Mediterranean biomes are biodiversity hotspots, and vineyards are important components of the Mediterranean landscape. Over the last few decades, the amount of land occupied by vineyards has ...augmented rapidly, thereby increasing threats to Mediterranean ecosystems. Land use change and agricultural management have important effects on soil biodiversity, because they change the physical and chemical properties of soil. These changes may also have consequences on wine production considering that soil is a key component of
. Here, we describe the taxonomic diversity and metabolic functions of bacterial and fungal communities present in forest and vineyard soils in Chile. To accomplish this goal, we collected soil samples from organic vineyards in central Chile and employed a shotgun metagenomic approach to sequence the microbial DNA. Additionally, we studied the surrounding native forest to obtain a baseline of the soil conditions in the area prior to the establishment of the vineyard. Our metagenomic analyses revealed that both habitats shared most of the soil microbial species. The most abundant genera in the two habitats were the bacteria
and
and the fungus
. Our results suggest that the soil microbial communities are similar in these forests and vineyards. Therefore, we hypothesize that native forests surrounding the vineyards may be acting as a microbial reservoir buffering the effects of the land conversion. Regarding the metabolic diversity, we found that genes pertaining to the metabolism of amino acids, fatty acids, and nucleotides as well as genes involved in secondary metabolism were enriched in forest soils. On the other hand, genes related to miscellaneous functions were more abundant in vineyard soils. These results suggest that the metabolic function of microbes found in these habitats differs, though differences are not related to taxonomy. Finally, we propose that the implementation of environmentally friendly practices by the wine industry may help to maintain the microbial diversity and ecosystem functions associated with natural habitats.
Open spaces in cities, such as green spaces and parks, are key elements of urban landscapes and urban sustainability. Open spaces improve the quality of the environment, quality of life, and promote ...social interaction and inclusion. There is evidence of positive impacts on health. This research analyses the potential accessibility to open spaces in two Chilean cities, Valdivia and Temuco. Analysis of accessibility is based on patterns of daily mobility by travelers while considering their trips and transport modes, in particular walking. Statistical analysis of trip length forms the basis of an adaptive threshold for the calculation of a cumulative potential measure of accessibility. The analysis shows that, for these two cities, variations in accessibility tend to be driven by age and gender, and less by income. There are also variations between the two cities, with Temuco showing better levels of accessibility, as a consequence of residents generally undertaking longer walking trips.
•Urban green spaces are key elements of urban sustainability.•Accessibility to urban green spaces in two medium-size Chilean cities are investigated.•Accessibility was measured based on travel behavior model.•Differentials in accessibility to urban green spaces in Temuco and Valdivia are detected, by locality, age, gender and income.•Most interactions of accessibility are produced by age in comparison to gender.
There is mounting evidence that urban areas influence biodiversity. Generalizations however require that multiple urban areas on multiple continents be examined. Here we evaluated the role of urban ...areas on avian diversity for a South American city, allowing us to examine the effects of urban features common worldwide, using the city of Valdivia, Chile as case study. We assessed the number of birds and their relative abundance in 152 grid cells of equal size (250 m2) distributed across the city. We estimated nine independent variables: land cover diversity (DC), building density (BD), impervious surface (IS),municipal green space (MG),non-municipal green space (NG), domestic garden space (DG), distance to the periphery (DP), social welfare index (SW), and vegetation diversity (RV). Impervious surface represent 41.8% of the study area, while municipal green, non-municipal green and domestic garden represent 11.6%, 23.6% and 16% of the non- man made surface. Exotic vegetation species represent 74.6% of the total species identified across the city. We found 32 bird species, all native with the exception of House Sparrow and Rock Pigeon. The most common species were House Sparrow and Chilean Swallow. Total bird richness responds negatively to IS and MG, while native bird richness responds positively to NG and negatively to BD, IS DG and, RV. Total abundance increase in areas with higher values of DC and BD, and decrease in areas of higher values of IS, SW and VR. Native bird abundance responds positively to NG and negatively to BD, IS MG, DG and RV. Our results suggest that not all the general patterns described in previous studies, conducted mainly in the USA, Europe, and Australia, can be applied to Latin American cities, having important implications for urban planning. Conservation efforts should focus on non-municipal areas, which harbor higher bird diversity, while municipal green areas need to be improved to include elements that can enhance habitat quality for birds and other species. These findings are relevant for urban planning in where both types of green space need to be considered, especially non-municipal green areas, which includes wetlands, today critically threatened by urban development.
Green spaces play a crucial role in supporting urban ecological and social systems, a fact recognised in public policy commitments in both the UK and Europe. The amount of provision, the distribution ...of green space and the ease of access to such spaces are key contributors to social and ecological function in urban environments. We measured distance along the transport network to public green space available to households in Sheffield, and compared this with the distribution of private garden space. In addition, we used a geodemographic database, Mosaic UK, to examine how access to green space varies across different sectors of society. Public green spaces are chronically underprovided relative to recommended targets. For example, 64% of Sheffield households fail to meet the recommendation of the regulatory agency English Nature (EN), that people should live no further than 300
m from their nearest green space. Moreover, this figure rises to 72% if we restrict attention to municipal parks recognised by the local council. There is an overall reduction in coverage by green space when moving from neighbourhoods where green space is primarily publicly provided to those where it is privately provided. While access to public green space varies significantly across different social groups, those enjoying the greatest access include more deprived groups and older people. This study highlights the need for additional green space to be created and existing green space to be protected in light of increasing development pressure.
