Conservation Index Research Articles

Mitochondrial tRNA glutamine variant in hypertrophic cardiomyopathy

Mitochondria play critical roles in both the life and death of cardiac myocytes. Pathogenic mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) mutations leading to mitochondrial dysfunction can cause cardiomyopathies (CMPs). Our aim was to investigate the underlying mitochondrial defect in a patient with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (hCMP). A detailed clinical and molecular genetic analysis was performed. Total DNA was extracted from lymphocytes in a 14-year-old index male patient with hCMP, preexcitation syndrome, and severe ventricular arrhythmias. Direct sequencing of the PCR fragments was performed. To distinguish deleterious from functionally neutral variants, the ClustalW program, RNAfold software, and PolyPhen algorithm were applied, which predict the pathogenicity of a particular variant by using a set of empirical rules based on the nature of the mutation, the phylogenetic conservation of the variant, and the physicochemical property of the amino acid. The mutational analysis of mtDNA genes revealed four variants. The m.4395A>G transition (C6G) in the MT-TQ gene, which altered an evolutionary conserved nucleotide, with a conservation index of 85.7 % and affected a highly conserved U.G base pair in the secondary structure of MT-TQ. Additionally, the previously reported polymorphisms m.14757T>A, m.15236A>G, and m.15314G>A resulting in the replacement of amino acid residues in the MT-CYB gene were detected. The m.4395A>G variant was scored as possibly pathogenic and may exert a negative effect on heart function to generate hCMP.

Commentary on Ling et al. (2013): Is there a role for psychotherapy in the treatment of opioid dependence?

Ling et al. 1 describe results from a carefully executed study comparing the addition of two efficacious psychotherapies alone and in combination with buprenorphine for treating opioid dependence. Although psychosocial services are required to be provided with opioid maintenance, none of the enhanced interventions in this study improved outcomes relative to medication management alone. Results from this study may question whether or not clinicians should be providing psychotherapies concurrently with opioid maintenance medications. In considering this issue, it is important to reflect upon the study design and treatments provided. The pharmacotherapy studied, buprenorphine, is highly efficacious in reducing opioid use 2-4. Because of buprenorphine's efficacy and safety profile, it provides a reasonable alternative to methadone for some opioid-dependent patients. The two enhanced psychotherapies evaluated, cognitive–behavioral therapy (CBT) and contingency management (CM), are efficacious in reducing drug use. A meta-analysis of all psychotherapies for substance use disorders found CM to be the intervention with the largest effect size 5. CBT also has demonstrated efficacy 6, but the two interventions combined do not necessarily or reliably provide additive benefits 7-10. One possible explanation for the lack of additive benefits is that it is far more difficult to demonstrate differences between efficacious interventions than between an intervention and a control or no therapy condition. Not only did the Ling et al. 1 study find the combined psychotherapies to not have additive benefits, neither CBT nor CM yielded benefits over medical management. The lack of any benefit of psychotherapy may be surprising at first glance, but numerous explanations must be considered. First, and as noted by Ling et al. 1, the medical management in this study exceeded the standard care that is usually provided in community-based settings. Patients receiving medical management left urine samples twice weekly for 18 weeks (for which they were compensated), and results were discussed with them weekly. This frequency is in stark contrast to what typically occurs in community settings. Most probably, in the Ling et al. 1 trial, the frequent urine toxicology results were utilized to increase the probability that patients in all four treatment conditions were on optimal doses of buprenorphine. Thus, patients in this study probably received well-tailored and optimal doses of a medication known to reduce opioid use. Secondly, it is difficult to demonstrate an additive effect of an intervention when a highly efficacious background treatment is applied, because there is less overall room for improvement. This study was powered to detect medium effect sizes between the psychosocial interventions, and it is rare to achieve medium effect sizes between two active interventions. Nevertheless, a small-to-medium effect size is noted for CM in this study when either of the conditions applying CM is compared with medication management in terms of the longest duration of opioid abstinence achieved: over 14 weeks versus 10.9 weeks. The effect sizes achieved with CM in this study are within the range of effect sizes obtained from CM interventions 11, 12, but the present study did not contain sufficient numbers of subjects to detect statistically significant differences of a small-to-medium nature between groups. Thirdly, this study was designed to assess reductions in opioid use. Most studies of CBT and CM in opioid maintenance populations were developed to reduce the use of other non-opioid drugs such as cocaine 13-16, because the best method to reduce continued opioid use in maintenance populations is to increase the dose of prescribed opioids 5, 17. Given the frequent urine testing and face-to-face meetings provided, it is likely that all patients in this study had their doses adjusted in relation to their illicit opioid use, diminishing the ability of psychotherapy to improve upon the benefits of buprenorphine in terms of their opioid use. Although one could argue that the results from this study do not support a role for enhanced psychosocial care in the pharmacological treatment of opioid dependence, one could also contend that this study speaks directly for the need for enhanced psychosocial care of opioid-dependent patients receiving pharmacotherapies. The medical management provided in the context of this study did so well that it suppressed illicit opioid use by more than 50% using a conservative index assuming that all missed samples are positive; the rates of opioid-negative samples submitted (i.e. of patients attending care) were probably more than 70%. If all opioid-dependent patients were provided with the level of individualized care described in this study, perhaps 70% of patients would be retained in maintenance therapy long term and levels of opioid use would decrease to this extent. Conversely, novel psychotherapies and/or pharmacotherapies are still needed to assist the 30% or more of opioid-dependent individuals who do not remain engaged in care or reduce illicit opioid use (and polydrug use) in response to buprenorphine and medical management. None.

