Mediterranean Land Research Articles

The originality of Ibn Maḍāʾ’s linguistic ideas: prescriptive rules versus methodology insideal-Raddʿalā al-nuḥāt

Ibn Maḍāʾ represents the first scholar who overtly condemned the tradition of grammatical studies formulated in the eastern Mediterranean lands. However, his invective does not undermine the Arabic grammatical theory in its entirety but leaves the majority of its normative contents intact. Indeed, Ibn Maḍāʾ attacks a series of elements representative of the method adopted by Arab grammarians in dealing with such contents: the concept of government (ʿamal), the analogical reasoning (qiyās), the concealment of linguistic elements (ʾiḍmār), the secondary and tertiary causes (ʿilal ṯawānin wa-ṯawāliṯ). The present paper analyses the effective originality of his invective, comparing it to some ideas expressed by Eastern grammarians, especially those belonging to the Kūfan tradition, showing the main points of analogy.

Editorial: Advances in understanding megaliths and related prehistoric lithic monuments

Standing stones and megalithic monuments are impressive remains from a remote prehistoric world that for the British Isles began some 6000 years ago and led to a cultural flowering that peaked in the Late Neolithic and Early Bronze Age with the rise of fine megalithic monuments like Newgrange, Knowth, Drombeg, Maeshowe, Avebury and Stonehenge. Nearby on the European continent, what may be called an era involving megalithic culture had begun a few centuries earlier (as at Carnac and Locmariaquer), and still earlier in the Mediterranean lands and islands (e.g., the Tarxien Temple in Malta), south-eastern Europe, the Near and Middle East, and India beyond.

Using high-resolution multitemporal imagery to highlight severe land management changes in Mediterranean vineyards

Mediterranean vineyards are subjected to drastic changes due to socio-economic, physical and environmental drivers. Whereas global trends affecting the evolution of Mediterranean land cover are well-known, their descriptions at a fine spatial scale, i.e., a plot level of several decametres, and over long time periods are still underexplored. This lack of exploration persists despite the increase in multitemporal imagery at fine resolutions. As scale and stakeholders are often correlated, we hypothesize that monitoring land cover at fine spatial and temporal scale would help understanding the local drivers shaping landscapes. To that end, we exploited a database of aerial pictures to obtain classified and vectorized land uses at the field level during the past five decades of a large watershed. The land uses were analyzed to detect changes at the field level considering the evolution of vineyard management. Changes in land management were synthesized in transition matrices expressing gains, losses and swaps for each land use category and illustrated using chord and Sankey diagrams. The results showed both a change in land management through a severe transformation of vineyards areas, from goblet to trellised vineyards, during the 1980s and a progressive evolution of land uses from vineyards to urban areas, arboriculture areas and arable lands. This transformation resulted from the local policies on vineyard replanting and the arrival of mechanization.

Boire l’horizon : l’essai méditerranéen selon Jacques Lacarrière

Jacques Lacarriere was Lawrence Durrell’s friend and they shared a passion for Mediterranean countries, espacially Greece and Egypt. Lacarriere apprehended spaces by walking, and his texts–his essay, L’Ete Grec, as well as his translations from Herodote and Pausanias—are shaped by this bodily relationship to Mediterranean lands. This essay will explore Lacarriere’s immanent style as a mode of description of Mediterranean lands that can be compared to Durrell’s, Albert Camus’ and Herbert Zbigniew’s own empiric writing, but remains singular, since it is based on sensual and sensitive experiences.

Understanding of the Geomorphological Elements in Discrimination of Typical Mediterranean Land Cover Types

Quantification of geomorphometric features is the keystone concern of the current study. The quantification was based on the statistical approach in term of multivariate analysis of local topographic features. The implemented algorithm utilizes the Digital Elevation Model (DEM) to categorize and extract the geomorphometric features embedded in the topographic dataset. The morphological settings were exercised on the central pixel of 3x3 per-defined convolution kernel to evaluate the surrounding pixels under the right directional pour point model (D8) of the azimuth viewpoints. Realization of unsupervised classification algorithm in term of Iterative Self-Organizing Data Analysis Technique (ISODATA) was carried out on ASTER GDEM within the boundary of the designated study area to distinguish 10 morphometric classes. The morphometric classes expressed spatial distribution variation in the study area. The adopted methodology is successful to appreciate the spatial distribution of the geomorphometric features under investigation. The conducted results verified the superimposition of the delineated geomorphometric elements over a given remote sensing imagery to be further analyzed. Robust relationship between different Land Cover types and the geomorphological elements was established in the context of the study area. The domination and the relative association of different Land Cover types in corresponding to its geomorphological elements were demonstrated.

