Cichorieae, one of the six tribes of the sub-family Cichorioideae (Asteraceae), produces a well-recognisable fenestrate pollen type. In the Mediterranean area, the significance of high percentages of Cichorieae pollen from archaeological layers is still questioned.

Floods exert significant pressure on human societies. Assessments of an ecosystem's capacity to regulate and to prevent floods relative to human demands for flood regulating ecosystem services can provide important information for environmental management. In this study, the capacities of different ecosystems to regulate floods were assessed through investigations of water retention functions of the vegetation and soil cover.

Monitoring biodiversity at the level of habitats and landscape is becoming widespread in Europe and elsewhere as countries establish international and national habitat conservation policies and monitoring systems. Earth Observation (EO) data offers a potential solution to long-term biodiversity monitoring through direct mapping of habitats or by integrating Land Cover/Use (LC/LU) maps with contextual spatial information and in situ data.

The article presents a multicriteria assessment framework for the qualitative estimation of regional potentials to provide ecosystem services as a prerequisite to support regional development planning. We applied this approach to a model region in Saxony, Eastern Germany. For the estimation of the potentials of the model region to provide ecosystem services, we used a modified approach compared to the Millenium Ecosystem Assessment (2005).

Forest fire is a major cause of changes in forest structure and function. Among various floristic regions, the northeast region of India suffers maximum from the fires due to age-old practice of shifting cultivation and spread of fires from jhum fields. For proper mitigation and management, an early warning of forest fires through risk modeling is required. The study results demonstrate the potential use of remote sensing and Geographic Information System (GIS) in identifying forest fire prone areas in Manipur, southeastern part of Northeast India.

The main objective of this study was to investigate changing of land uses and land covers and to compare current conditions of the basin with project results that were performed in 1961-2006 and to determine some soil properties of the basin. Stand relating to 1995 and 2006, geological and topographical maps and climatic data were used in this study. According to results, while forest area covered 14.5 % of the total area in 1955 was increased (35.8 %), degraded coppice, degraded blackpine and agricultural lands were decreased 5.7, 1.8 and 15.8% respectively.

Inhibited dispersal, leading to reduced gene flow, threatens populations with inbreeding depression and local extinction. Fragmentation may be especially detrimental to social insects because inhibited gene flow has important consequences for cooperation and competition within and among colonies. Army ants have winged males and permanently wingless queens; these traits imply male‐biased dispersal. However, army ant colonies are obligately nomadic and have the potential to traverse landscapes.

The Member States of the European Union have committed to the maintenance and protection of forest lands. More precisely, the Member States aim to ensure the sustainable development and management of the EU's forests. For 2013, Eurostat's statistics about primary and secondary wood products in the European forest land (65% thereof privately owned) estimate a roundwood production of 435 millionm3 in total. Harmonised information, i.e., spatially and temporarily differentiated, on forestry and wood harvesting activities in the European forests are missing however.

Based on 1-km land surface model geophysical predictions within the United States Southern Great Plains (Red-Arkansas River basin), an observing system simulation experiment (OSSE) is carried out to assess the impact of land surface heterogeneity, instrument error, and parameter uncertainty on soil moisture products derived from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration Hydrosphere State (Hydros) mission.

Urban land cover is expanding rapidly worldwide. This major phenomenon is often accompanied by an expansion of a green component. Urban green can itself be considered as a most important but often ignored land cover category. With this study we investigate how IKONOS data can be used more exhaustively for the detection and more importantly the quantification of urban green, compared to state-of-the art investigations.

Metacommunity paradigms are increasingly studied to explain how environmental control and spatial patterns determine variation in community composition. However, the relative importance of these patterns on biological assemblages among different habitats is not well known. We investigated the relative roles of local, catchment and spatial variables based on overland and watercourse distances in explaining the variation of community structure of lake and river macrophytes in two large river basins at two spatial extents (within and across river basins).

Forest fragmentation constitutes one of the main consequences of land cover change worldwide. Through this process gaps in habitat coverage are created and the ability of populations in the remaining fragments to maintain themselves is put in doubt. Hence, two options need to be considered: conserving the remaining forest fragments, and restoring habitat in some deforested patches with the aim of reestablishing the connections among the fragments. We established a mathematical index (SIR) that describes the suitability of individual habitat patches for restoration within a landscape.