Comprehensive Evaluation of Energy Conservation and Emissions Reduction for Green Power Grid

Energy crisis and environmental protection are becoming the focus of the sustainable development, which strongly calls construction of green power. This paper defines green power grid content. Evaluate energy conservation from power generation side, transmission side, distribution side and electricity side, emissions reduction from atmospheric environmental impact, water environmental impact and, noise influence and solid waste influence, so as to establish the energy conservation and emission reduction evaluation index system for green power grid. Combination weight based on AHP and entropy and fuzzy comprehensive evaluation are established. A case analysis in China verifies that the proposed evaluation indicators and model are validated and practical.

Identifying the world's most climate change vulnerable species: a systematic trait-based assessment of all birds, amphibians and corals.

Climate change will have far-reaching impacts on biodiversity, including increasing extinction rates. Current approaches to quantifying such impacts focus on measuring exposure to climatic change and largely ignore the biological differences between species that may significantly increase or reduce their vulnerability. To address this, we present a framework for assessing three dimensions of climate change vulnerability, namely sensitivity, exposure and adaptive capacity; this draws on species’ biological traits and their modeled exposure to projected climatic changes. In the largest such assessment to date, we applied this approach to each of the world’s birds, amphibians and corals (16,857 species). The resulting assessments identify the species with greatest relative vulnerability to climate change and the geographic areas in which they are concentrated, including the Amazon basin for amphibians and birds, and the central Indo-west Pacific (Coral Triangle) for corals. We found that high concentration areas for species with traits conferring highest sensitivity and lowest adaptive capacity differ from those of highly exposed species, and we identify areas where exposure-based assessments alone may over or under-estimate climate change impacts. We found that 608–851 bird (6–9%), 670–933 amphibian (11–15%), and 47–73 coral species (6–9%) are both highly climate change vulnerable and already threatened with extinction on the IUCN Red List. The remaining highly climate change vulnerable species represent new priorities for conservation. Fewer species are highly climate change vulnerable under lower IPCC SRES emissions scenarios, indicating that reducing greenhouse emissions will reduce climate change driven extinctions. Our study answers the growing call for a more biologically and ecologically inclusive approach to assessing climate change vulnerability. By facilitating independent assessment of the three dimensions of climate change vulnerability, our approach can be used to devise species and area-specific conservation interventions and indices. The priorities we identify will strengthen global strategies to mitigate climate change impacts.

