scholarly journals Distribution of Testudo graeca in the western Mediterranean according to climatic factors

2012 ◽  
Vol 33 (2) ◽  
pp. 285-296 ◽  
Author(s):  
José Daniel Anadón ◽  
Andrés Giménez ◽  
Eva Graciá ◽  
Irene Pérez ◽  
Marcos Ferrández ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
North Africa ◽  
Climatic Factors ◽  
Western Mediterranean ◽  
Climatic Conditions ◽  
Distribution Model ◽  
Southern Europe ◽  
North African ◽  
Mediterranean Islands ◽  
Testudo Graeca ◽  
The North

Despite being one of the most charismatic elements of the Mediterranean Basin fauna and its threatened status, the western Mediterranean range of Testudo graeca is at present very poorly known. The present work provides the most detailed geographical and ecological description for the North African clade of T. graeca so far. We gathered 283 occurrence data of T. graeca in North Africa and modelled the distribution by means of presence-only distribution modelling tools. The obtained model was then projected to southern Europe in order to explore whether the environmental characteristics of European populations fall into the predicted niche of the species in North Africa. T. graeca showed a wide environmental range in North Africa. Presence localities ranged from the sea level to 2090 m of altitude and from 116 to 1093 mm of annual precipitation. The presence-only model indicates that distribution in North Africa is mainly related to rainfall, specifically rainfall values in the wettest and coldest quarter of the year. The distribution model showed a range of ca. 1 000 000 km2. The projection of the model to southern Europe showed that the southern Iberian and Balkan Peninsulas, as well as most Mediterranean islands, present climatic conditions within those found in the range of the species in North Africa.

Mitochondrial phylogeography of Testudo graeca in the Western Mediterranean: Old complex divergence in North Africa and recent arrival in Europe

2009 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
pp. 63-80 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrés Giménez Casalduero ◽  
Rachid Rouag ◽  
Tarek Jdeidi ◽  
Soumia Fahd ◽  
Anna Hundsdörfer ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
North Africa ◽  
Western Mediterranean ◽  
North African ◽  
Testudo Graeca ◽  
Near Eastern ◽  
The North ◽  
Late Tertiary ◽  
Western Morocco ◽  
Recent Arrival ◽  
Eastern Morocco

AbstractWe investigated the mitochondrial phylogeography of spur-thighed tortoises (Testudo graeca) in the Western Mediterranean. In North Africa, four major lineages (A-D) occur that together constitute a well-supported clade corresponding to one of the six major clades within T. graeca; the North African clade is sister to a Caucasian clade representing the subspecies T. g. armeniaca. Phylogenetic relationships between the North African lineages are badly resolved. Lineage A is distributed in Tunisia and adjacent Algeria, lineage B in Algeria and northern Morocco, lineage C in the Libyan Cyrenaica Peninsula, and lineage D north of the High Atlas Mts. and in the Souss Valley (southern Morocco). Lineage B is subdivided into two subgroups, B1 (eastern Morocco and Algeria) and B2 (north-western Morocco). Italian tortoises harbour haplotypes of lineage A, Spanish tortoises of subgroup B1. Based on a relaxed molecular clock calibrated with fossil evidence, the six major mtDNA clades of T. graeca are estimated to have diverged approximately 4.2-1.8 Ma ago; the split between the clades representing the eastern subspecies T. g. ibera and T. g. terrestris is younger than the split between Western Mediterranean tortoises and T. g. armeniaca. The Western Mediterranean lineages A-D were dated to have diverged at least 1.4-1.1 Ma ago; B1 and B2 split approximately 0.7 Ma ago. Our results suggest that Italian and Spanish tortoises were either introduced or originated from trans-oceanic dispersal in historic or prehistoric times. Spur-thighed tortoises invaded North Africa probably across Near Eastern landbridges that emerged in the Late Tertiary. Their diversification in North Africa seems to be correlated with habitat aridization cycles during the Pleistocene. The ranges of the Western Mediterranean lineages largely correspond to the distribution of morphologically defined subspecies in North Africa, with exception of T. g. graeca and T. g. whitei, and of T. g. lamberti and T. g. marokkensis, which are not differentiated. We propose to lump the first two subspecies under the name of T. g. graeca and the latter under the name of T. g. marokkensis. The complex differentiation of spur-thighed tortoises in North Africa implies that the model of a bipartite east-west differentiation, as proposed for other Maghrebian amphibians and reptiles, may be too simplistic, reflecting incomplete locality sampling rather than actual phylogeographic differentiation.

