Suchergebnisse

This study analyzes aspects of the iconographic repertoire that contributed to reaffirm and strengthen the royal power of one of the most emblematic kings of Aragon of the late eleventh century: Sancho Ramírez. The effigies stamped on his first coins, which should be considered among his most effective propaganda vehicles, will be studied, as will an element that reached a symbolic significance only understandable in relation to the royal institution that, in turn, promoted it: the cross, now developed as the clearest element of monarchical proclamation. In addition to considering the political motivations that lie beneath these representations, the relevance of the county of Urgell will be discussed and, in connection with it, Doña Sancha, a figure worthy of deeper investigation. ; Este estudio analiza parte del repertorio iconográfico que contribuyó a reafirmar y fortalecer el poder real de uno de los más emblemáticos reyes de Aragón de finales del siglo XI: Sancho Ramírez. Además de profundizar sobre las efigies estampadas en sus primeras monedas, efectivo vehículo de propaganda, se abordará otro elemento que alcanzó una trascendencia simbólica sólo explicable en relación con esta regia institución que, a su vez, la promocionaba: la cruz, que ahora se convertirá en elemento de proclamación monárquica. Además de examinar las motivaciones políticas que subyacen bajo estas representaciones, se evidenciará la relevancia del condado de Urgell y, en relación con él, la personalidad de doña Sancha, sobre la que tanto merecería profundizar.

Coll, Marta . et. al.-- 52 pages, 12 figures, 6 tables, 1 appendix ; The underestimation of fisheries removals is a global issue that spans countries from different continents and different socio-economic situations. Underestimation of catches is especially important in countries where fishing fleets are highly diversified, the enforcement of fishing management is low, data availability is poor, and there is high demand for fish products in local markets. This is the case for Mediterranean countries. Here, we estimated total removals of marine resources by Spain from 1950 to 2010 for the Spanish Mediterranean Sea and Gulf of Cadiz regions following a catch-reconstruction approach. We first collected information from scientific publications, grey literature and secondary sources of information (i.e., personal communications, interviews with managers and fishers) to complement officially reported catch data, which are publicly available from FAO databases and from national and regional statistics. A literature search and fishers interviews provided assessments of missing catch sectors that are time-point estimates. These were used as anchor points of reliable data upon which we then estimated total catch using interpolation to fill in the periods for which quantitative data were missing. Overall, the reconstructed catch was 70% larger than the nationally reported data for the same time period. Results illustrated that unreported removals and discards represent important portions of total removals in the study area. Unreported landings and discards accounted for, on average, 42% of total removals between 1950s and 2010, and were composed of black market sales, subsistence fishing, artisanal fishing, recreational fishing and illegal catch, in addition to discarding. By the late 2000s, recreational fishing was the most important sector for unreported landings (~36%), followed by black market sales (~32%), subsistence fishing (~17%), unreported artisanal fishing (~12%) and illegal catch (~2%). While FAO landings data showed an increase of landings from 1950 to the mid-1960s and a decline from the mid-1970s to 2010, a different trend emerged after accounting for all fisheries removals. Reconstructed total catches revealed an earlier maximum of total removals in the late 1950s, a plateau being reached during the 1960s and 1970s, and a decline from the early 1980s to 2010. Our estimates of total fisheries catches represent an improvement over official catch data, and suggest a different historical trend of marine resource use ; MC was supported by a Marie-Curie International Outgoing Fellowships (IOF; Call: FP7-PEOPLE-2007-4-1-IOF) to ECOFUN and a research contract of the Ramon y Cajal program of the Spanish Government. D.Z., S.H. and D.P. thank the Sea Around Us Project, a collaboration between The University of British Columbia and The Pew Charitable Trusts ; Peer Reviewed