GIS analysis reveals the high diversity and conservation value of mollusc assemblages in the floodplain wetlands of the lower Bug River (East Poland)

The distribution and species richness of aquatic molluscs were analysed within a 186-km-long section of a large (755-km-long) lowland river floodplain using GIS maps. Special attention was paid to threatened species. An attempt was made to identify local ‘hotspots’ of molluscan diversity and to determine the most important areas for conservation based on species richness, number of threatened species and indices of synthetic conservation (Q) and centres of population density (ICD). Over four years of investigation, carried out in 176 water bodies, a rich malacofauna was identified: 58 species including 20 of elevated conservation concern. GIS maps revealed numerous ‘hotspots’ of mollusc species richness and higher incidence of threatened species, as well as areas characterized by raised Q and ICD indices. Water body size and hydrological connectivity positively influenced species richness and Q values. The highest values of these variables were found in large water bodies having limited surficial connectivity with the river channel. Species richness, numbers of threatened species, and Q and ICD values were significantly higher in younger permanent water bodies compared with semi-permanent or temporary ones representing advanced successional stages. Spatial visualization data collected in the study area indicate that the most valuable sites for the conservation of aquatic molluscs include both sides of the river in the lower part of the middle stretch of the lower Bug River valley. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

A phylomedicine approach to understanding the evolution of auditory sensory perception and disease in mammals

Hereditary deafness affects 0.1% of individuals globally and is considered as one of the most debilitating diseases of man. Despite recent advances, the molecular basis of normal auditory function is not fully understood and little is known about the contribution of single-nucleotide variations to the disease. Using cross-species comparisons of 11 ‘deafness’ genes (Myo15, Ush1 g, Strc, Tecta, Tectb, Otog, Col11a2, Gjb2, Cldn14, Kcnq4, Pou3f4) across 69 evolutionary and ecologically divergent mammals, we elucidated whether there was evidence for: (i) adaptive evolution acting on these genes across mammals with similar hearing capabilities; and, (ii) regions of long-term evolutionary conservation within which we predict disease-associated mutations should occur. We find evidence of adaptive evolution acting on the eutherian mammals in Myo15, Otog and Tecta. Examination of selection pressures in Tecta and Pou3f4 across a taxonomic sample that included a wide representation of auditory specialists, the bats, did not uncover any evidence for a role in echolocation. We generated ‘conservation indices’ based on selection estimates at nucleotide sites and found that known disease mutations fall within sites of high evolutionary conservation. We suggest that methods such as this, derived from estimates of evolutionary conservation using phylogenetically divergent taxa, will help to differentiate between deleterious and benign mutations.

Conservation priorities of useful plants from different techniques of collection and analysis of ethnobotanical data

This study analyzes three methods of data analysis to verify which one would be more appropriate to get information aiming the conservation, selecting the use value (VU) inventory in situ and conservation property index (IPC). It was developed in in Northeast Brazil, via interviewed householders (46 informants). The VU was calculated considering only the effective use of plants; the inventory in situ was made through the frequency of species occurrence in homes; and the IPC combining ethnobotanical and phytossociological data. It was observed a similar cast of the indicated species by VU and inventory in situ, being different from the IPC cast. As this study sought to analyze the best technique for species identification which were needing conservationist actions, and obtained different results among the chosen methods. It has been suggested the use of methods that unite in their analysis both ethnobotanical and ecological aspects, like in the plants list from the priority index of conservation, which demonstrated to be more efficient to identify rare species in the local vegetation. The VU and the inventory in situ are more efficient to identify the most known and used species in the communities, however without analyzing these plants in the local vegetation.