Summary
While there are substantial studies suggesting that characteristics of wine are related to regional microbial community composition (microbial terroir), there has been little discussion about ...what factors affect variation in regional microbial community composition. In this study, we compared the microbial community composition of leaves and berries of a grape variety (Carmenere) from six different Chilean vineyards within 35 km of each other. In order to determine relationships between spatial proximity and microbial compositional dissimilarity, we sequenced amplicons of the internal transcribed spacer (ITS) region for fungi and 16S rRNA gene for bacteria. Results showed that both the fungal and the bacterial community compositions of the studied vineyards differed, but this difference was much clearer in fungi than in bacteria. In addition, while bacterial community dissimilarity was not correlated with geographic distance, the leaf and berry fungal community dissimilarities between locations increased with geographic distance. This indicates that spatial processes play an important role in structuring the biogeographic pattern of grape‐associated fungal communities at local scales, which might in turn contribute to the local identity of wine.
Households across the developed world cumulatively spend many millions of dollars annually on feeding garden birds. While beneficial effects on avian assemblages are frequently claimed, the ...relationships between levels of garden bird feeding and local avian populations are unknown. Using data from a large UK city, we show that both avian species richness and abundance vary across different socioeconomic neighbourhood types. We examined whether patterns in bird feeding could explain this variation. The density of bird feeding stations across the urban environment was strongly positively related to avian abundance, after controlling for differences in habitat availability. This effect was almost exclusively driven by the abundance of those species known to utilize garden feeding stations frequently. In contrast, the density of feeding stations had no effect on avian species richness. We also examined variation in the proportion of households in different communities that provide food for birds, a factor that is not correlated with feeder density. The prevalence of bird feeding across different neighbourhoods declined as socioeconomic deprivation increased, and increased with avian species richness and abundance. Our results suggest that the provision of supplementary food for birds by multiple landowners across a city can impact the status of urban bird populations. The potential for harnessing these actions for conservation needs to be explored.
Climate change is projected to be the most extensive human-induced disturbance to occur on natural ecosystems, inducing changes in different biodiversity features including the evolutionary history ...of a region through the decline and loss of its phylogenetic diversity. Amphibians, given their ectothermic life cycle and critical conservation status, would potentially be exposed to extinction processes under conditions of climate change, with the corresponding loss of evolutionary history in regions of high biodiversity. This research addresses the effects of climate change on the evolutionary history of amphibians in the Chilean Biodiversity Hotspot, by estimating the PD (Phylogenetic diversity) and PE (Phylogenetic endemism) of 27 species. Using different RCP (RCP 4.5 and 8.5) and time frames (years 2050 and 2070), we create species distribution models (SDM) to evaluate the species range dynamics and the phylodiversity in the Hotspot. Also, given that Protected Areas (PA) are the main global strategy to ensure the conservation of species and their features, we evaluate the capacity of PA to conserve the evolutionary history in the Hotspot. Our results show a set of modeled species that will become extinct, or will experiment changes in their distributional ranges, inducing a clear decline of amphibian evolutionary history for the next 30 to 50 years, and a worrying low capacity of the PA to contain current and future PD and PE. Given the critical amphibian scenario, our results highlight the need for further research to improve the decision-making process in the hotspot area addressing the potential amphibian extinction risk, the lack of protection by the PA system, and the loss of evolutionary history as a key aspect of biodiversity.
Agriculture is one of the main drivers of land conversion, and agriculture practices can impact on microbial diversity. Here we characterized the phyllosphere fungal diversity associated with ...Carménère grapevines under conventional and organic agricultural management. We also explored the fungal diversity present in the adjacent sclerophyllous forests to explore the potential role of native forest on vineyard phyllosphere. After conducting D2 and ITS2 amplicon sequencing, we found that fungal diversity indices did not change between conventional and organic vineyards, but community structure was sensitive to the agricultural management. On the other hand, we found a high proportion of shared fungal OTUs between vineyards and native forests. In addition, both habitats had similar levels of fungal diversity despite forest samples were derived from multiple plant species. In contrast, the community structure was different in both habitats. Interestingly, the native forest had more unidentified species and unique OTUs than vineyards. Forest dominant species were
and
, whereas
,
, and
were more abundant in vineyards. Overall, this study argues that a better understanding of the relationship native forests and agroecosystems is needed for maintaining and enhancing ecosystem services provided by natural ecosystems. Finally, knowledge of microbial communities living in the Chilean Mediterranean biome is needed for appropriate conservation management of these biomes and their classification as biodiversity hotspots.
Academics and policy-makers recognize that humans and nature should be studied and managed as integrated social–ecological systems. Recently, the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on ...Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) approved the Summary for Policy-makers of the
Regional and Subregional Assessment of Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services for the Americas
, concluding the environment should be mainstreamed across development sectors. Beyond its mandate to generate understanding of nature and human well-being from diverse knowledge sources, IPBES is also tasked with advancing science-policy tools to aide information uptake into decisions. Based on the
Americas Assessment
’s 3-year, continental-scale experience, we developed three strategies to guide decisions regarding nature’s contributions to people (NCP) for achieving the sustainable development goals (SDGs). Specifically, we prioritized contributions, recognized nature’s plural values, and grouped diverse human–nature relationships to orient attention towards important NCP–SDG linkages, expand the suite of environment–development criteria considered, and create bundles to facilitate the incorporation of complexity into decisions.
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