Fiorenza Micheli . et al. -- 17 páginas, 7 figuras, 3 tablas ; Spatial prioritization in conservation is required to direct limited resources to where actions are most urgently needed and most likely to produce effective conservation outcomes. In an effort to advance the protection of a highly threatened hotspot of marine biodiversity, the Mediterranean Sea, multiple spatial conservation plans have been developed in recent years. Here, we review and integrate these different plans with the goal of identifying priority conservation areas that represent the current consensus among the different initiatives. A review of six existing and twelve proposed conservation initiatives highlights gaps in conservation and management planning, particularly within the southern and eastern regions of the Mediterranean and for offshore and deep sea habitats. The eighteen initiatives vary substantially in their extent (covering 0.1–58.5% of the Mediterranean Sea) and in the location of additional proposed conservation and management areas. Differences in the criteria, approaches and data used explain such variation. Despite the diversity among proposals, our analyses identified ten areas, encompassing 10% of the Mediterranean Sea, that are consistently identified among the existing proposals, with an additional 10% selected by at least five proposals. These areas represent top priorities for immediate conservation action. Despite the plethora of initiatives, major challenges face Mediterranean biodiversity and conservation. These include the need for spatial prioritization within a comprehensive framework for regional conservation planning, the acquisition of additional information from data-poor areas, species or habitats, and addressing the challenges of establishing transboundary governance and collaboration in socially, culturally and politically complex conditions. Collective prioritised action, not new conservation plans, is needed for the north, western, and high seas of the Mediterranean, while developing initial information-based plans for the south and eastern Mediterranean is an urgent requirement for true regional conservation planning ; The workshop in which this work was initiated was funded by The Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Environmental Decisions (www.ceed.edu.au). The Greek television channel SKAI (www.skai.gr/tv/) covered workshop participants' accommodation. The Biodiversity Research Group provided the workshop with consumables. FM acknowledges the support of the Pew Marine Trust and the Oak Foundation. SG was supported by the project "NETMED" cofinanced by the European Union and the Greek State. MC was funded through the Ramon y Cajal fellowship program of the Spanish Government. DK was funded through the MedPAN Network (www.medpan.org). SF was also supported by the European Community's 7th Framework Programme (FP7/2007–2013) under Grant Agreement No. 287844 for the project 'Towards COast to Coast NETworks of marine protected areas (from the shore to the high and deep sea), coupled with sea-based wind energy potential (COCONET)'. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript ; Peer reviewed

Katsanevakis, Stelios . et al.-- 16 pages, 2 figures ; Cumulative human impacts have led to the degradation of marine ecosystems and the decline of biodiversity in the European and contiguous seas. Effective conservation measures are urgently needed to reverse these trends. Conservation must entail societal choices, underpinned by human values and worldviews that differ between the countries bordering these seas. Social, economic and political heterogeneity adds to the challenge of balancing conservation with sustainable use of the seas. Comprehensive macro-regional coordination is needed to ensure effective conservation of marine ecosystems and biodiversity of this region. Under the European Union Horizon 2020 framework programme, the MarCons COST action aims to promote collaborative research to support marine management, conservation planning and policy development. This will be achieved by developing novel methods and tools to close knowledge gaps and advance marine conservation science. This action will provide support for the development of macro-regional and national policies through six key actions: to develop tools to analyse cumulative human impacts; to identify critical scientific and technical gaps in conservation efforts; to improve the resilience of the marine environment to global change and biological invasions; to develop frameworks for integrated conservation planning across terrestrial, freshwater, and marine environments; to coordinate marine conservation policy across national boundaries; and to identify effective governance approaches for marine protected area management. Achieving the objectives of these actions will facilitate the integration of marine conservation policy into macro-regional maritime spatial planning agendas for the European and contiguous seas, thereby offsetting the loss of biodiversity and ecosystem services in this region ; This article is based upon work from COST (European Cooperation in Science and Technology) Action 15121 'Advancing marine conservation in the European and contiguous seas (MarCons) - supported by the Horizon 2020 framework programme for research and innovation ; Peer Reviewed

