Mediterranean France Research Articles

A comparative analysis of fire-weather indices for enhanced fire activity prediction with probabilistic approaches

BackgroundWeather conditions play a crucial role in driving fire activity in Mediterranean France. Previous research has demonstrated the influence of these conditions on the likelihood of large fire events over the world. However, certain limitations persist regarding the representation of fire weather in probabilistic models. AimThe objective of this paper is to develop an efficient method to rate fire danger by identifying the best representation of weather data for fire activity prediction in Mediterranean France. MethodsWe evaluated the performance of meteorological variables and the most common fire-weather indices (FWIs) worldwide as predictors of fire occurrence and size using the Firelihood framework, a probabilistic Bayesian model of fire activity. These models were compared to a fire activity baseline model incorporating only spatial and temporal effects but no explicit fire-weather information to allow for an in-depth study of information not captured by fire-weather indices. Key resultsThe results indicate that relying solely on fire-weather indices is insufficient for efficient rating of fire activities. The inclusion of spatial and seasonal effects in the models is crucial for improving the indices' performance. While the Canadian FWI remains the most skillful indicator among the tested indices, using new combinations of several of its subcomponents further increases accuracy. Various performance analyses, including threshold selections, were carried out to comparatively assess those improvements. ConclusionsThe approach shows that probabilistic models informed with appropriately constructed fire-weather indices substantially improve various aspects of fire activity predictions in the Mediterranean area.

What do Lateglacial and Holocene land snail communities tell us about the palaeoenvironments of Mediterranean France?

Southeastern France occupies a key biogeographical position on the lower Rhone corridor, at the interface between southern and northern Europe. It is also at the heart of long‐standing ecological debates about the respective roles of natural and human drivers in shaping the Mediterranean landscape. Molluscan analysis may represent a valuable contribution to this issue. In this paper, land snail assemblages from three calcareous tufa deposits in the Luberon mountain were used to reconstruct Lateglacial and Holocene palaeoenvironments. The Lateglacial communities only differ from the Pleniglacial ones by the development of hygrophilic snails. We note a high moisture budget at the end of the Lateglacial Interstadial (LGI). A patchy, steppe landscape is attested. A time lag in recolonization by woodland species during the LGI is conceivable. The postglacial woodland assemblages then trace a laborious reassembly of forest snail communities. It takes place mainly between c. 8000 and c. 6600 cal. a BP with spatial disparities and delayed recruitments. The French Mediterranean region has not benefitted from the macrorefugia that it would have sheltered or with which it would have been close. Woodlands, however, appear progressively more closed and complex c. 8000 cal. a BP. They reached their optimum c. 7500 to 7400 cal. a BP although their canopy seems to have stayed quite open. Anthropization remained weak during the Early Neolithic. A significant woodland opening is observed in the Early–Middle Neolithic. Human impact becomes clear from the Late Neolithic. Nevertheless, there are substantial differences compared with Basse‐Provence, where a more marked openness of the landscape from 7000 cal. a BP was accompanied by the development of Mediterranean synanthropic snails. The molluscan successions of the Luberon mountain should be a reference for the development of the Lateglacial and Holocene malacofauna in the SE of France, at the northern boundary of the western Mediterranean domain.

Do planning practices hinder on-farm diversification in peri-urban Mediterranean France?

At the crossroads of spatial planning and agriculture, this article explores how planning practices impact on-farm diversification strategies in peri-urban Mediterranean France. It focuses on farm building permit applications, statistically analyzing a database of 860 buildings applied for and interviewing local authorities and farmers’ representatives. Results show the large proportion of applications related to reterritorialization of food systems, development of recreational activities, and production of green energy. These on-farm diversification trends highlight the transformation of peri-urban areas from a natural or agricultural landscape into a multifunctional landscape, posing several planning challenges. Planners don’t know how to assess whether a new building is really essential for farming, or to find the right trade-offs to support farming dynamics while limiting soil sealing. Their assessment criteria generally favor large, full-time, and economically viable farms. Comparing two provinces’ planning practices, we observe significant differences in interpretation of national law, with incoherent or unharmonized criteria applied especially when assessing professional farming activities, new dwellings, and solar energy projects. We also highlight two potential obstacles to farmers’ generational renewal and agroecological or food transitions: i) lack of transparency regarding the rules and the decision-making processes behind building permit assessment, and ii) the frequent rejection of applications for multi-purpose premises and lightweight, mobile, or dismantlable structures. Such results point to the role of planners in transforming peri-urban landscapes and the need for more consistent regulation of new farm buildings, supporting and not hindering farm adaptation strategies and the multifunctionality of peri-urban areas.