Editorial: Advances in understanding megaliths and related prehistoric lithic monuments

Standing stones and megalithic monuments are impressive remains from a remote prehistoric world that for the British Isles began some 6000 years ago and led to a cultural flowering that peaked in the Late Neolithic and Early Bronze Age with the rise of fine megalithic monuments like Newgrange, Knowth, Drombeg, Maeshowe, Avebury and Stonehenge. Nearby on the European continent, what may be called an era involving megalithic culture had begun a few centuries earlier (as at Carnac and Locmariaquer), and still earlier in the Mediterranean lands and islands (e.g., the Tarxien Temple in Malta), south-eastern Europe, the Near and Middle East, and India beyond.

Mediterranean land systems: Representing diversity and intensity of complex land systems in a dynamic region

In the Mediterranean region, land systems have been shaped gradually through centuries. They provide services to a large and growing population in a region that is among the most vulnerable to future global change. The spatial extent and distribution of Mediterranean land systems is, however, unknown. In this paper, we present a new, expert-based classification of Mediterranean land systems, representing landscapes as integrated social-ecological systems. We combined data on land cover, management intensity and livestock available on the European and global scale in a geographic information system based approach. We put special emphasis on agro-silvo-pastoral mosaic systems: multifunctional Mediterranean landscapes hosting different human activities that are not represented in common land cover maps. By analyzing location conditions of the identified land systems, we demonstrated the significance of both bio-physical (precipitation, soil) and socio-economic (population density, market influence) factors driving the occurrence of these systems. Agro-silvo-pastoral mosaic systems were estimated to cover 23.3% of the Mediterranean ecoregion and exhibited to a certain extent similar characteristics as forest and cropland systems. A reanalysis using data that are available with global coverage indicated that the choice of datasets leads to significant uncertainties in the extent and spatial pattern of these systems. The resulting land systems typology can be used to prioritize and protect landscapes of high cultural and environmental significance.

Early evidence for a virus-like agent infecting the pest snail Theba pisana (Gastropoda: Pulmonata) in Southern Italy.

The Mediterranean land snail Theba pisana (Mollusca: Helicidae) is an introduced agricultural pest in many countries around the world, including Australia, Israel, USA and South Africa. In addition, this snail is an intermediate host of parasites of importance in both human and veterinary medicine. In this study, a natural population of T. pisana snails on the Domitian coast of Italy was surveyed following a mass mortality event. By light microscopy, 30% of the collected individuals showed in the calcium cells of the digestive gland the presence of hypertrophied nuclei containing eosinophilic to weakly basophilic inclusion bodies. Ultrastructural examination by transmission electron microscopy (TEM) showed nuclear inclusions constituted by a reticulated stroma into which unenveloped, roundish virus-like particles (38±4nm in diameter) were present. To the best of our knowledge this could be the first evidence for a virus-like agent infecting the gastropod T. pisana, which may open new biocontrol perspectives of the this pest worldwide.

A model for field-based evidences of the impact of irrigation on carbonates in the tilled layer of semi-arid Mediterranean soils

Carbonates constitute a significant proportion of the soil mass in many semi-arid soils. Due to their solubility, they can be affected by changes in the soil water regime. This needs to be taken into account when assessing the environmental and agronomical impacts of the adoption of irrigation. To gain knowledge on the importance of the effect of irrigation on carbonates dynamics in the tilled layer (0–20cm) of agricultural soils, we conducted a two-step study embracing field observations and numerical simulation. First, carbonates storage and their size distribution were quantified for two different situations (irrigation and non-irrigation) in three irrigation districts with different time under irrigation (Valtierra (19years), Miranda (5years) and Funes (12years)) in Navarre (Spain). Soil sampling was designed to ensure homogeneous comparisons in the most characteristic soil types at each site (Xeric Haplocalcid, Typic Calcixerept and Xeric Haplocalcid, respectively). Carbonates concentration was systematically lower with irrigation in the finest (<50μm) soil fraction: 22.2±1.4g carbonates 100g−1 fraction without irrigation for 16.1±0.9 with irrigation in Valtierra, 26.7±1.1 for 19.1±3.8 in Miranda and 27.8±2.9 for 22.7±1.5 at Funes1. However, the net annual balance of total carbonates-C between irrigated and non-irrigated condition was neutral at the three sites. This can be explained by agricultural management affecting carbonates in the sand-size fraction, including the addition of carbonates with fertilizers, and coarse carbonate particles brought to the surface by tillage.In a second step, a simplified model was developed for use with easily available data in most irrigation districts, and numerical simulations of the geochemical interactions between the soil, the soil solution and irrigation water were run using actual soil and soil solution data from the tilled layer of another pair of plots in Funes (Funes2). Sensitive analysis was also conducted to investigate the potential impact of water quality and crop types as sources of variability on the model outputs. The modelling results showed annual values of carbonates-C loss in the range between 13.52 and 12.06gm−2year−1 in the studied depth under irrigation, depending on the quality of irrigation water, for 0.46gm−2 without irrigation. These data were within the range of carbonates budgets found in the literature but one order of magnitude lower than the observed results in the fine fraction in the field. Overall, our results showed that irrigation can significantly alter carbonates dynamics in semi-arid Mediterranean land, which implies that human use can significantly alter the mineral phase of these soils in a relatively short time lapse. Simple geochemical models can be a useful approach to evaluate changes in the carbonates balance at the local and regional scale when irrigation is applied, although they have to be improved to account for other factors related to agricultural management and local geochemical conditions.