Levin, Noam . et. al.-- 21 pages, 6 figures, 1 table, supplementary material http://dx.doi.org/10.3354/meps10857 ; The Mediterranean Sea's biodiversity and ecosystems face many threats due to anthropogenic pressures. Some of these include human population growth, coastal urbanization, accelerated human activities, and climate change. To enhance the formation of a science-based system of marine protected areas in the Mediterranean Sea, data on the spatial distribution of ecological features (abiotic variables, species, communities, habitats, and ecosystems) is required to inform conservation scientists and planners. However, the spatial data required is often lacking. In this review, we aimed to address the status of our knowledge for 3 major types of spatial information: bathymetry, classification of marine habitats, and species distributions. To exemplify the data gaps and approaches to bridge them, we examined case studies that systematically prioritize conservation in the Mediterranean Sea. We found that at present the data required for conservation planning is generally more readily available and of better quality for the European countries located in the Western Mediterranean Sea. Additionally, the Mediterranean Sea is lagging behind other marine regions where rigorous criteria for conservation planning has been applied in the past 20 yr. Therefore, we call upon scientists, governments, and international governmental and non-governmental organizations to harmonize current approaches in marine mapping and to develop a framework that is applicable throughout the Mediterranean region. Such coordination between stakeholders is urgently needed before more countries undertake further extensive habitat mapping, so that future conservation planning can use integrated spatial datasets ; M.C. was funded by the Marie Curie Career EU Integration Grant Fellowships to the BIOWEB project and by the Spanish National Program Ramon y Cajal. S.F. was supported by the project CoCoNET funded by the EU. S.G. was supported by the project NETMED co-funded by the European Social Fund and the Greek State. G.R. was funded by the Marie Curie Career EU Reintegration Grant and the EU 7th Framework Programme for the project Vectors of Change in Oceans and Seas Marine Life, Impact on Economic Sectors (VECTORS). J.J.H thanks MASTS for funding ; Peer reviewed

Giakoumi, Sylvaine . et al.-- 9 pages, 4 figures, supporting information https://doi.org/10.1111/conl.12586 ; Terrestrial, freshwater, and marine ecosystems are connected via multiple biophysical and ecological processes. Identifying and quantifying links among ecosystems is necessary for the uptake of integrated conservation actions across realms. Such actions are particularly important for species using habitats in more than one realm during their daily or life cycle. We reviewed information on the habitats of 2,408 species of European conservation concern and found that 30% of the species use habitats in multiple realms. Transportation and service corridors, which fragment species habitats, were identified as the most important threat impacting ∼70% of the species. We examined information on 1,567 European Union (EU) conservation projects funded over the past 25 years, to assess the adequacy of efforts toward the conservation of "multi‐realm" species at a continental scale. We discovered that less than a third of multi‐realm species benefited from projects that included conservation actions across multiple realms. To achieve the EU's conservation target of halting biodiversity loss by 2020 and effectively protect multi‐realm species, integrated conservation efforts across realms should be reinforced by: (1) recognizing the need for integrated management at a policy level, (2) revising conservation funding priorities across realms, and (3) implementing integrated land‐freshwater‐sea conservation planning and management ; This article is based upon work from the COST Action 15121 "Advancing marine conservation in the European and contiguous seas (MarCons)" (Katsanevakis et al., 2017) supported by the European Cooperation in Science and Technology. SBC was supported by Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia through a post‐doctoral grant (SFRH/BPD/74423/2010) ; Peer Reviewed