Apercu morphotectonique et paleogeographique du domaine calabro-lucanien (Italie meridionale)

1961 ◽  
Vol S7-III (6) ◽  
pp. 610-618 ◽  
Author(s):  
Claude Grandjacquet
Keyword(s):  
North Africa ◽  
Structural Features ◽  
Western Mediterranean ◽  
Tectonic Deformation ◽  
North African ◽  
The South ◽  
African Region ◽  
Structural Pattern ◽  
The North ◽  
Upper Oligocene

Abstract In the region lying between Salerno and the Ofanto river on the north and Cetraro and the gulf of Tarento on the south and southeast, the south end of the Apennines merges into the structural pattern of the western Mediterranean region (southwestern Italy-Sicily-North Africa). After a cycle of sedimentation, tectonic deformation, and erosion extending from Triassic to upper Oligocene, a second cycle began in the late Oligocene and earliest Miocene. Mosaic faulting, in general based upon major structural features of the earlier cycle, occurred throughout the entire southern Italy-North African region. The age of the quartzite flysch remains unknown but is probably Jurassic-Cretaceous.

scholarly journals Identification and Characterization of the Most Common Genetic Variant Responsible for Acephalic Spermatozoa Syndrome in Men Originating from North Africa

2021 ◽  
Vol 22 (4) ◽  
pp. 2187
Author(s):  
Caroline Cazin ◽  
Yasmine Boumerdassi ◽  
Guillaume Martinez ◽  
Selima Fourati Ben Mustapha ◽  
Marjorie Whitfield ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Electron Microscopy ◽  
Transmission Electron Microscopy ◽  
North Africa ◽  
Posterior Part ◽  
North African ◽  
The North ◽  
Transmission Electron ◽  
Variant Filtering ◽  
North African Population ◽  
Sperm Nuclei

Acephalic spermatozoa syndrome (ASS) is a rare but extremely severe type of teratozoospermia, defined by the presence of a majority of headless flagella and a minority of tail-less sperm heads in the ejaculate. Like the other severe monomorphic teratozoospermias, ASS has a strong genetic basis and is most often caused by bi-allelic variants in SUN5 (Sad1 and UNC84 domain-containing 5). Using whole exome sequencing (WES), we investigated a cohort of nine infertile subjects displaying ASS. These subjects were recruited in three centers located in France and Tunisia, but all originated from North Africa. Sperm from subjects carrying candidate genetic variants were subjected to immunofluorescence analysis and transmission electron microscopy. Moreover, fluorescent in situ hybridization (FISH) was performed on sperm nuclei to assess their chromosomal content. Variant filtering permitted us to identify the same SUN5 homozygous frameshift variant (c.211+1_211+2dup) in 7/9 individuals (78%). SUN5 encodes a protein localized on the posterior part of the nuclear envelope that is necessary for the attachment of the tail to the sperm head. Immunofluorescence assays performed on sperm cells from three mutated subjects revealed a total absence of SUN5, thus demonstrating the deleterious impact of the identified variant on protein expression. Transmission electron microscopy showed a conserved flagellar structure and a slightly decondensed chromatin. FISH did not highlight a higher rate of chromosome aneuploidy in spermatozoa from SUN5 patients compared to controls, indicating that intra-cytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) can be proposed for patients carrying the c.211+1_211+2dup variant. These results suggest that the identified SUN5 variant is the main cause of ASS in the North African population. Consequently, a simple and inexpensive genotyping of the 211+1_211+2dup variant could be beneficial for affected men of North African origin before resorting to more exhaustive genetic analyses.

scholarly journals Courage and Cowardice in the North African Campaign: The Eighth Army and Defeat in the Summer of 1942

2013 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 99-122 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan Fennell
Keyword(s):  
North Africa ◽  
The State ◽  
The Other ◽  
Human Dimension ◽  
North African ◽  
The North ◽  
High Level ◽  
Eighth Army