The potential of native species as bioenergy crops on trace-element contaminated Mediterranean lands

The establishment of energy crops could be an option for the management of degraded and contaminated lands, where they would not compete with food production for land use. Here, we aimed to explore the potential of certain native Mediterranean species for the revegetation of contaminated lands for energy production purposes. A field survey was conducted in a trace-element (TE) contaminated area from SW Spain, where the patterns of biomass production, TE accumulation and the calorific value of some thistle species were analyzed along a soil contamination gradient. In a greenhouse experiment the response of two thistle species (Cynara cardunculus and Silybum marianum) and the shrub Dittrichia viscosa to soil contamination was assessed, as well as the effects of these species on some soil microbial parameters involved in nutrient cycling (enzyme activities and arbuscular mycorrhizal colonization in roots). Silybum marianum was able to colonize highly contaminated soils. Its aboveground biomass accumulated Cd and had a relatively high calorific value; this value was similar in biomass obtained from both heavily and moderately contaminated soils. Greenhouse experiment confirmed that S. marianum biomass production and calorific value is scarcely affected by soil contamination. In addition, some soil enzyme activities were clearly enhanced in the S. marianum rhizosphere. Dittrichia viscosa is another promising species, given its capacity to produce a high biomass with appreciable calorific value in acid contaminated soils. Germination of both species was hampered in the acid contaminated soil, and therefore soil pH correction would have to be accomplished before establishing these species on extremely acid soils. Further assessment of the risk of transfer of Cd and other TE to the food chain would be needed to confirm the suitability of these species for the revegetation of contaminated lands with energy production purposes.

A novel GIS-based approach to assess beekeeping suitability of Mediterranean lands.

Honeybees are critically important for the environment and to the economy. However, there are in substantial decline worldwide, leading to serious threat to the stability and yield of food crops. Beekeeping is of pivotal importance, combining the wide economical aspect of honey production and the important ecological services provided by honeybees. In this scenario, the prompt identification of beekeeping areas is strategic, since it maximised productivity and lowered the risks of colony losses. Fuzzy logic is an ideal approach for problem-solving tasks, as it is specifically designed to manage problems with a high degree of uncertainty. This research tested a novel GIS-based approach to assess beekeeping suitability of lands located in Calabria (Southern Italy), without relying to Analytic Hierarchy Process – Multiple Criteria Decision Making (AHP-MCDM), thus avoiding the constraints due to the technique and decision makers’ influences. Furthermore, the data used here were completely retrieved from open access sources, highlighting that our approach is characterized by low costs and can be easily reproduced for a wide arrays of geographical contexts. Notably, the results obtained by our experiments were validated by the actual beekeeping reality. Besides beekeeping, the use of this system could not only be applied in beekeeping land suitability evaluations, but may be successfully extended to other types of land suitability evaluations.

A system to evaluate fire impacts from simulated fire behavior in Mediterranean areas of Central Chile.

Wildfires constitute the greatest economic disruption to Mediterranean ecosystems, from a socio-economic and ecological perspective (Molina et al., 2014). This study proposes to classify fire intensity levels based on potential fire behavior in different types of Mediterranean vegetation types, using two geographical scales. The study considered >4 thousand wildfires over a period of 25years, identifying fire behavior on each event, based on simulations using "KITRAL", a model developed in Chile in 1993 and currently used in the entire country. Fire intensity values allowed results to be classified into six fire effects categories (levels), each of them with field indicators linking energy values with damage related to burned vegetation and wildland urban interface zone. These indicators also facilitated a preliminary assessment of wildfire impact on different Mediterranean land uses and, are therefore, a useful tool to prioritize future interventions.