Special issue: Marine ecosystem restoration: theory, practice and future perspectives.-- 13 pages, 7 figures, supporting information https://doi.org/10.1111/rec.13328 ; In contrast to the global trend, seagrass beds have recovered in size and density in the northern part of the European Wadden Sea, but ecosystem effects of seagrass recovery and the impacts to ecosystem services are largely unknown. We used temporal-dynamic food web modeling Ecopath with Ecosim to assess potential ecosystem effects of seagrass recovery in the semi-enclosed Sylt-Rømø Bight at the German-Danish border. In addition to changes in the system's structure and functioning over time, the model predicted changes in biomass of seagrass-associated species. For seagrass consumers, we projected an increase in biomass as a result of an increase in food supply. Likewise, the model predicted an increase in biomass of seagrass meadow inhabitants from decreased predation pressure. Correspondingly, the main predators of these inhabitants decreased in biomass according to model results. Proxies representing ecosystem services predicted an increase of tourism appeal of the site with increasing seagrass meadows. Indirect mediation effects of seagrass severely influenced the model output and are thus crucial to forecast potential effects of the recovery of habitat-forming species. Our study illustrates that holistic approaches such as food web models could provide a suitable basis for predicting ecosystem effects of changes in the biomass of habitat-forming species such as seagrasses ; This study was funded by the project MERCES of the European Union's Horizon 2020 research program (Grant agreement number 689518, www.merces-project.eu) ; With the funding support of the 'Severo Ochoa Centre of Excellence' accreditation (CEX2019-000928-S), of the Spanish Research Agency (AEI) ; Peer reviewed

7 pages, 5 figures, supplementary data https://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.softx.2018.06.004 ; The widely used Ecopath with Ecosim (EwE) food web modelling approach has been extended with a new module to measure the impact of input parameter sensitivity on its results. Ecosampler records samples – alternate mass-balanced parameter sets for a food web model – from the built-in Monte Carlo routine, and replays these samples through all of EwE modules and any loaded plug-in. Via Ecosampler, output variation due to base input parameter sensitivity can be captured, of any computational component including the temporal module Ecosim, the spatial–temporal module Ecospace, and plug-ins such as Ecological Network Analysis, Value Chain, and Ecological Indicators ; Ecosampler was realized through funding from the European Commission through the Marie Curie Career Integration Grant Fellowships PCIG10-GA-2011-303534 to the BIOWEB project. This study is a contribution to the projects SafeNET (EU-DGMARE MARE/2014/41) and MERCES (European Union's Horizon research and innovation programme grant agreement No 689518). XC was supported by an IOLR scholarship under the DESSIM project ("A Decision Support System for the management of Israel's Mediterranean Exclusive Economic Zone") ; Peer Reviewed

10 pages, 4 figures, 3 tables, supplementary material https://doi.org/10.1016/j.fishres.2021.106222 ; In this study we explore fishers' perceptions in the Ebro Delta area, Western Mediterranean, throughout structured questionnaires. Specifically, we compare the coherence of information provided by fishers with those resulting by scientific studies in terms of the status of demersal marine resources in the Ebro Delta area; we describe temporal trends of demersal key species in the area with fishers' perceptions; and we explore the use of Local Ecological Knowledge (LEK) as an alternative data sources to reduce the gap of knowledge on the spatial distribution and temporal trends of sensitive and vulnerable benthic marine species. Our results document important changes in the bottom trawling activity in the study area and in the abundance of commercial species with time according to fishers' perceptions. Our results mostly match quantitative information from national statistics and stock assessment analyses. In addition, we document important changes in the presence of Vulnerable Marine Ecosystems (VMEs) in the study area due to the by-catch of habitat forming species with time. According to fishers' perceptions, habitat forming species occur in the area, but were more frequently captured incidentally in the 1980 s and 1990 s. Overall, our study evidences that fisher's perception represents an important source of complementary information to describe bottom trawling fisheries characteristics and the long-term changes of demersal target species in the Western Mediterranean Sea. Moreover, it highlights that LEK can provide fundamental and additional information on ecosystem changes and it can be a useful tool to increase the knowledge on spatial distribution and on temporal trends of vulnerable benthic species ; This work acknowledges the 'Severo Ochoa Centre of Excellence' accreditation (CEX2019–000928-S) to the Institute of Marine Science (ICM-CSIC). MC acknowledges partial funding from the European Union's Horizon ...

