 4171 records representing the crown projections on the ground of each measured tree with all the mensurational parameters included into the attribute table. The database is freely available under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4. 182 0 License.

Conclusion

With this database, a wide range of forestry-related indices could be easily calculated, including geostatistical analysis and autocorrelation functions, to compare Italian artificial black pine stands with other studied forests.

     

Physiological and biochemical adaptive traits support the specific breeding of alfalfa (Medicago sativa) for severely drought-stressed or moisture-favourable environments

The adaptation of alfalfa to moisture-favourable and drought-prone environments and its underlying mechanisms have not been thoroughly investigated despite their crucial importance to maximize the crop breeding progress. The main aim of this study was to support breeding strategies by exploring the relationship of leaf morphophysiological traits assessed in three growth chamber experiments with the adaptive response of five cultivars (Mamuntanas; Demnat 203; Erfoud 1; Prosementi; SARDI 10) that showed large genotype × environment interaction (GEI) across 10 drought-prone to moisture-favourable Mediterranean environments. Changes in shoot and root metabolite profiles across moisture-contrasting conditions were assessed for two cultivars with contrasting adaptation pattern. The cultivar specifically adapted to drought-prone environments (Mamuntanas), compared with that specifically adapted to moisture-favourable environments (Demnat 203), displayed: (i) lower leaf wilting under drought stress; (ii) delayed leaf senescence under stress, assessed as limited chlorophyll reduction either in vivo from upper to central leaves or in vitro from control to polyethylene glycol-treated leaflets, (iii) greater leaf tolerance to desiccation, measured in vitro as less pronounced reduction of leaf dry weight from control to polyethylene glycol-treated leaflets, (iv) smaller leaves, (v) lower early root and shoot growth and (vi) lower leaf stomata density. The other cultivars exhibited different combinations and/or intermediate values of these traits. The metabolite profiles of Mamuntanas and Demnat 203 differed more in shoots than in roots. Mamuntanas accumulated more amino acids than Demnat 203 under moisture-favourable and drought conditions. The distinct and partly incompatible combination of traits featuring the cultivars that maximized the crop yield in favourable or drought-prone conditions (Mamuntanas and Demnat 203) improves our understanding of traits contributing to large GEI across moisture-contrasting environments and support the breeding for specific adaptation to either condition. We identified a few inexpensive morphophysiological traits that could be used for early selection targeting drought-prone environments.