THE REGION OF GASTRONOMY PROGRAM - A FACTOR FOR EMPOWERING LOCAL COMMUNITIES

The purpose of the paper is to analyse the initiatives aimed at raising awareness of local communities on the importance of protecting and promoting distinct goods for sustainable food, culture, arts, and tourism, at EU level, to balance globalized food trends. The study carries out a comparative analysis at the level of three European Regions of Gastronomy: Coimbra Region, Sibiu Region and South Aegean Region. The key areas of the Region of Gastronomy Award program: raising citizen awareness about the food they eat, the value of local products and the need to innovate to protect local products. The benefits of such initiatives and their contribution to empowering local communities and to better quality of life were identified and highlighted.

Description of Raphignathus arcus sp. nov. with notes on an abnormal female (Acari: Raphignathidae) from the Aegean region of Turkey

A new species viz. Raphignathus arcus sp. nov., collected from litter and soil under Cirsium vulgare (Asteraceae), Crataegus monogyna (Rosaceae), Hyparrhenia hirta (Poaceae), Juniperus oxycedrus (Cupressaceae), Olea europaea (Oleaceae), Quercus coccifera (Fagaceae), Rosa canina (Rosaceae) and Verbascum sp. (Scrophulariaceae) in Afyonkarahisar, Izmir and Manisa provinces (the Aegean region of Turkey), is illustrated and described based on the adult females. Notes on an abnormal female is also given.

Nutritional diversity of underutilized plant species collected from Aegean Region of Turkey

The objective of the present work was to evaluate variability for dry matter, protein and mineral N (nitrogen), P (phosphorus), K (potassium), Ca (calcium), Mg (magnesium) composition of nutritionally important and widely consumed wild edible plants in Aegean region of Turkey, and to assess their mineral diversity using multivariate analysis. The plant material comprises 17 edible plants collected from native found, the data were subject to analysis of variance, and a Pearson correlation test used to determine the correlations between dry matter, protein content and N, P, K, Ca, Mg composition. Principal component analysis was performed on the result of examine compositions and the factor loadings, eigenvalues and percentage of cumulative variance were calculated, the patterns of relationships among nutritive element were shown three-dimension scatter plot. Multivariate analysis revealed considerable variation for the most of concentration and explained 81.49% of total variation accounted for three PC axes. The data reveal that selected wild plant provide significant nutrition and exhibited great variability among the species. Although soil mineral concentration, availability, fertilization and environment may have influenced on nutrient accumulation in plant tissue, genetic variability is considerable influenced on mineral composition of plant.

Sequences analysis of chloroplast psbA-trnH region in Citrus L. (Rutaceae) species from the Aegean region of Turkey

In this study, sequences analysis of some Citrus species distributed in Turkey's Aegean region was based on the cpDNA psbA-trnH region. The sequences for psbA-trnH regions of the outgroups were retrieved from NCBI GenBank. Genomic DNA was isolated from healthy and green leaves. Total genomic DNA was extracted using GeneMark DNA isolation Plant Kit. The psbA-trnH region was amplified using primers psbA and trnH. DNA sequences were edited using the Sequencher 5.4.6. Sequencing data were analyzed using MEGA 6.0 software. Maximum likelihood (ML) tree was created to determine the relationships between Citrus taxa. cpDNA psbA-trnH sequences ranged between 426 and 470 nucleotides. Maximum likelihood phylogenetic tree is composed of two clades. The divergence values differed between 0.000 and 0.012. According to the results of the study, the separation of Citrus species in phylogenetic tree obtained with psbA-trnH sequence data was realized. However, it has been found that cpDNA psbA-trnH sequence populations of species belong together. In addition, the phylogenetic relationship between the sequence data of some species belonging to the Rutaceae family taken from NCBI and Citrus species was revealed.

Occurrence of Halyomorpha halys (Stål, 1855) (Hemiptera: Pentatomidae) in Rhodes Island, Greece

The first finding of Halyomorpha halys in the island of Rhodes, Greece, is reported and the fast range expansion of this invasive species over the Aegean region is briefly discussed.