Suchergebnisse

Rita Cannas presents a PhD thesis in Economics (Geo-Economic curriculum) which is titled "Public Policies for Seasonality in Tourism from a Territorial Perspective. Case Studies in Scotland and Sardinia". The specific area of the research is public policies for contrasting seasonality in tourism in peripheral areas. Seasonality has seen such as a problem in terms of social and economics patterns especially for those local communities which are situated in peripheral areas. The research explores what, how and for who, public policies, that have been in place in Scotland and Sardinia over the last 10-5 years, are working and what kind of results these have produced. The research has empirical and theoretical implications for studying tourism seasonality. It aims to highlight the local supply patterns of the phenomenon investigated, and to improve knowledge about the strategies and the policies that have been adopted in the two territorial contexts (Scotland and Sardinia) for contrasting or modifying seasonality in tourism. The type of subject and the research questions have suggested the adoption of an interpretative theoretical perspective and a qualitative methodological approach, although a set of quantitative secondary data is also required for understanding main tourism's characteristics and for analyzing the specificity of seasonality. Interview with key actors of the local system in Scotland and Sardinia is the method chosen to collect primary data. In total the researcher has done 20 interviews in deep. Case studies are chosen both as unity of analysis and research strategy. The main findings of the research show a different and complex scenario about quality and quantity of public policies and strategies in tourism in the two case studies. The role of local resources is quite strategic on delivering tourism services and on counteracting seasonality. Events, festival are the main demand-side strategies. From a supply-side the principles policies are focused on quality of services, technology, high skills, sustainability. Partnership between public and private sector seems to be a fundamental way to work in order to attain changes and outcomes. The research has a strong research design, provides coherent results, and it has been done paying attention to the validation of the whole process.

Aim: Marine bioconstructions such as coralligenous formations are hotspot of biodi‐ versity and play a relevant ecological role in the preservation of biodiversity by provid‐ ing carbon regulation, protection and nursery areas for several marine species. For this reason, the European Union Habitat Directive included them among priority habitats to be preserved. Although their ecological role is well established, connectivity pat‐ terns are still poorly investigated, representing a limit in conservation planning. The present study pioneers a novel approach for the analysis of connectivity in marine bioconstructor species, which often lack suitable genetic markers, by taking advantage of next‐generation sequencing techniques. We assess the geographical patterns of genomic variation of the sunset cup coral Leptopsammia pruvoti Lacaze‐Duthiers, 1897, an ahermatypic, non‐zooxanthellate and solitary scleractinian coral species common in coralligenous habitats and distributed across the Mediterranean Sea. Location: The Italian coastline (Western and Central Mediterranean). Methods: We applied the restriction site‐associated 2b‐RAD approach to genotype over 1,000 high‐quality and filtered single nucleotide polymorphisms in 10 population samples. Results: The results revealed the existence of a strongly supported genetic structure, with highly significant pairwise FST values between all the population samples, includ‐ ing those collected about 5 km apart from each other. Moreover, genomic data indi‐ cate that the strongest barriers to gene flow are between the western (Ligurian–Tyrrhenian Sea) and the eastern side (Adriatic Sea) of the Italian peninsula. Main conclusions: The strong differentiation found in L. pruvoti is similar to that found in other species of marine bioconstructors investigated in this area, but it strongly contrasts with the small differences found in many fish and invertebrates at the same geographical scale. All in one, our results highlight the importance of assessing con‐ nectivity in species belonging to coralligenous habitats as, due to their limited disper‐ sal ability, they might require specific spatial conservation measures.