Seiridium cardinale is a fungal pathogen responsible for pandemic cypress canker disease (CCD). The fungus has shown the ability to infect different hosts in many areas throughout the globe, but its spread and impact were favored by conducive environmental conditions. The most severe epidemics were reported in California and the Mediterranean, the former considered the source area of the pathog...

The functional adjustments of winter-deciduous perennials to Mediterranean conditions have received little attention. The objectives of this study were: (i) to determine whether Amelanchier ovalis, a winter-deciduous shrub of Mediterranean and sub-Mediterranean regions, has nutritional and phenological traits in common with temperate zone deciduous trees and shrubs and (ii) to determine the con...

Biodiversity is the diversity of life at all scales, from genes to ecosystems. Predicting its patterns of variation across the globe is a fundamental issue in ecology and evolution. Diversity within species, that is, genetic diversity, is of prime importance for understanding past and present evolutionary patterns, and highlighting areas where conservation might be a priority. Using published d...

Water cycle components over the Mediterranean for both a current run (1979-2007) and a future run (2075-2099) are studied with the Japan Meteorological Agency's 20 km grid global climate model. Results are compared with another study using the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 3 ensemble model (hereafter, the Mariotti model). Our results are surprisingly close to Mariotti's. The proje...

The invasive Mediterranean Bemisia tabaci (Gennadius) (Hemiptera: Aleyrodidae) has emerged as one of the most common agricultural pests in the world. In the present study, we examined the cross-tolerance, fitness costs, and benefits of thermal tolerance and the variation in the responses of life history traits after heat-shock selection. The results showed that survival and longevity of Mediter...

We present a study on the impact of soil and climatic variability on the yield of winter wheat in the Hérault-Libron-Orb Valley in southern France. The study was based on the use of a crop simulation model (Euro-ACCESS), run at 63 individual sites throughout the study area, for the current climate (1976 to 1984) and for potential future changes in temperature and precipitation (2047 to 2054). T...

Pollen and charcoal analysis from Laguna San Pedro (38 260S, 71 190W), a small closed-basin lake located within the present-day distribution of Araucaria-Nothofagus forest in the Temperate-Mediterranean Transition zone in the Andes of Chile (35.5e39.5 S), reveal centennial-scale changes in vegetation, climate and fire regime since 1500 cal yr BP. We interpret periods of relatively low growing s...

Background and purpose: Valonia oak (Quercus ithaburensis subsp. macrolepis (Kotschy) Hedge & Yalt.) is an east Mediterranean endemic, xerothermic and deciduous tree of particular interest in forestry. There has been a growing demand lately to include the species in reforestations in Greece which also increased the interest to investigate its response to climate change. The main purpose of this...

Atmospheric circulation leaves few direct traces in the geological record, making reconstructions of this crucial element of the climate system inherently difficult. We produced a regional Mediterranean synthesis of paleo-proxy data from the sea surface to alpine altitudes. This provides a detailed observational context for change in the three-dimensional structure of atmospheric circulation be...

Climate change is predicted to alter the rainfall regime in the Eastern Mediterranean Basin: total annual rainfall will decrease, while seasonal and inter-annual variation in rainfall will increase. Such changes in the rainfall regime could potentially lead to large-scale changes in aboveground net primary productivity (ANPP) in the region.We conducted a data-driven evaluation of herbaceous ANP...