Long genetic and social isolation in Neanderthals before their extinction

Neanderthal genomes have been recovered from sites across Eurasia, painting an increasingly complex picture of their populations' structure that mostly indicates that late European Neanderthals belonged to a single metapopulation with no significant evidence of population structure. Here, we report the discovery of a late Neanderthal individual, nicknamed "Thorin," from Grotte Mandrin in Mediterranean France, and his genome. These dentognathic fossils, including a rare example of distomolars, are associated with a rich archeological record of Neanderthal final technological traditions in this region ∼50-42 thousand years ago. Thorin's genome reveals a relatively early divergence of ∼105 ka with other late Neanderthals. Thorin belonged to a population with a small group size that showed no genetic introgression with other known late European Neanderthals, revealing some 50 ka of genetic isolation of his lineage despite them living in neighboring regions. These results have important implications for resolving competing hypotheses about causes of the disappearance of the Neanderthals.

Occurrence of Phyllariopsis brevipes (C. Agardh) E.C. Henry & G.R. South 1987 in the Gulf of Naples

ABSTRACTThe first record of the kelp species Phyllariopsis brevipes in the Campania Region (Tyrrhenian Sea, South Italy) is here reported. The species has been observed in October 2021 in four sites along Sorrento Peninsula and Capri Island coast during scuba diving surveys. P. brevipes grew on living thalli of crustose coralline algae from 32 up to 55 m depth, occasionally forming dense aggregations with a maximum cover of about 0.2 m2. The DNA barcoding analysis on the basis of the cox1 gene supported the identification, with 98.36% of similarity between the sample collected in this study (NCBI accession number: PP622796) and a sequence obtained from a specimen from Provence, Mediterranean France (NCBI accession number: GQ368264). The study area can be considered a stepping stone for the species dispersion. The occurrence of P. brevipes can be related to upwelling and good water quality and the monitoring of its health status might be a sentinel of environmental changes.

Agricultural Dynamics in Southwestern Mediterranean France from the End of the Iron Age to the Early Middle Ages

ABSTRACT The north-western Mediterranean rural world underwent major socioeconomic and cultural changes between the Late Iron Age and the beginning of the Middle Ages, with a decisive impact on the evolution of agricultural production, practices and landscapes. Roman expansion led to the spread of villae (2nd–1st c. BC), leading to a new structuration of rural areas and the development of a speculative agriculture that favoured wine production. By the end of the Roman period, new changes are observed: while certain Roman villae are still occupied, the appearance of a new network of rural settlements reveals the emergence of a new form of rural economy. Although these changes are increasingly well documented by archaeology, their impact on the agrarian production and practices remains little explored. The multiplication of archaeobotanical investigations in southwestern Mediterranean France allows us to present a first review of farming practices and their evolution during this key period. The study of 30 rural sites provides new data concerning local agriculture between the 2nd c. BC and the 8th c. AD (cultivated plants, prevalence of certain species, farming practices, exploited landscapes) and attempts to detect potential evolutions over time such as changes in staple crops, diversification, exploitation of new ‘terroirs’.

Spencer D. Segalla. Empire and Catastrophe: Decolonization and Environmental Disaster in North Africa and Mediterranean France since 1954.

Spencer D. Segalla. <i>Empire and Catastrophe: Decolonization and Environmental Disaster in North Africa and Mediterranean France since 1954</i>.

Spencer D. Segalla, Empire and Catastrophe. Decolonization and Environmental Disaster in North Africa and Mediterranean France since 1954. Lincoln, NE, University of Nebraska Press 2021

Spencer D. Segalla, Empire and Catastrophe. Decolonization and Environmental Disaster in North Africa and Mediterranean France since 1954. Lincoln, NE, University of Nebraska Press 2021

The three waves: Rethinking the structure of the first Upper Paleolithic in Western Eurasia.