Rare Earth Elements Geochemistry of Sheikh‐Marut Laterite Deposit, NW Mahabad, West‐Azarbaidjan Province, Iran

AbstractLaterite deposit at Sheikh‐Marut (NW Mahabad, West‐Azarbaidjan province, Iran) occurred within middle–upper Permian carbonate rocks. It consists of seven stratiform and/or discontinuous lenticular layers extending over 4.2 km in length and having thicknesses ranging from 3 to 14 m. Mineralogical data show that the ores contain kaolinite and hematite as major and boehmite, diaspore, halloysite, amesite, anatase, and muscovite‐illite as minor mineral phases. The computed Ce anomaly values in the ores range from 0.05 to 20.84. Conservative index (e.g., Eu/Eu*) suggests that this deposit is a product of alteration and weathering of basaltic rocks. Rhythmic increment of ΣREE values of the ores with approaching to the carbonate bedrocks shows an in‐situ occurrence of lateritization processes. Mass change calculations of elements indicate that two competing processes namely leaching and fixation were the major regulating factors in concentration variation of REEs (La–Lu) in this deposit The obtained results show that pH increase of weathering solutions by carbonate bedrocks, existence of organic matters, and the degree of comlexation with organic ligands played remarkable role in distribution of REEs during lateritization. Further geochemical considerations revealed that secondary phosphates, Mn‐oxides and ‐hydroxides, diaspore, and anatase were the potential hosts for REEs in this deposit.

Conservativeness Judgement of Controller for Systems with Time-Varying Delay

The conservatism of asymptotic stability conditions is considered in terms of linear matrix inequalities for time-varying delay systems. The conservative index is defined to evaluate the conservativeness for both delay-dependent and delay-independent stability conditions. The general results on performance analysis are presented based on descriptor system approach. The conservativeness index is defined for time-varying delay system. The optimization approach is given to obtain the upper delay and rational performances for the state-feedback controller of time-delay systems. Experimental results verify the effectiveness of the new method.

Forest conservation index and historical evolution in a coastal region: The São Sebastião Island, São Paulo, Brazil

Resumen en: The aim of this study is to identify the current conservation status of five forested watersheds which have been under different human pressures througho...

MODEL PARTISIPASI PETANI LAHAN KERING DALAM KONSERVASI LAHAN

The study intends to describe the participation of farmers in the dryland crop based Land Conservation Index (LCI), describes the factors that affect the implementation of land conservation, and develop models to improve the participation of farmers in land conservation. Research carried out in Sub DAS upstream of Solo river. All of the food crop farmers from the Pundung villages totaling 68 family heads as respondents. The results of a study of farmers in conserving land at a moderate level. Model to improve the implementation of land conservation is increasing: land area, ownership ruminants, a family member who worked, and level of education, and empowerment to increase participation in land conservation in the parameter is still low, namely: planting plants to strengthen terracing, mulching or manure, planting annual crops on sloping land, crop rotation, and a sense of responsibility of farmers.

Defining and predicting structurally conserved regions in protein superfamilies

The structures of homologous proteins are generally better conserved than their sequences. This phenomenon is demonstrated by the prevalence of structurally conserved regions (SCRs) even in highly divergent protein families. Defining SCRs requires the comparison of two or more homologous structures and is affected by their availability and divergence, and our ability to deduce structurally equivalent positions among them. In the absence of multiple homologous structures, it is necessary to predict SCRs of a protein using information from only a set of homologous sequences and (if available) a single structure. Accurate SCR predictions can benefit homology modelling and sequence alignment. Using pairwise DaliLite alignments among a set of homologous structures, we devised a simple measure of structural conservation, termed structural conservation index (SCI). SCI was used to distinguish SCRs from non-SCRs. A database of SCRs was compiled from 386 SCOP superfamilies containing 6489 protein domains. Artificial neural networks were then trained to predict SCRs with various features deduced from a single structure and homologous sequences. Assessment of the predictions via a 5-fold cross-validation method revealed that predictions based on features derived from a single structure perform similarly to ones based on homologous sequences, while combining sequence and structural features was optimal in terms of accuracy (0.755) and Matthews correlation coefficient (0.476). These results suggest that even without information from multiple structures, it is still possible to effectively predict SCRs for a protein. Finally, inspection of the structures with the worst predictions pinpoints difficulties in SCR definitions. The SCR database and the prediction server can be found at http://prodata.swmed.edu/SCR. 91huangi@gmail.com or grishin@chop.swmed.edu Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics Online.

