Human Capital, Industry, Tourism and Economic Development of EU25 Regions

The role of human capital, industry and tourism in regional development is analysed by means of econometric models with data of both EU15 and the ten countries of the 2004's Enlargement. The study points to the need to improve economic policies at EU level, in order to increase production in the less developed regions and to get a higher degree of socio-economic convergence among EU regions. We analyse the main measures that have shown a positive impact on regional development during the last years

Current-induced two-level fluctuations in pseudo spin-valves (Co/Cu/Co) nanostructures

Two-level fluctuations of the magnetization state of pseudo spin-valve pillars Co(10 nm)/Cu(10 nm)/Co(30 nm) embedded in electrodeposited nanowires (~40 nm in diameter, 6000 nm in length) are triggered by spin-polarized currents of 10^7 A/cm^2 at room temperature. The statistical properties of the residence times in the parallel and antiparallel magnetization states reveal two effects with qualitatively different dependences on current intensity. The current appears to have the effect of a field determined as the bias field required to equalize these times. The bias field changes sign when the current polarity is reversed. At this field, the effect of a current density of 10^7 A/cm^2 is to lower the mean time for switching down to the microsecond range. This effect is independent of the sign of the current and is interpreted in terms of an effective temperature for the magnetization.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figures, revised version, to be published in Phys. Rev. Let

Flore alpine et réchauffement climatique: observation de trois sommets valaisans à travers le XXe siècle

Alpine flora and climate change: monitoring of three summits in Valais (Switzerland) during the 20th century Climate change might trigger an upward shift of the flora in the Swiss Alps, especially since these experienced higher change in average than observed on a global scale. Previous investigations in the canton des Grisons (Switzerland) and Austria have revealed an increase of floristic diversity on alpine summits since the beginning of the 20th century. Three summits in Valais were revisited in this study: the Gornergrat (first inventory in 1919), the Torrenthorn (about in 1885) and the Beaufort (about in 1920). Every summit was newly inventoried in 2003 in the framework of the PERMANENT.PLOT.CH project. All showed a strong increase in species richness. On the Gornergrat (3135 m), 16 species were not found anymore, but 35 new ones were observed. The number of species on this exceptionally rich summit rose from 102 to 121. In comparison, the floristic richness increased from 24 to 63 species on the Torrenthorn (2924 m) and from 16 to 48 species on the Beaufort (3048 m). As in previous studies, this increase seems likely to be associated with climate change: the new species prefer, in average, higher temperature conditions than those previously prevailing on the summits. On the Gornergrat and Beaufort, our observations reveal a development of alpine meadows, whereas species typical of rocks and raw soils are predominantly colonising the Torrenthorn. This difference might be related to the important damage caused by wanderers on the vegetation of the Torrenthorn

Unifying niche shift studies: insights from biological invasions.

Assessing whether the climatic niche of a species may change between different geographic areas or time periods has become increasingly important in the context of ongoing global change. However, approaches and findings have remained largely controversial so far, calling for a unification of methods. Here, we build on a review of empirical studies of invasion to formalize a unifying framework that decomposes niche change into unfilling, stability, and expansion situations, taking both a pooled range and range-specific perspective on the niche, while accounting for climatic availability and climatic analogy. This framework provides new insights into the nature of climate niche shifts and our ability to anticipate invasions, and may help in guiding the design of experiments for assessing causes of niche changes

Biogeophysical controls on soil-atmosphere thermal differences: implications on warming Arctic ecosystems

Soil temperature (ST) has a key role in Arctic ecosystem functioning and global environmental change. However, soil thermal conditions do not necessarily follow synoptic temperature variations. This is because local biogeophysical processes can lead to a pronounced soil-atmosphere thermal offset (∆T) while altering the coupling (βT) between ST and ambient air temperature (AAT). Here, we aim to uncover the spatiotemporal variation in these parameters and identify their main environmental drivers. By deploying a unique network of 322 temperature loggers and surveying biogeophysical processes across an Arctic landscape, we found that the spatial variation in ∆T during the AAT≤0 period (mean ∆T=-0.6°C, standard deviation ± 1.0°C) was directly and indirectly constrained by local topography controlling snow depth. By contrast, during the AAT>0 period, ∆T was controlled by soil characteristics, vegetation and solar radiation (∆T=6.0°C ± 1.2°C). Importantly, ∆T was not constant throughout the seasons reflecting the influence of βT on the rate of local soil warming being stronger after (mean βT = 0.8 ± 0.1) than before (βT = 0.2 ± 0.2) snowmelt. Our results highlight the need for continuous microclimatic and local environmental monitoring, and suggest a potential for large buffering and non-uniform warming of snow-dominated Arctic ecosystems under projected temperature increase

Plastid DNA variation in Prunus serotina var. serotina (Rosaceae), a North American tree invading Europe