The Neronian is a lithic tradition recognized in the Middle Rhône Valley of Mediterranean France now directly linked to Homo sapiens and securely dated to 54,000 years ago (ka), pushing back the arrival of modern humans in Europe by 10 ka. This incursion of modern humans into Neandertal territory and the relationships evoked between the Neronian and the Levantine Initial Upper Paleolithic (IUP) question the validity of concepts that define the first H. sapiens migrations and the very nature of the first Upper Paleolithic in western Eurasia. Direct comparative analyses between lithic technology from Grotte Mandrin and East Mediterranean archeological sequences, especially Ksar Akil, suggest that the three key phases of the earliest Levantine Upper Paleolithic have very precise technical and chronological counterparts in Western Europe, recognized from the Rhône Valley to Franco-Cantabria. These trans-Mediterranean technical connections suggest three distinct waves of H. sapiens expansion into Europe between 55-42 ka. These elements support an original thesis on the origin, structure, and evolution of the first moments of the Upper Paleolithic in Europe tracing parallel archaeological changes in the East Mediterranean region and Europe.

A taxonomic revision of the Palaearctic genus Roeseliana (Orthoptera: Tettigoniidae: Tettigoniinae: Platycleidini): a case of ongoing Mediterranean speciation.

The genus Roeseliana presently includes 10 specific or subspecific taxa, but following different authors some of them are considered synonyms. However, the authors who have treated these taxa often did not agree with the synonymies, in particular, concerning some taxa, such as R. fedtschenkoi (Saussure, 1874) and R. roeselii (Hagenbach, 1822). The present authors examined hundreds of specimens of different taxa, for the first time were able to obtain the translation from the Russian of the description of R. fedtschenkoi, compared the main morphological characters used to discriminate different taxa, biometrics, bioacoustics and genetics of some taxa. This allowed them to conclude that it is possible to recognize the following taxa: 1) Roeseliana roeselii (Hagenbach, 1822) widespread in the Palaearctic Region and imported in North America; 2) Roeseliana fedtschenkoi (Saussure, 1874) in Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan; 3) Roeseliana pylnovi (Uvarov, 1924) in the Caucasian region; 4) Roeseliana bispina (Bolívar, 1899) in Turkey; 5) Roeseliana azami (Finot, 1892) from the Mediterranean France through Italian peninsula (formerly R. azami minor Nadig, 1961); 6) R. ambitiosa (Uvarov, 1924) on the Balkan peninsula; 7) Roeseliana n. sp. Lemonnier-Darcemont & Darcemont, (in press) on Epirus (Greece and Albania); 8) Roeseliana brunneri Ramme 1951 in north east Italy (Veneto, Friuli and Po Valley); 9) Roeseliana oporina (Bolívar, 1887) in Spain.

Predicting wildfire ignition causes in Southern France using eXplainable Artificial Intelligence (XAI) methods

The percentage of wildfires that are ignited by an undetermined origin is substantial in Europe and Mediterranean France. Forest fire experts have recognized the significance of fires with an unknown ignition source since documentation and research of fire causes are important for creating appropriate fire policies and prevention strategies. The use of machine learning in wildfire science has increased considerably and is driven by the increasing availability of large and high-quality datasets. However, the absence of comprehensive fire-cause data hinders the utility of existing fire databases. This study trains and applies a machine-learning based model to classify the cause of fire ignition based on several environmental and anthropogenic features in Southern France using an eXplainable Artificial Intelligence framework. The results demonstrate that the source of unknown caused wildfires can be predicted at various levels of accuracy/natural fires have the highest accuracy (F1-score 0.87) compared to human-caused fires such as accidental (F1-score 0.74) and arson (F1-score 0.64). Factors related to spatiotemporal properties as well as topographic characteristics are considered the most important features in determining the classification of unknown caused fires for the specific area.