High rates of desertion and surrender during the battles in North Africa in the summer of 1942 were a major factor in Eighth Army’s poor combat performance. At the time, some suggested that these problems were symptomatic of a lack of courage or even of cowardice. There are two broad strands to the conceptualization of courage and cowardice. One focuses on the willingness of the person to fight; the other puts emphasis on how actions express an individual’s ability to cope with fear. Whichever conceptualization is used, high morale motivates the soldier to fight and shields the ordinary recruit from his fear, preventing it from overcoming him in battle. Where morale fails, the soldier is left demotivated and burdened with his terror and, therefore, and is therefore prone to desertion or surrender. Because it is extremely difficult to maintain morale at a continuously high level in an environment governed by chance and managed by humans, all soldiers can find themselves in situations where their actions may be judged as cowardly. Alternatively, if they are properly motivated to fight and prepared by the state and military to deal with the unavoidable fear of combat, all soldiers can be labelled courageous. Accordingly, emotive terms should be avoided when attempting to describe rationally explainable outcomes. The undoubtedly negative connotations attached to cowardice in battle and the positive ones attached to courage are, therefore, arguably unhelpful in understanding Eighth Army’s performance in the summer of 1942 and the human dimension in warfare more generally.

scholarly journals The North African “Extremistan” of the Islamic State Caliphate

2016 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 10-13
Author(s):  
Adrian Cosmin Basarabă ◽  
Maria-Mihaela Nistor
Keyword(s):  
Middle East ◽  
Real Estate ◽  
North Africa ◽  
Islamic State ◽  
North African ◽  
Boko Haram ◽  
Ongoing Process ◽  
The North ◽  
Terrorist Groups ◽  
Cellular Matrices

Abstract This article aims at presenting ISIS expansion in North Africa in the first quarter of 2016, with its subsequent implication in the wider framework of Jihadist proliferation worldwide. It can be argued that, while losing real estate in the Middle East, ISIS has started a permanent search for extra-cellular matrices or an ongoing process of de- and reterritorialization. The allegiance and support pledged by other African-based terrorist groups or organizations such as Boko Haram, al-I’tisam of the Koran and Sunnah in Sudan, al-Huda Battalion in Maghreb of Islam, The Soldiers of the Caliphate, al-Ghurabaa, Djamaat Houmat ad-Da’wa as-Salafiya and al-Ansar Battalion in Algeria, Islamic Youth Shura Council, Islamic State Libya (Darnah), in Libya, Jamaat Ansar Bait al-Maqdis, Jund al-Khilafah and Mujahideen Shura Council in the Environs of Jerusalem in Egypt, Okba Ibn Nafaa Battalion, Mujahideen of Tunisia of Kairouan and Jund al-Khilafah in Tunisia and al-Shabaab Jubba Region Cell Bashir Abu Numan in Somalia is an alarming hypothesis of Jihadism reaching “the threshold of inevitability”- syntagm existent in the network theories of David Singh Grewal- turning a whole region, continent of even world into what Nassim Nicholas Taleb would call Extremistan.

Paths of Prayers in Ottoman North Africa

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 295-341
Author(s):  
Deniz Beyazit
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Ottoman Empire ◽  
North Africa ◽  
Complex Dynamics ◽  
North African ◽  
The North ◽  
Local Traditions ◽  
First Time ◽  
Visual Apparatus

Abstract This article discusses The Met’s unpublished Dalāʾil al-khayrāt—2017.301—(MS New York, TMMA 2017.301), together with a group of comparable manuscripts. The earliest known dated manuscript within the corpus, it introduces several iconographic elements that are new to the Dalāʾil, and which compare with the traditions developing in the Mashriq and the Ottoman world in particular. The article discusses Dalāʾil production in seventeenth-century North Africa and its development in the Ottoman provinces, Tunisia, and/or Algeria. The manuscripts illustrate how an Ottoman visual apparatus—among which the theme of the holy sanctuaries at Mecca and Medina, appearing for the first time in MS New York, TMMA 2017.301—is established for Muhammadan devotion in Maghribī Dalāʾils. The manuscripts belong to the broader historic, social, and artistic contexts of Ottoman North Africa. Our analysis captures the complex dynamics of Ottomanization of the North African provinces of the Ottoman Empire, remaining strongly rooted in their local traditions, while engaging with Ottoman visual idioms.