Black cherry (Prunus serotina) is a tree from North America, where it is often used for economical purposes, whereas it is widespread and invasive in Europe. Plastid DNA variation was first investigated in both its native and invasive ranges using microsatellite loci and sequences of three intergenic spacers (trnT-trnL, trnD-trnT and trnS-trnG). This analysis was focused on P. serotina var. serotina, with the inclusion of samples of closely related taxa. Length variation at a microsatellite locus (ccmp5) and a few sequence polymorphisms were identified among P. serotina samples. Four new primer pairs were then designed to specifically amplify variable regions and a combination of five markers was finally proposed for phylogeographic studies in P. serotina. These loci allow identification of six chlorotypes in P. serotina var. serotina, which may be particularly useful to depict the maternal origins of European invasive population

¿Existe un sesgo en la participación y visibilidad de las mujeres en ecología? Una comparación entre los congresos ibérico y suizo

Women are still under-represented in science and technology because there is a bias in the different evaluation processes from the admission of oral communications at conferences to the access to more qualified positions. In this study, we compared the participation and visibility of female ecologists in the IV Iberian Ecological Conference (CIE4) with the Annual Swiss Conference on Ecology, Evolution, Systematics, Biogeography and Conservation (Biology16) where a method of blind evaluation was applied. In both conferences, and after active selection by conference committees, male delegates presented proportionately more regular oral contributions than female ones, although these differences were marginally significant. In the Biology16, this bias was due to lower female applicants for oral contributions, and in the CIE4, to a lower selection rate of female oral contributions. In the CIE4, the higher male presence in oral contributions was consistent with male greater visibility, whereas female visibility was higher in the Biology16. This different visibility was caused by contrasting selection for invited speakers; being male researches preferentially invited at the CIE4, but female ones at the Biology16. Implementing a blind review system of contributions and active policies to promote the participation of women as invited speakers may reduce the differences in visibility and could contribute in the medium term to eliminate the bias against women in the selection of oral contributions at the Iberian conferences

Publisher Correction: The impact of endothermy on the climatic niche evolution and the distribution of vertebrate diversity.

In the version of this Article originally published, in Fig. 3a the first boundary was incorrectly labelled the "K/T boundary"; it should have read the "K/Pg boundary". The two equations in the main text were incorrectly omitted from the HTML. In the description of the posterior distribution of an ancestral state, the normal distribution was incorrectly described as being "assigned as prior to the node value"; it should have read "assigned as calibration to the node value". In the associated equation (the second equation in the text), the denominator of the last term was incorrectly given as "Node prior"; it should have read "Node calibration". In the same equation, the numerator of the third term on the right-hand side of the equation contained incorrect superscript notation on the x and this is shown in the full equation in the notice below.In the Acknowledgements, the following two sentences were incorrectly omitted: "The authors thank the Vital-IT facilities of the Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics for the computational support" and "This work was funded by the University of Lausanne and the Swiss National Science Foundation (CRSIII3-147630) to N.S." In the Author contributions section, the first sentence was incorrectly given as "J.R. designed the study. J.R., N.S. and D. Silvestro designed the methodology and ran the analyses"; it should have read "J.R., D.S. and N.S. designed the study and the methodology". In the Supplementary Information, all three instances of the word "prior" were incorrect and should have read "calibration".These errors have now been corrected in all versions of the Article

Will climate change increase the risk of plant invasions into mountains?

Mountain ecosystems have been less adversely affected by invasions of non-native plants than most other ecosystems, partially because most invasive plants in the lowlands are limited by climate and cannot grow under harsher high-elevation conditions. However, with ongoing climate change, invasive species may rapidly move upwards and threaten mid-, and then high-elevation mountain ecosystems. We evaluated this threat by modeling the current and future habitat suitability for 48 invasive plant species in Switzerland and New South Wales, Australia. Both regions had contrasting climate interactions with elevation, resulting in possible different responses of species distributions to climate change. Using a species distribution modeling approach that combines data from two spatial scales, we built high-resolution species distribution models (≤ 250 m) that account for the global climatic niche of species and also finer variables depicting local climate and disturbances. We found that different environmental drivers limit the elevation range of invasive species in each of the two regions, leading to region-specific species responses to climate change. The optimal suitability for plant invaders is predicted to markedly shift from the lowland to the montane or subalpine zone in Switzerland, whereas the upward shift is far less pronounced in New South Wales where montane and subalpine elevations are already suitable. The results suggest that species most likely to invade high elevations in Switzerland will be cold-tolerant, whereas species with an affinity to moist soils are most likely to invade higher elevations in Australia. Other plant traits were only marginally associated with elevation limits. These results demonstrate that a more systematic consideration of future distributions of invasive species is required in conservation plans of not yet invaded mountainous ecosystems