Tropical ecosystems and ecological concepts

Preface 1. The tropical environment 2. Hot deserts and environmental factors 3. Grasslands and primary production 4. Savanna and population dynamics 5. Lakes, energy flow and biogeochemical cycling 6. Rivers, floodplains and estuaries: the flood-pulse and river continuum concepts 7. Wetlands and succession 8. Tropical rain forest and biodiversity 9. Mountains, zonation and community gradients 10. Mangroves, seagrasses and decomposition 11. Coral reefs and community ecology 12. Isolated habitats and biogeography: islands in the sea, air and land 13. Cities and human ecology 14. Global ecology: biodiversity, conservation, climate change and sustainable development Glossary References Index.

Novel Mutations Affecting the Secondary Structure of MT-RNR1 Gene: A Causal Relationship with Profound Nonsyndromic Hearing Impairment

Mutations in mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) are one of the most important causes of sensorineural hearing loss, especially in the MT-RNR1 gene. In the present study we have performed mutational screening for m.1555A>G and a region of the MT-RNR1 gene in 303 unrelated patients (including family members of 25 probands) with nonsyndromic hearing loss and 200 controls. Three homoplasmic variants, namely, m.1453A>G, 1462G>A, and 1508C>T, were identified in addition to the known deafness-associated m.1555A>G mutation in the MT-RNR1 gene. All the variants were detected only in the patients and not in the controls. m.1555A>G was detected in three probands amounting to 1.0%. Prediction of RNA secondary structure showed changes in all the three variants, the most severe being in m.1453A>G that was inherited in a typical maternal pattern in two families. Screening of GJB2 and GJB6 genes in all these probands revealed cosegregation of the p.W24X mutation (GJB2) in one family with m.1453A>G. Only the proband carrying the p.W24X mutation in a homozygous state expressed the condition while heterozygous and normal homozygous relatives had normal hearing in spite of having the mutation in MT-RNR1. The conservation index (CI) of m.1453A>G was found to be 82%, suggesting it to be a possibly deleterious mutation. Functional studies using cell lines derived from muscle tissue of these patients may reveal the pathogenic mechanism of deafness in them.

Rationalization and prediction of drug resistant mutations in targets for clinical anti-tubercular drugs

Resistance to therapy limits the effectiveness of drug treatment in many diseases. Drug resistance can be considered as a successful outcome of the bacterial struggle to survive in the hostile environment of a drug-exposed cell. An important mechanism by which bacteria acquire drug resistance is through mutations in the drug target. Drug resistant strains (multi-drug resistant and extensively drug resistant) of Mycobacterium tuberculosis are being identified at alarming rates, increasing the global burden of tuberculosis. An understanding of the nature of mutations in different drug targets and how they achieve resistance is therefore important. An objective of this study is to first decipher sequence as well as structural bases for the observed resistance in known drug resistant mutants and then to predict positions in each target that are more prone to acquiring drug resistant mutations. A curated database containing hundreds of mutations in the 38 drug targets of nine major clinical drugs, associated with resistance is studied here. Mutations have been classified into those that occur in the binding site itself, those that occur in residues interacting with the binding site and those that occur in outer zones. Structural models of the wild type and mutant forms of the target proteins have been analysed to seek explanations for reduction in drug binding. Stability analysis of an entire array of 19 mutations at each of the residues for each target has been computed using structural models. Conservation indices of individual residues, binding sites and whole proteins are computed based on sequence conservation analysis of the target proteins. The analyses lead to insights about which positions in the polypeptide chain have a higher propensity to acquire drug resistant mutations. Thus critical insights can be obtained about the effect of mutations on drug binding, in terms of which amino acid positions and therefore which interactions should not be heavily relied upon, which in turn can be translated into guidelines for modifying the existing drugs as well as for designing new drugs. The methodology can serve as a general framework to study drug resistant mutants in other micro-organisms as well.