Decolonization and Migration

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maud S. Mandel
Keyword(s):  
North Africa ◽  
North African ◽  
Social Actors ◽  
The North ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
French Colonial ◽  
Colonial Policies ◽  
And Migration ◽  
Jewish Populations ◽  
The Way

This chapter builds on the link between French colonial policies and Muslim–Jewish relations in the metropole by tracing how decolonization throughout North Africa changed the way a diverse set of social actors, including French colonial administrators, international Jewish spokesmen, and a wide range of indigenous nationalist groups conceptualized Jewish belonging throughout the region. It argues that the process led to the emergence of the “North African Jew,” a category to which no individual ascribed but that worked rhetorically to unite the diverse Moroccan, Tunisian, and Algerian Jewish populations into a collective often understood to be in conflict with “North Africans,” “Muslims,” or “Arabs.”

Introducing the Oxford History of the Ancient Near East

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-26
Author(s):  
Karen Radner ◽  
Nadine Moeller ◽  
D. T. Potts
Keyword(s):  
Near East ◽  
Climatic Conditions ◽  
Ancient Near East ◽  
North African ◽  
Inter Tropical Convergence Zone ◽  
The North ◽  
Western Asia ◽  
History Of ◽  
Key Issues

With the emphasis of the Oxford History of the Ancient Near East firmly placed on the political, social, and cultural histories of the states and communities shaping Egypt and Western Asia (including the Levant, Anatolia, Mesopotamia, and Iran), this introduction to the five-volume series seeks to place the region in its environmental context. It discusses the lay of the land between the North African coast and the Hindu Kush, including the role of tectonics and geomorphology. It also considers some key issues regarding climatic conditions, focusing in particular on the significance of the Inter-Tropical Convergence Zone and the potential impact of megadroughts and pandemics.

A Collection of African Red Slip Ware in the Náprstek Museum

2017 ◽  
Vol 38 (2) ◽  
pp. 75-86
Author(s):  
Vlastimil Vrtal
Keyword(s):  
North Africa ◽  
Representative Sample ◽  
Ceramic Production ◽  
Pottery Production ◽  
North African ◽  
The North ◽  
Functional Types ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Late Roman

A group of six specimens of Late Roman pottery from the region of North Africa forms part of collections of the Náprstek Museum. The group comprises of vessels from several different functional types, forming a representative sample of the pottery production of the region. The paper discusses the setting of the individual vessels in the North African ceramic production, their dating, and provenance.

A new record of Tricholoma caligatum (Tricholomataceae) from North Africa with a discussion of related species

Phytotaxa ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 282 (2) ◽  
pp. 119
Author(s):  
MOUNIA BENAZZA-BOUREGBA ◽  
JEAN-MICHEL SAVOIE ◽  
ZOHRA FORTAS ◽  
CHRISTOPHE BILLETTE
Keyword(s):  
Molecular Markers ◽  
North Africa ◽  
New Record ◽  
Morphological Traits ◽  
Mixed Forest ◽  
Morphological Data ◽  
North African ◽  
Mediterranean Species ◽  
Molecular Analyses ◽  
The North

Among the Basidiomycota, matsutake are the most appreciated mushrooms in Japan. Some Tricholoma species belonging to matsutake group are exported from North Africa to Japan. Until the beginning of the 21st century, the North African ‘matsutake’ was identified as T. caligatum, which is a circum-Mediterranean species described in 1834. However, recent molecular analyses uncover some North African isolates as T. anatolicum, which is a species described from Turkey in 2003. As a result, the presence of T. caligatum in North Africa remained to be confirmed. We analyzed a recent specimen collected in Algeria from mixed forest and based on molecular and morphological data, we found that it belongs to T. caligatum, indicating the existence of two species in North Africa. Morphological traits and molecular markers are proposed here to easily distinguish these two species from each other. The concept of both the species and their respective geographic distributions are discussed.

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