Discards are the portion of animal and plant material in the catch that is dumped back at sea. The Common Fisheries Policy plan proposed by the European Commission for 2014¿2020 presents a controversial goal: to enforce the landing of fishing discards as a measure to encourage their reduction. This historical and political decision will shape the future of the fishing exploitation in European Seas. Discards generated by European fleets are not negligible, and its reduction is an ecological, socioeconomical and moral imperative. However, it must be achieved through the reduction in discards at source and the promotion of selective and non-destructive gears. We argue it is doubtful that this discard ban will result in an effective reduction of discards. The proposed measure may, in fact, negatively affect ecosystems at all levels of biological hierarchy by disregarding the Ecosystem-Based Approach to Fisheries and the Precautionary Principle. It could negatively impact several species by increasing fishing mortality, also commercial species if discards are not accounted in the total allowable catch. Communities preying on discards will likely be affected. The role discards currently play in the energy turnover of current ecosystems will be modified and should be fully evaluated. The landing of discards will likely generate new markets of fishmeal due to the growing demands for marine living resources. The ban will require substantial public investment to deal with technical problems on board and to control and enforce. Therefore, this measure should be only implemented after rigorous scientific and technical studies have been developed.

13 pages, 6 figures, 2 tables, supplementary material https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fmars.2021.802235/full#supplementary-material.-- Data Availability Statement: The datasets analyzed for this study can be found in the GBIF (www.gbif.org, accessed in June 2021) through different queries. Details on each query and associated DOIs are included in the article/Supplementary Table 1. Further inquiries can be directed to the corresponding author ; The ongoing contemporary biodiversity crisis may result in much of ocean's biodiversity to be lost or deeply modified without even being known. As the climate and anthropogenic-related impacts on marine systems accelerate, biodiversity knowledge integration is urgently required to evaluate and monitor marine ecosystems and to support suitable responses to underpin a sustainable future. The Census of Marine Life (CoML, 2000–2010) was the largest global research program on marine biodiversity. A decade after, and coinciding with the steep increase of digitalization of our society, we review existing findability, accessibility, interoperability, and reusability (FAIR) biodiversity data coming from one of the most reliable online information systems: the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF). We evaluate the completeness of available datasets with respect to the CoML benchmark, along with progresses in understanding spatial–temporal patterns of marine biodiversity in the European Seas in the last decades. Overall, we observe severe biases in available biodiversity data toward the north-western marine regions (particularly around the United Kingdom and the North Sea), the most recent years (with a peak in the number of reported occurrences in the 2010s) and the most conspicuous, abundant, and likely "appealing" taxa (e.g., crustaceans, echinoderms or fish). These biases may hamper research applications, but also global-scale data needs and integrative assessments required to support cost-effective progresses toward global biodiversity conservation. National to international joint efforts aimed at enhancing data acquisition and mobilization from poorly known regions, periods, and taxa are desirable if we aim to address these potential biases for the effective monitoring of marine ecosystems and the evaluation of ongoing impacts on biogeographic patterns and ecosystem functioning and services ; This work has been co-funded by the H2020 MINKE (Metrology for Integrated Marine Management and Knowledge-Transfer Network; grant agreement No. 101008724), the H2020 Cos4Cloud (co-designed citizen observatories for the European Open Science Cloud EOSC – Cos4Cloud; grant agreement No. 863463), and H2020-FutureMares (Climate Change and Future Marine Ecosystem Services and Biodiversity; grant agreement No. 869300), and the Spanish government through the "Severo Ochoa Center of Excellence" accreditation (grant agreement No. CEX2019-000928-S, hereafter SO). FR was supported by SO and VS by a "Juan de la Cierva Incorporación" research fellowship (grant agreement No. IJC2018-035389-I) granted by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation ; Peer reviewed