Book Reviews

Nick Underwood, Yiddish Paris: Staging Nation and Community in Interwar France, Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2022. Elizabeth A. Foster, African Catholic: Decolonization and the Transformation of the Church, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2019. David Todd, A Velvet Empire: French Informal Imperialism in the Nineteenth Century, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2021. Spencer D. Segalla, Empire and Catastrophe: Decolonization and Environmental Disaster in North Africa and Mediterranean France since 1954, Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2021.

Bow-and-arrow, technology of the first modern humans in Europe 54,000 years ago at Mandrin, France.

Consensus in archaeology has posited that mechanically propelled weapons, such as bow-and-arrow or spear-thrower-and-dart combinations, appeared abruptly in the Eurasian record with the arrival of anatomically and behaviorally modern humans and the Upper Paleolithic (UP) after 45,000 to 42,000 years (ka) ago, while evidence for weapon use during the preceding Middle Paleolithic (MP) in Eurasia remains sparse. The ballistic features of MP points suggest that they were used on hand-cast spears, whereas UP lithic weapons are focused on microlithic technologies commonly interpreted as mechanically propelled projectiles, a crucial innovation distinguishing UP societies from preceding ones. Here, we present the earliest evidence for mechanically propelled projectile technology in Eurasia from Layer E of Grotte Mandrin 54 ka ago in Mediterranean France, demonstrated via use-wear and impact damage analyses. These technologies, associated with the oldest modern human remains currently known from Europe, represent the technical background of these populations during their first incursion into the continent.

Declining water resources in response to global warming and changes in atmospheric circulation patterns over southern Mediterranean France

Abstract. Warming trends are responsible for an observed decrease of water discharge in southern France (northwestern Mediterranean). Ongoing climate change and the likely increase of water demand threaten the availability of water resources over the coming decades. Drought indices like the Reconnaissance Drought Index (RDI) are increasingly used in climate characterization studies, but little is known about the relationships between these indices, water resources, and the overall atmospheric circulation patterns. In this study, we investigate the relationships between the RDI, water discharge, and four atmospheric teleconnection patterns (TPs) for six coastal river basins in southern France, both for the historical period of the last 60 years and for a worst-case climatic scenario (RCP8.5) reaching the year 2100. We combine global and regional climate model (CGM and RCM, respectively) outputs with a set of observed climatic and hydrological data in order to investigate the past relationships between the RDI, water discharge, and TPs and to project their potential evolution in space and time. Results indicate that annual water discharge can be reduced by −49 % to −88 % by the end of the century under the extreme climate scenario conditions. Due to unequal links with TPs, the hydroclimatic evolution is unevenly distributed within the study area. Indeed a clustering analysis performed with the RDI time series detects two major climate clusters, separating the eastern and western part of the study region. The former indicates stronger relationships with the Atlantic TPs (e.g. the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) and the Scandinavian Oscillation (Scand) patterns), whereas the latter is more closely related to the Mediterranean TPs (Mediterranean Oscillation (MO) and Western Mediterranean Oscillation (WeMO)). The future climate simulations predict an antagonistic evolution in both clusters which are likely driven by decreasing trends of Scand and WeMO. The former provokes a general tendency of lower P in both clusters during spring, summer, and autumn, whereas the latter might partly compensate for this evolution by enhanced precipitation in the eastern cluster during autumn and winter. However, compared to observations, representation of the Mediterranean TPs WeMO and MO in the considered climate models is less satisfactory compared to the Atlantic TPs NAO and Scand, and further improvement of the model simulations therefore requires better representations of the Mediterranean TPs.

Empire and Catastrophe: Decolonization and Environmental Disaster in North Africa and Mediterranean France since 1954 by Spencer A. Segalla

Empire and Catastrophe: Decolonization and Environmental Disaster in North Africa and Mediterranean France since 1954 by Spencer A. Segalla

Empire and Catastrophe: Decolonization and Environmental Disaster in North Africa and Mediterranean France Since 1954

Empire and Catastrophe: Decolonization and Environmental Disaster in North Africa and Mediterranean France Since 1954

Empire &amp; Catastrophe: Decolonization and Environmental Disaster in North African and Mediterranean France since 1954. By Spencer D. Segalla. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2021. 306 pp. Maps, notes, bibliography, and index. $65.00 (cloth); Open Access e-book available for free.

