Characterization of the resilience and variability of vegetation during the Holocene using a large database of pollen data

Author(s):  
Raphael Hébert ◽  
Chenzhi Li ◽  
Thomas Laepple ◽  
Ulrike Herzschuh

<p>Global climatic changes which are expected in the 21<sup>st</sup> century are likely to create unparalleled disturbances on vegetation. In addition, human activities also increase the risk of fire disturbances and insect epidemies. We investigate the resilience of different biomes by examining their behaviour during the Holocene using a taxonomically harmonized and temporally standardized global fossil pollen datasets,synthesized from 2821 palynological records from the Neotoma Paleoecology Database and additional literature. Specifically, we study the composition variability on millennial time-scale and timescale-dependant scaling of variability from centennial to multi-millennial timescales. A principal component analysis was performed in order to characterize the principal modes of variability of the pollen assemblages. We find coherent regional signals of vegetation variability and scaling of variability from the pollen assemblages, indicating significant millennial scale variability which can be related to vegetation taxa and climates. Particularly, we observe more stability in North America and Northern Europe in areas dominated by boreal forest and deciduous forests. This may be linked to the greater stability of forest ecosystems and also a more stable climate over these areas which may be the result of stabilizing feedbacks. We find that diversity plays a key role in vegetation composition and that more diverse regions allow for greater variability. </p><p> </p><div> <div> </div> </div>

2003 ◽  
Vol 3 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 351-357
Author(s):  
S. Le Bonté ◽  
M.-N. Pons ◽  
O. Potier ◽  
S. Chanel ◽  
M. Baklouti

An adaptive principal component analysis applied to sets of data provided by global analytical methods (UV-visible spectra, buffer capacity curves, respirometric tests) is proposed as a generic procedure for on-line and fast characterization of wastewater. The data-mining procedure is able to deal with a large amount of information, takes into account the normal variations of wastewater composition related to human activity, and enables a rapid detection of abnormal situations such as the presence of toxic substances by comparison of the actual wastewater state with a continuously updated reference. The procedure has been validated on municipal wastewater.


Foods ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (6) ◽  
pp. 1411
Author(s):  
José Luis P. Calle ◽  
Marta Ferreiro-González ◽  
Ana Ruiz-Rodríguez ◽  
Gerardo F. Barbero ◽  
José Á. Álvarez ◽  
...  

Sherry wine vinegar is a Spanish gourmet product under Protected Designation of Origin (PDO). Before a vinegar can be labeled as Sherry vinegar, the product must meet certain requirements as established by its PDO, which, in this case, means that it has been produced following the traditional solera and criadera ageing system. The quality of the vinegar is determined by many factors such as the raw material, the acetification process or the aging system. For this reason, mainly producers, but also consumers, would benefit from the employment of effective analytical tools that allow precisely determining the origin and quality of vinegar. In the present study, a total of 48 Sherry vinegar samples manufactured from three different starting wines (Palomino Fino, Moscatel, and Pedro Ximénez wine) were analyzed by Fourier-transform infrared (FT-IR) spectroscopy. The spectroscopic data were combined with unsupervised exploratory techniques such as hierarchical cluster analysis (HCA) and principal component analysis (PCA), as well as other nonparametric supervised techniques, namely, support vector machine (SVM) and random forest (RF), for the characterization of the samples. The HCA and PCA results present a clear grouping trend of the vinegar samples according to their raw materials. SVM in combination with leave-one-out cross-validation (LOOCV) successfully classified 100% of the samples, according to the type of wine used for their production. The RF method allowed selecting the most important variables to develop the characteristic fingerprint (“spectralprint”) of the vinegar samples according to their starting wine. Furthermore, the RF model reached 100% accuracy for both LOOCV and out-of-bag (OOB) sets.


Landslides ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chiara Crippa ◽  
Elena Valbuzzi ◽  
Paolo Frattini ◽  
Giovanni B. Crosta ◽  
Margherita C. Spreafico ◽  
...  

AbstractLarge slow rock-slope deformations, including deep-seated gravitational slope deformations and large landslides, are widespread in alpine environments. They develop over thousands of years by progressive failure, resulting in slow movements that impact infrastructures and can eventually evolve into catastrophic rockslides. A robust characterization of their style of activity is thus required in a risk management perspective. We combine an original inventory of slow rock-slope deformations with different PS-InSAR and SqueeSAR datasets to develop a novel, semi-automated approach to characterize and classify 208 slow rock-slope deformations in Lombardia (Italian Central Alps) based on their displacement rate, kinematics, heterogeneity and morphometric expression. Through a peak analysis of displacement rate distributions, we characterize the segmentation of mapped landslides and highlight the occurrence of nested sectors with differential activity and displacement rates. Combining 2D decomposition of InSAR velocity vectors and machine learning classification, we develop an automatic approach to characterize the kinematics of each landslide. Then, we sequentially combine principal component and K-medoids cluster analyses to identify groups of slow rock-slope deformations with consistent styles of activity. Our methodology is readily applicable to different landslide datasets and provides an objective and cost-effective support to land planning and the prioritization of local-scale studies aimed at granting safety and infrastructure integrity.