Novel m.15434C>A (p.230L>I) Mitochondrial Cytb Gene Missense Mutation Associated with Dilated Cardiomyopathy.

Background. Previously it has been shown that various types of hypertrophic and dilative cardiomyopathy (hCMP, dCMP) can be attributed to disturbed mitochondrial oxidative energy metabolism. Several studies described mutations in mitochondrial DNA-located genes encoding for subunits of respiratory chain complexes, including the cytochrome b gene (MT-CYB), causing CMPs. Methods and Results. In the present study the MT-CYB gene was analysed in 30 patients with hCMP, 40 patients with dCMP, and 50 controls for alterations. Altogether, 27 MT-CYB variants were detected. Twenty-four of them were single nucleotide polymorphisms defining common haplogroups. The variant m.15434C>A was found in a single patient with severe dCMP and assessed as novel mutation, since it was not found in healthy controls or available data sets, and was nonhaplogroup associated with Phylotree. This variant altered an amino acid (L230I) with a high interspecific amino acid conservation index (CI = 97.7%) indicative of the functional importance of the residue. Conclusions. Though the L230I mutation seems to play a causative role for dCMP, prospective studies on yeast or transgenic mice models with defined mutation are warranted to study the pathogenetic impact of this mutation.

A greedy and stochastic algorithm for multiple local alignment of interaction networks

Motivations. A central problem in biological network analysis is the Local Network Alignment. The aim is to detect conserved subnetworks or complexes of proteins, across two or more species, which are involved in processes or functions. This allows to predict either new interactions or the functions of unknown proteins. Since the problem of finding conserved subnetworks in a set of networks is related to subgraph isomorphism, which is known to be NP-Hard, several heuristics have been proposed. These include PathBlast [1] and MaWISh [2] for pairwise local alignment and NetworkBlast-M [3] and Graemlin [4] for the multiple case. Although NetworkBlast-M has been proved to be the most efficient and accurate method, it is able to find significant conserved complexes composed by no more than 15 proteins. Here we introduce GASOLINE (Greedy And algorithm for Optimal Local alignment of Interaction Networks) an algorithm based on Gibbs Sampling [5] in connection to a seed-extend approach to search for significant conserved complexes of any size. Methods. The algorithm consists of two main phases. In the first phase, we look for ortholog proteins across the networks. We call these proteins seeds of the suboptimal pattern. In the second phase, called iterative phase, we extend each seed, by adding one adjacent node. Here, through a stochastic process based on Gibbs Sampling, we choose a node among a set of randomly picked adjacent ones. The chosen nodes will be those that maximize similarity among the N extended seeds. We repeat the iterative phase until we obtain a set of N conserved subgraphs each of size W. These N subgraphs represent our final alignment. The topological density and the conservation of a complex are measured through an Index of Density and Structural Conservation (hereafter IDSC). The IDSC score ranges from 0 to 1 and it is dynamically computed during the iterative phase. The iteration will terminate when IDSC is above a fixed threshold. This allows the removal of parameter W producing a set of highly dense and conserved complexes of different sizes. Results. GASOLINE has been tested on 10 microbial PPI networks, taken from Graemlin [4] and on 6 eukaryotic PPI networks, taken from STRING database [6]. The number of proteins in microbial networks ranges from 1,000 to 7,000 with the amount of interactions ranging from 13,000 to 230,000, whereas the size of eukaryotic networks ranges from 6,000 to 12,500 proteins and from 26,000 to 166,000 edges. 2000 of execution of GASOLINE have been performed. As output we consider the best distinct (not overlapping) complexes, with respect to size andIDSC score. In our experiments we selected complexes of at least 5 proteins with IDSC score > 0.7. All tests have been performed on an Intel Core i5-2500 3.30Ghz CPU with 4 GB RAM. The complexes computed by the algorithm have been then validated by annotating their proteins with GO categories. For the microbial networks, annotations have been downloaded from DAVID [7,8], while eukaryotic networks proteins have been annotated using BioDBNet [9]. Significant conserved categories have been obtained by computing a p-value (< 0.0001), based on hypergeometric distribution. A GO category has been considered conserved when it resulted significant in at least N-1 species, where N is the number of aligned networks. The executions of GASOLINE on microbial networks revealed the existence of a big conserved complex of 40 proteins, forming the large and small subunits of ribosome, with IDSC equals to 0.755 (see Tab. 1). As for the 6 eukaryotic networks, 15 conserved complexes have been found by GASOLINE with IDSC greater than 0.75. They are listed in Tab. 2, with their IDSC and the number of GO categories enriched.