Climate change: The 2015 Paris Agreement thresholds and Mediterranean basin ecosystems.

The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change Paris Agreement of December 2015 aims to maintain the global average warming well below 2°C above the preindustrial level. In the Mediterranean basin, recent pollen-based reconstructions of climate and ecosystem variability over the past 10,000 years provide insights regarding the implications of warming thresholds for biodiversity and land-use potential. We compare scenarios of climate-driven future change in land ecosystems with reconstructed ecosystem dynamics during the past 10,000 years. Only a 1.5°C warming scenario permits ecosystems to remain within the Holocene variability. At or above 2°C of warming, climatic change will generate Mediterranean land ecosystem changes that are unmatched in the Holocene, a period characterized by recurring precipitation deficits rather than temperature anomalies.

Mediterranean Land Use and Land Cover Classification Assessment Using High Spatial Resolution Data

Landscape fragmentation is noticeably practiced in Mediterranean regions and imposes substantial complications in several satellite image classification methods. To some extent, high spatial resolution data were able to overcome such complications. For better classification performances in Land Use Land Cover (LULC) mapping, the current research adopts different classification methods comparison for LULC mapping using Sentinel-2 satellite as a source of high spatial resolution. Both of pixel-based and an object-based classification algorithms were assessed; the pixel-based approach employs Maximum Likelihood (ML), Artificial Neural Network (ANN) algorithms, Support Vector Machine (SVM), and, the object-based classification uses the Nearest Neighbour (NN) classifier. Stratified Masking Process (SMP) that integrates a ranking process within the classes based on spectral fluctuation of the sum of the training and testing sites was implemented. An analysis of the overall and individual accuracy of the classification results of all four methods reveals that the SVM classifier was the most efficient overall by distinguishing most of the classes with the highest accuracy. NN succeeded to deal with artificial surface classes in general while agriculture area classes, and forest and semi-natural area classes were segregated successfully with SVM. Furthermore, a comparative analysis indicates that the conventional classification method yielded better accuracy results than the SMP method overall with both classifiers used, ML and SVM.

Simulating climate change and land use effects on soil nitrous oxide emissions in Mediterranean conditions using the Daycent model

In Mediterranean agroecosystems, limited information exists about possible impacts of climate change on soil N2O emissions under different land uses. This paper presents a modelling study with a dual objective. Firstly, the biogeochemical Daycent model was evaluated to predict soil N2O emissions in different land uses in a typical Mediterranean agroecosystem. Secondly, the study aimed to determine the impact of climate change on soil N2O emissions in different Mediterranean land uses over an 85-year period. Soil N2O emissions were measured in three land uses (cropland, abandoned land and afforested land) over 18 months (December 2011 to June 2013) in a characteristic Mediterranean site in Spain. For climate change simulations, Daycent was run with and without atmospheric CO2 enrichment using climate data from the CGCM2-A2 model. The cumulative N2O emissions predicted by the Daycent model agreed well with the observed values. The lack of fit (LOFIT) and the relative error (E) statistics determined that the model error was not greater than the error in the measurements and that the bias in the simulation values was lower than the 95% confidence interval of the measurements. For the different land uses and climate scenarios, annual cumulative N2O emissions ranged from 126 to 642gN2O-Nha−1 yr−1. Over the simulated 85-year period, climate change decreased soil N2O emissions in all three land uses. At the same time, under climate change, water filled pore space (WFPS) values decreased between 4% and 15% depending on the land use and climate change scenario considered. This study demonstrated the ability of the Daycent model to simulate soil N2O emissions in different land uses. According to model predictions, in Mediterranean conditions, climate change would lead to reduced N2O emissions in a range of land uses.

A breaking down of the Mediterranean diet in the land where it was discovered. A cross sectional survey among the young generation of adolescents in the heart of Cilento, Southern Italy.

To investigate dietary habits among young people in the Mediterranean lands, exactly where the health benefits of the Mediterranean diet (MD) were discovered by Ancel Keys. A cross-sectional study design. A 10-items food-frequency questionnaire was administered to 1117 students in the schools of the Cilento area. Adherence to the MD was appraised according to a scale of 0-10. A logistic regression model was used to identify possible factors associated with "Following an unhealthy diet". Results were expressed as Odds Ratio with 95% confidence interval and the level of significance was set at p<0.05. A percentage of 63.8 reached a score under six, indicating that the majority of the students did not respect the rules of the Mediterranean diet and only 36.2% (n. 371) exceeded a score of 6 adhering to it in varying degrees. At the logistic regression analysis smokers resulted to be affected by almost a double risk of getting away from the Mediterranean dietary pattern (OR = 1.93; CI 95% 1.44-2.57); on the contrary, those with a higher PCS12 (Physical Component Summary score) were in a lower risk to move away from the MD style (OR = 0.98; 95% CI = 0.96-0.99). Despite its increasing popularity worldwide, adherence to the MD model is decreasing. The new generation of young people does not adhere to the MD pattern although they live in the lands characterized by the tradition and culture of healthy diet and where the benefits from this pattern were initially discovered. Interventions and specific education about the healthy diet may be useful to recover student's dietary patterns as in the old eating tradition.

