scholarly journals Species introductions through coconut fibre

2021 ◽  
Vol 80 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Marcello Dante Cerrato ◽  
Arnau Ribas-Serra ◽  
Carles Cardona ◽  
Lorenzo Gil

Based on plant material collected in the forest nursery of the Balearic Island Forestry Center (CEFOR) for autochthonous plant production and the University of the Balearic Islands experimental facilities, two new plant records are presented for the Mediterranean island of Mallorca. Dactyloctenium aegyptium, an invasive grass previously recorded in other areas of the Mediterranean basin, and Glinus oppositifolius, a new record for the European flora. In both cases the species are presumed to have arrived through contaminated batches of the coconut fibre substrate used in both facilities.

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Weizhao Yang ◽  
Nathalie Feiner ◽  
Catarina Pinho ◽  
Geoffrey M. While ◽  
Antigoni Kaliontzopoulou ◽  
...  

AbstractThe Mediterranean basin is a hotspot of biodiversity, fuelled by climatic oscillation and geological change over the past 20 million years. Wall lizards of the genus Podarcis are among the most abundant, diverse, and conspicuous Mediterranean fauna. Here, we unravel the remarkably entangled evolutionary history of wall lizards by sequencing genomes of 34 major lineages covering 26 species. We demonstrate an early (>11 MYA) separation into two clades centred on the Iberian and Balkan Peninsulas, and two clades of Mediterranean island endemics. Diversification within these clades was pronounced between 6.5–4.0 MYA, a period spanning the Messinian Salinity Crisis, during which the Mediterranean Sea nearly dried up before rapidly refilling. However, genetic exchange between lineages has been a pervasive feature throughout the entire history of wall lizards. This has resulted in a highly reticulated pattern of evolution across the group, characterised by mosaic genomes with major contributions from two or more parental taxa. These hybrid lineages gave rise to several of the extant species that are endemic to Mediterranean islands. The mosaic genomes of island endemics may have promoted their extraordinary adaptability and striking diversity in body size, shape and colouration, which have puzzled biologists for centuries.


Author(s):  
Flavia Zaffora

In the Mediterranean basin, the archaeological presence is extremely relevant and diffuse. Together with this is a difficult intertwining with contemporary urban settlements, which archaeology, by tradition, has to be protected from. If conservation is the goal of restoration, the problem of the cohabitation between past and present use is still an issue. This paper will focus on the project of enhancement of the archaeological park of the Greek colony of Naxos, near Messina, in Sicily, led by the Department of Architecture of the University of Palermo in cooperation with the administrative head of the park. At the crossroads between the sea, the highway, a lemon orchard and the city of Giardini Naxos, the ancient Greek settlement could be an example of coexistence of the different layers composing the landscape, with the aim of making history and archaeology come to life as synchronous components of the contemporary fruition of the place.


Author(s):  
Joshua M. White

This book offers a comprehensive examination of the shape and impact of piracy in the eastern half of the Mediterranean and the Ottoman Empire’s administrative, legal, and diplomatic response. In the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, piracy had a tremendous effect on the formation of international law, the conduct of diplomacy, the articulation of Ottoman imperial and Islamic law, and their application in Ottoman courts. Piracy and Law draws on research in archives and libraries in Istanbul, Venice, Crete, London, and Paris to bring the Ottoman state and Ottoman victims into the story for the first time. It explains why piracy exploded after the 1570s and why the Ottoman state was largely unable to marshal an effective military solution even as it responded dynamically in the spheres of law and diplomacy. By focusing on the Ottoman victims, jurists, and officials who had to contend most with the consequences of piracy, Piracy and Law reveals a broader range of piratical practitioners than the Muslim and Catholic corsairs who have typically been the focus of study and considers their consequences for the Ottoman state and those who traveled through Ottoman waters. This book argues that what made the eastern half of the Mediterranean basin the Ottoman Mediterranean, more than sovereignty or naval supremacy—which was ephemeral—was that it was a legal space. The challenge of piracy helped to define its contours.


Author(s):  
Matthew D. C. Larsen

The concept of textual unfinishedness played a role in a wide variety of cultures and contexts across the Mediterranean basin in antiquity and late antiquity. Chapter 2 documents examples of Greek, Roman, and Jewish writers reflecting explicitly in their own words about unfinished texts. Many writers claimed to have written unfinished texts on purpose for specific cultural reasons, while others claimed to have written texts that slipped out of their hands somehow with their permission.


Author(s):  
Madadh Richey

The alphabet employed by the Phoenicians was the inheritor of a long tradition of alphabetic writing and was itself adapted for use throughout the Mediterranean basin by numerous populations speaking many languages. The present contribution traces the origins of the alphabet in Sinai and the Levant before discussing different alphabetic standardizations in Ugarit and Phoenician Tyre. The complex adaptation of the latter for representation of the Greek language is described in detail, then some brief attention is given to likely—Etruscan and other Italic alphabets—and possible (Iberian and Berber) descendants of the Phoenician alphabet. Finally, it is stressed that current research does not view the Phoenician and other alphabets as inherently simpler, more easily learned, or more democratic than other writing systems. The Phoenician alphabet remains, nevertheless, an impressive technological development worthy, especially by virtue of its generative power, of detailed study ranging from paleographic and orthographic specifications to social and political contextualization.


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