Is mitochondrial tRNALeu(UUR) 3291T>C mutation pathogenic?

According to a recent report by Sunami et al., a maternally inherited Japanese family with variable phenotypes including mitochondrial myopathy, recurrent headache, and myoclonus and epilepsy had been described to be associated with mitochondrial tRNALeu(UUR) 3291T>C mutation. In order to verify this association, we reanalyzed the clinical and molecular datasets obtained from Sunami's work; in addition, a phylogenetic approach was employed to evaluate the conservation index of this mutation among different species. We further utilized RNA Fold Web Server to predict the minimum free energy (MFE) of tRNALeu(UUR) gene with and without this mutation. Most strikingly, a low level of conservation was found regarding 3291T>C mutation and a slight change in MFE had been observed between the wild type and the mutant. Our negative results gave no support for an active role for this mutation on the clinical expression of mitochondrial disorders.

Identifying change trajectories and evolutive phases on coastal landscapes. Case study: São Sebastião Island, Brazil

Environmental planning decisions depend on an understanding of how the preservation or degradation process has progressed through time, and consequently, on how to define strategies that will be conducive to environmental conservation. The landscape ecology literature has been addressing methodological deficiencies regarding landscape evaluation and interpretation, mainly with respect to express heterogeneity, where it is difficult to recognize the matrix through landscape configuration. We argue that a better representation of the spatio-temporal landscape occurs integrating driving forces that are capable of initiating and perpetuating changes in the landscape, modeling the complex geometric pattern inherent in landscape structure, and defining the change vectors in a continuum of scales. The aim of this study is to develop a methodology that allows the identification of structure patterns resulting from the relation among driving forces, change vectors and evolutive phases in a coastal landscape. This paper, then, considers four factors: driving forces identified through the construction of a historical survey; land use and cover maps (LUCC) at broad scale, cross tabulation, flux diagram, and dominance index; the landscape evolution phases identified using LUCC and driving forces; and landscape cracking and change-vectors defined at fine scale using conservation and degradation indexes. This strategy reveals the existence of specific geometric patterns and change vectors for each evolution phase of the landscape. It also allows the identification of sites where management actions should be directed toward helping decision makers.

Implementation of a module for risk of ozone impacts assessment to vegetation in the Integrated Assessment Modelling system for the Iberian Peninsula. Evaluation for wheat and Holm oak

A module to estimate risks of ozone damage to vegetation has been implemented in the Integrated Assessment Modelling system for the Iberian Peninsula. It was applied to compute three different indexes for wheat and Holm oak; daylight AOT40 (cumulative ozone concentration over 40 ppb), cumulative ozone exposure index according to the Directive 2008/50/EC (AOT40-D) and PODY (Phytotoxic Ozone Dose over a given threshold of Y nmol m−2 s−1). The use of these indexes led to remarkable differences in spatial patterns of relative ozone risks on vegetation. Ozone critical levels were exceeded in most of the modelling domain and soil moisture content was found to have a significant impact on the results. According to the outputs of the model, daylight AOT40 constitutes a more conservative index than the AOT40-D. Additionally, flux-based estimations indicate high risk areas in Portugal for both wheat and Holm oak that are not identified by AOT-based methods.