<i>Empire &amp; Catastrophe: Decolonization and Environmental Disaster in North African and Mediterranean France since 1954</i>. By Spencer D. Segalla. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2021. 306 pp. Maps, notes, bibliography, and index. $65.00 (cloth); Open Access e-book available for free.

Revision of the genus Pelecocera Meigen, 1822 (Diptera: Syrphidae) from France: taxonomy, ecology and distribution.

The occurrence and distribution of the various species of the genus Pelecocera Meigen, 1822 (Diptera: Syrphidae) occurring in France are revised and a new species, Pelecocera garrigae Lair Nve, 2022 sp. nov., is described from Mediterranean France. Distribution and ecological data of the six French species of Pelecocera are provided and an identification key is given to all these species. Sequences of the cytochrome c oxidase subunit I (COI) from all European Pelecocera species support the morphological species concept, except for Pelecocera scaevoides (Falln, 1817). The binomen Pelecocera lugubris Perris, 1839 is recovered to name the Pelecocera lusitanica (Mik, 1898) of authors in France.

A Bioeconomic Projection of Climate‐Induced Wildfire Risk in the Forest Sector

AbstractUnder the influence of climate change, wildfire regimes are expected to intensify and expand to new areas, increasing threats to natural and socioeconomic assets. We explore the environmental and economic implications for the forest sector of climate‐induced changes in wildfire regimes. To retain genericity while considering local determinants, we focus on the regional level and take Mediterranean France as an example. Coupling a bioeconomic forest sector model and a model of wildfire activity, we perform spatially explicit simulations under various levels of radiative forcing. By using a probabilistic framework, we also assess the propagation of several sources of uncertainty to the forest sector, considering both climate‐induced uncertainty and the intrinsic stochasticity of the fire process. By the end of the century, summer burned areas increase by up to 55%, causing moderate losses of merchantable timber and forest carbon stocks, with cascading impacts for industrial activities and climate mitigation in the forest sector. Implications for industries remain limited, but we observe price increases, especially for softwoods, as well as spatially differentiated changes in producer welfare. Inter‐annual fluctuations explain most of uncertainty in wildfire activity, but their impacts on the forest sector are quickly dampened. Over time, owing to the cumulative nature of wildfire impacts on forest resources, uncertainty related to climate warming, climate models’ response and stochasticity intrinsic to the wildfire phenomenon strongly increase in relative importance. Results reassert the need to consider multiple futures in prospective assessments, including uncertainty inherent to natural processes, often omitted in large‐scale economic assessments.

Mediterranean specimens of the Prussian Botanist Jacob Breyne (1637–1697) in the Van Royen Herbarium, Leiden, The Netherlands

ABSTRACT Directors of the Leiden botanic garden Adriaan van Royen (1704–1779) and his nephew David van Royen (1727–1799) accumulated a large number of plant specimens in their herbarium collection. The “Van Royen herbarium” at Naturalis Biodiversity Center (Leiden, the Netherlands) holds 89 specimens currently attributed to the Prussian botanist Jacob Breyne (1637–1697). The identity, provenance and history of these Breyne specimens were never studied, although this collection may contain specimens missing from two book herbaria by Breyne (dated 1659 and 1673). Here, we reveal the species represented by the Breyne specimens in the Van Royen collection, as well as their origin and the information contained on their labels. A total of 75 species were identified in Breyne’s specimens, mostly collected in the surroundings of Montpellier (south-eastern France). Of the 89 specimens attributed to Breyne, 54 contain labels in his own handwriting, confirming they were collected (or at least owned) by him. The specimens are not derived from Breyne’s book herbaria also kept in the Leiden collection, as these contain mostly Polish plants. Breyne most likely did not collect these specimens himself, but received them from one or several of his correspondents with ties to Montpellier. It is not known how Breyne’s specimens ended up in the Van Royen herbarium (possibly through his son Johann Philipp), but they provide an insight in the flora of Mediterranean France in the 17th century, and reflect changes in nomenclature and the state of botanical science at that time.