Author(s):  
Siqi Sun ◽  
Yihe Lü ◽  
Da Lü ◽  
Cong Wang

Forests are critical ecosystems for environmental regulation and ecological security maintenance, especially at high altitudes that exhibit sensitivity to climate change and human activities. The Qinghai-Tibet Plateau—the world’s largest water tower region—has been breeding many large rivers in Asia where forests play important roles in water regulation and water quality improvement. However, the vulnerability of these forest ecosystems at the regional scale is still largely unknown. Therefore, the aim of this research is to quantitatively assess the temporal–spatial variability of forest vulnerability on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau to illustrate the capacity of forests to withstand disturbances. Geographic information system (GIS) and the spatial principal component analysis (SPCA) were used to develop a forest vulnerable index (FVI) to assess the vulnerability of forest ecosystems. This research incorporates 15 factors covering the natural context, environmental disturbances, and socioeconomic impact. Results indicate that the measure of vulnerability was unevenly distributed spatially across the study area, and the whole trend has intensified since 2000. The three factors that contribute the most to the vulnerability of natural contexts, environmental disturbances, and human impacts are slope aspect, landslides, and the distance to the farmland, respectively. The vulnerability is higher in forest areas with lower altitudes, steeper slopes, and southerly directions. These evaluation results can be helpful for forest management in high altitude water tower regions in the forms of forest conservation or restoration planning and implementation towards sustainable development goals.


Molecules ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 26 (13) ◽  
pp. 3842
Author(s):  
Alessandro D’Alessandro ◽  
Daniele Ballestrieri ◽  
Lorenzo Strani ◽  
Marina Cocchi ◽  
Caterina Durante

Basil is a plant known worldwide for its culinary and health attributes. It counts more than a hundred and fifty species and many more chemo-types due to its easy cross-breeds. Each species and each chemo-type have a typical aroma pattern and selecting the proper one is crucial for the food industry. Twelve basil varieties have been studied over three years (2018–2020), as have four different cuts. To characterize the aroma profile, nine typical basil flavour molecules have been selected using a gas chromatography–mass spectrometry coupled with an olfactometer (GC–MS/O). The concentrations of the nine selected molecules were measured by an ultra-fast CG e-nose and Principal Component Analysis (PCA) was applied to detect possible differences among the samples. The PCA results highlighted differences between harvesting years, mainly for 2018, whereas no observable clusters were found concerning varieties and cuts, probably due to the combined effects of the investigated factors. For this reason, the ANOVA Simultaneous Component Analysis (ASCA) methodology was applied on a balanced a posteriori designed dataset. All the considered factors and interactions were statistically significant (p < 0.05) in explaining differences between the basil aroma profiles, with more relevant effects of variety and year.


2019 ◽  
Vol 62 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Dae Young Lee ◽  
Bo-Ram Choi ◽  
Jae Won Lee ◽  
Yurry Um ◽  
Dahye Yoon ◽  
...  

Abstract In Platycodi Radix (root of Platycodon grandiflorum), there are a number of platycosides that consist of a pentacyclic triterpenoid aglycone and two sugar moieties. Due to the pharmacological activities of platycosides, it is critical to assess their contents in PR, and develop an effective method to profile various platycosides is required. In this study, an analytical method based on ultra performance liquid chromatography coupled with quadrupole time-of-flight/mass spectrometry (UPLC-QTOF/MS) with an in-house library was developed and applied to profile various platycosides from four different Platycodi Radix cultivars. As a result, platycosides, including six isomeric pairs, were successfully analyzed in the PRs. In the principal component analysis, several platycosides were represented as main variables to differentiate the four Platycodi Radix cultivars. Their different levels of platycosides were also represented by relative quantification. Finally, this study indicated the proposed method based on the UPLC-QTOF/MS can be an effective tool for identifying the detail characterization of various platycosides in the Platycodi Radix.


2019 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 200-210
Author(s):  
Antônio Italcy de Oliveira Júnior ◽  
Luiz Alberto Ribeiro Mendonça ◽  
Sávio de Brito Fontenele ◽  
Adriana Oliveira Araújo ◽  
Maria Gorethe de Sousa Lima Brito

ABSTRACT Soil is a dynamic and complex system that requires a considerable number of samples for analysis and research purposes. Using multivariate statistical methods, favorable conditions can be created by analyzing the samples, i.e., structural reduction and simplification of the data. The objective of this study was to use multivariate statistical analysis, including factorial analysis (FA) and hierarchical groupings, for the environmental characterization of soils in semiarid regions, considering anthropic (land use and occupation) and topographic aspects (altitude, moisture, granulometry, PR, and organic-matter content). As a case study, the São José Hydrographic Microbasin, which is located in the Cariri region of Ceará, was considered. An FA was performed using the principal component method, with normalized varimax rotation. In hierarchical grouping analysis, the “farthest neighbor” method was used as the hierarchical criterion for grouping, with the measure of dissimilarity given by the “square Euclidean distance.” The FA indicated that two factors explain 75.76% of the total data variance. In the analysis of hierarchical groupings, the samples were agglomerated in three groups with similar characteristics: one with samples collected in an area of the preserved forest and two with samples collected in areas with more anthropized soils. This indicates that the statistical tool used showed sensitivity to distinguish the most conserved soils and soils with different levels of anthropization.


Fishes ◽  
2022 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 13
Author(s):  
Weicong Pan ◽  
Soottawat Benjakul ◽  
Chiara Sanmartin ◽  
Alessandra Guidi ◽  
Xiaoguo Ying ◽  
...  

To avoid heat, treatment induces numerous physicochemical changes under severe conditions in the tuna, cold plasma (CP), as a non-thermal technology, possess objective potential on tuna processing. The effect of cold plasma on the volatile flavor compounds of bigeye tuna (Thunnus obesus) sashimi has been evaluated using electronic nose (E-nose) and gas chromatography-ion mobility spectrometry (GC-IMS). GC–IMS results revealed a total of 33 volatile compounds in tuna slices. The effect of CP treatment on tuna flavor was not significant, furthermore CP could protect volatile freshness compounds such as 1-hexanol. Principal component analysis (PCA) of the E-nose and GC–IMS results could effectively differentiate the effect of storage to tuna sashimi. There was a high correlation between the E-nose and GC–IMS results, providing a theoretical basis for establishing the flavor fingerprint of tuna sashimi.


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