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Soil respiration of terrestrial ecosystems, a major component in the global carbon cycle is affected by elevated atmospheric CO2 concentrations. However, seasonal differences of feedback effects of elevated CO2 have rarely been studied. At the Gießen Free-Air CO2 Enrichment (GiFACE) site, the effects of +20% above ambient CO2 concentration have been investigated since 1998 in a temperate grassland ecosystem. We defined five distinct annual seasons, with respect to management practices and phenological cycles. For a period of 3 years (2008–2010), weekly measurements of soil respiration were carried out with a survey chamber on vegetation-free subplots. The results revealed a pronounced and repeated increase of soil respiration under elevated CO2 during late autumn and winter dormancy. Increased CO2 losses during the autumn season (September–October) were 15.7% higher and during the winter season (November–March) were 17.4% higher compared to respiration from ambient CO2 plots. However, during spring time and summer, which are characterized by strong above- and below-ground plant growth, no significant change in soil respiration was observed at the GiFACE site under elevated CO2. This suggests (1) that soil respiration measurements, carried out only during the growing season under elevated CO2 may underestimate the true soil-respiratory CO2 loss (i.e. overestimate the C sequestered), and (2) that additional C assimilated by plants during the growing season and transferred below-ground will quickly be lost via enhanced heterotrophic respiration outside the main growing season.

Il capitolo da una cornice generale all'analisi delle nuove configurazioni organizzative dei sistemi di servizi sanitari e sociali (in Italia) e sanitari (in Brasile) presentate nel libro. Le grandi trasformazioni socio-demografiche in atto hanno un rilevante impatto sulla salute (prevalenza, cronicità, non auto-sufficienza, e fragilità sociale diffusa). Il testo tratta dei processi sociali, economici e politici che forzano la transizione del paradigma sanitario, e la conseguente riorganizzazione dei servizi, verso la multi-professionalità, l'integrazione sociale e sanitaria e la promozione della salute, in chiave di primary health care.

International audience; In this paper, the scientific outcomes of the 2016 Data Fusion Contest organized by the Image Analysis and Data Fusion Technical Committee of the IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Society are discussed. The 2016 Contest was an open topic competition based on a multitemporal and multimodal dataset, which included a temporal pair of very high resolution panchromatic and multispectral Deimos-2 images and a video captured by the Iris camera on-board the International Space Station. The problems addressed and the techniques proposed by the participants to the Contest spanned across a rather broad range of topics, and mixed ideas and methodologies from the remote sensing, video processing, and computer vision. In particular, the winning team developed a deep learning method to jointly address spatial scene labeling and temporal activity modeling using the available image and video data. The second place team proposed a random field model to simultaneously perform coregistration of multitemporal data, semantic segmentation, and change detection. The methodological key ideas of both these approaches and the main results of the corresponding experimental validation are discussed in this paper.

Continuously rising atmospheric CO₂ concentrations may lead to an increased transfer of organic C from plants to the soil through rhizodeposition and may affect the interaction between the C- and N-cycle. For instance, fumigation of soils with elevated CO₂ (eCO₂) concentrations (20% higher compared to current atmospheric concentrations) at the Giessen Free-Air Carbon Dioxide Enrichment (GiFACE) sites resulted in a more than 2-fold increase of long-term N₂O emissions and an increase in dissimilatory reduction of nitrate compared to ambient CO₂ (aCO₂). We hypothesized that the observed differences in soil functioning were based on differences in the abundance and composition of microbial communities in general and especially of those which are responsible for N-transformations in soil. We also expected eCO₂ effects on soil parameters, such as on nitrate as previously reported. To explore the impact of long-term eCO₂ on soil microbial communities, we applied a molecular approach (qPCR, T-RFLP, and 454 pyrosequencing). Microbial groups were analyzed in soil of three sets of two FACE plots (three replicate samples from each plot), which were fumigated with eCO₂ and aCO₂, respectively. N-fixers, denitrifiers, archaeal and bacterial ammonia oxidizers, and dissimilatory nitrate reducers producing ammonia were targeted by analysis of functional marker genes, and the overall archaeal community by 16S rRNA genes. Remarkably, soil parameters as well as the abundance and composition of microbial communities in the top soil under eCO₂ differed only slightly from soil under aCO₂. Wherever differences in microbial community abundance and composition were detected, they were not linked to CO₂ level but rather determined by differences in soil parameters (e.g., soil moisture content) due to the localization of the GiFACE sets in the experimental field. We concluded that +20% eCO₂ had little to no effect on the overall microbial community involved in N-cycling in the soil but that spatial heterogeneity over extended periods had shaped microbial communities at particular sites in the field. Hence, microbial community composition and abundance alone cannot explain the functional differences leading to higher N₂O emissions under eCO₂ and future studies should aim at exploring the active members of the soil microbial community.

Fresh water scarcity represents - along with global warming - the most serious environmental threat humankind currently faces. Environmental psychology, among other branches of science, is committed to investigate and promote more sustainable water consumption throughout the planet, so that every country might be able to respond to the challenge of guaranteeing the supply of fresh water to all individuals. This sustainable consumption would imply not only satisfying human needs but also the consideration of the ecosystems' continuity over time. This chapter offers an overview of water problems that challenge a more sustainable development around the world. It also discusses the way environmental psychology and other social and behavioral scientific fields can contribute to understanding the relationship between human behavior and water related issues. A literature review shows that water consumption - and, specially, water waste - is predicted by individual as well as contextual factors. The findings of a multi-national study are presented, showing complex interrelations between contextual, attitudinal, perceptual and behavioral factors involved in water consumption. Participants from France, Italy, Mexico and India responded to a questionnaire investigating sustainable water behaviors and their psychological determinants. This questionnaire, built up on the basis of four in-depth qualitative studies carried out in each considered country, included items regarding reported water accessibility, perceived lack of contextual water concern (i.e., perceiving that public bodies or private sectors waste or disregard water), perceived temporal uncertainty regarding water supply, indifference towards water problems, pro-environmental worldviews (i.e., endorsement of a New Human Interdependence Paradigm, NHIP), and self-reported water conservation (as the main target variable). These variables were included in a structural model, also considering the respondents' socio-economic status, and the economic affluence of each participating country (i.e., United Nations' Human Development Index, HDI). Results revealed that water conservation is inhibited by high water accessibility, the country's developmental level, participants' socio-economic status and by indifference regarding water problems. More sustainable water consumption was indeed promoted by participants' endorsement of the NHIP. The level of economic affluence, indicated by the HDI, SES and water accessibility also instigated negative dispositional tendencies towards water conservation, such as indifference regarding water problems and contextual water concern. In addition, water accessibility correlated negatively with beliefs in the NHIP. These results might suggest that sustainable water consumption is promoted by interlinked sets of contextual and psychological factors. These should be considered when setting up and implementing public campaigns for the promotion of water conservation