The five Mediterranean regions are estimated to experience very great proportional change in biodiversity by owing to their sensitivity to changes in land use and climate. Biological field stations throughout the world have significant potential for addressing the most pressing environmental challenges facing science and society today by actively engaging in research collaborations and the development of environmental observatory networks and such field stations have particular relevance for Mediterranean-climate regions.
University-operated field stations can play a significant role in providing core scientific knowledge to inform effective resource management and preservation of biodiversity. The University of California Natural Reserve System provides ecological expertise in areas not otherwise served in the resource management community.
It develops and maintains long-term research on ecosystem structure and function and the population dynamics of key species. While these university-operated field stations already provide conservation-oriented courses to students and the general public, we see great added value in their role by establishing a formal process to encourage interactions and collaborations among field station managers dealing with threats and concerns on issues that transcend a single reserve or protected area.
We aim to accomplish three major goals:. MTEG will highlight and focus on the complexity of ecological and global change and social science research related to conservation science, expand the clientele for these disciplines, and motivate others to understand their linkages.
These are all critical issues for making the best use of conservation science to inform resource management of natural areas.
Mediterranean-climate regions provide many opportunities for comparative studies of the controlling factors in the evolution of biodiversity. It is the one that is given in a good part of the Mediterranean coast, except Egypt and part of Libya and Tunisia. In Spain, specifically in Catalonia, the Balearic Islands and a good part of the Valencian Community, they have this climate.
It occurs in areas far from the coast, as there is a lower degree of humidity. Thermal amplitudes are more pronounced. There may be cold winters with frosts and mild summers, or mild winters and very hot summers. It occurs on the Mediterranean coasts, being on the western coast of a continental mass.
The south of Galicia, the coast of California, the areas of Perth and Adelaide in Australia, are some of the places that have this climate. It is the one that occurs in transition between the Mediterranean climate and the desert. In the summer, the temperatures range from mild to very hot, depending on distance from a large body of water, elevation, and latitude.
Even in the warmest locations with a Mediterranean-type climate, however, temperatures usually do not reach the highest readings found in adjacent desert regions because of cooling from water bodies, although strong winds from inland desert regions can sometimes boost summer temperatures, quickly increasing the risk of wildfires.
As in every climatologic domain, the highland locations of the Mediterranean domain can present cooler temperatures in winter than the lowland areas, temperatures which can sometimes prohibit the growth of typical Mediterranean plants. Additionally, the temperature and rainfall pattern for a Csa or even a Csb climate can exist as a microclimate in some high-altitude locations adjacent to a rare tropical As tropical savanna climate with dry summers, typically in a rainshadow region.
These have a favourable climate with mild wet winters and fairly warm, dry summers. The Mediterranean forests, woodlands, and scrub biome is closely associated with Mediterranean climate zones, as are unique freshwater communities.
Particularly distinctive of the climate are sclerophyll shrublands, called maquis in the Mediterranean Basin, chaparral in California, matorral in Chile, fynbos in South Africa, and mallee and kwongan shrublands in Australia. Aquatic communities in Mediterranean climate regions are adapted to a yearly cycle in which abiotic environmental controls of stream populations and community structure dominate during floods, biotic components e. Aquatic organisms in these regions show distinct long-term patterns in structure and function, and are also highly sensitive to the effects of climate change.
The native vegetation of Mediterranean climate lands must be adapted to survive long, hot summer droughts and prolonged wet periods in winter. Mediterranean vegetation examples include the following:. Much native vegetation in Mediterranean climate area valleys have been cleared for agriculture.
In places such as the Sacramento Valley and Oxnard Plain in California , draining marshes and estuaries combined with supplemental irrigation has led to a century of intensive agriculture. Much of the Overberg in the southern Cape of South Africa , once covered with renosterveld, has likewise been largely converted to agriculture, mainly wheat. In hillside and mountainous areas, away from urban sprawl , ecosystems and habitats of native vegetation are more sustained.
The fynbos vegetation in the South-western Cape in South Africa is famed for its high floral diversity, and includes such plant types as members of the Restionaceae, Ericas Heaths and Proteas. Representatives of the Proteaceae also grow in Australia, such as Banksias.
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