Use of expressed sequence tag microsatellite markers for exploring genetic diversity in lentil and related wild species

SUMMARYExpressed sequence tag-simple sequence repeat (EST-SSR) markers were used to analyse genetic diversity among three Lens species. The SSR loci amplified successfully in wild species, with 94·82% transferability in Lens culinaris subsp. orientalis, 95·4% in Lens nigricans, 98·81% in L. culinaris subsp. odemensis, 94·82% in L. culinaris subsp. tomentosus and 96·55% in Lens ervoides. Ninety-nine alleles (average 3·41 alleles/locus) were detected by 29 SSR markers. Based on the unweighted pair group method with arithmetic mean cluster analysis, all the genotypes were grouped into three clusters at a similarity level of 0·30. The diversity analysis indicated no species-specific clustering of the wild and cultivated species. Wild species L. nigricans and L. culinaris subsp. odemensis, L. culinaris subsp. orientalis and L. ervoides were grouped in Cluster I, whereas the Mediterranean land races of L. culinaris subsp. culinaris and L. culinaris subsp. tomentosus formed a separate group in Cluster II A. Cluster II B comprised L. ervoides, L. culinaris subsp. orientalis and L. culinaris subsp. culinaris. Clusters II C, II D and II F included cultivated Indian lentil genotypes. Cluster II E comprised Indian and Mediterranean germplasm lines. Cluster II F included three early maturing germplasm lines, whereas Cluster III included only two germplasm lines. The functional annotation of SSR-containing unigenes revealed that a majority of genes were involved in an important transport-related function or were a component of metabolic pathways. A high level of polymorphism of EST-SSRs and their transferability to related wild species indicated that these markers could be used for molecular screening, map construction, comparative genomic studies and marker-assisted selection.

From medieval Dar al-Islam to contemporary Malta: raḥl toponymy in a wider western Mediterranean context.

The diffusion of raḥl placenames in Andalus and the islands of Majorca, Sicily and Malta in the High Middle Ages has long been noted, studied, and served as the subject of scholarly debate. With the transition of these western Mediterranean lands from Islam to Christianity in the wake of the Iberian Reconquista and the establishment of the Norman Kingdom of Sicily, the raḥl did not disappear, but rather became a staple of Christian colonization records in Majorca and Sicily. The same cross-cultural process extends to the example of Malta, where the survival of an Arabic dialect arguably assisted the retention of the raḥl as a living model for placenaming. The paper argues that the raḥl toponym, originally representing a small-scale and individual unit, lent itself particularly well in the insular contexts of the medieval Christian expansion, fitting flexibly in the wider framework of cultural hybridization.

Studies on the shallow wadies of the Mareotis sector of the Mediterranean coastal land of Egypt: Floristic features of Wadi Hashem

Studies on the shallow wadies of the Mareotis sector of the Mediterranean coastal land of Egypt: Floristic features of Wadi Hashem

Perennial Grass Production Opportunities on Marginal Mediterranean Land

An increasing global awareness that the supply and security of petroleum-based materials is diminishing, coupled with environmental concerns related to climate change, water availability, and soil degradation, has increased demand for more renewable, diversified, and sustainable agricultural production systems. The objective of this work was to determine if a biogenic approach, focused on producing perennial grasses on marginal Mediterranean land as feedstock for bioenergy or bio-based products, could reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions without depleting soil nutrients, water supplies, or negatively impacting biological and landscape diversity. This study, funded by European Union (EU), was conducted under project optimization of perennial grasses for biomass production (OPTIMA) using environmental impact assessment (EIA) protocols to quantify local environmental impacts of producing perennial grasses, in the Mediterranean region. Different end uses were investigated and biogenic products were compared with conventional ones. The EIA assessment indicated that the biogenic system had low erodibility potential, reduced disturbance of soil properties, and minimal hydrological impacts. Less tillage and high biomass production supported biological and landscape diversity, but site-specific factors should be used to appropriately match the specific crop and location. We conclude that producing perennial grasses on marginal Mediterranean land is feasible and if appropriately managed will have relatively few environmental side effects.