Breaking seed dormancy of three orthodox Mediterranean Rosaceae species.

Biodiversity levels could be enhanced when regenerating a site by seed-derived seedlings. However, seed dormancy poses limitations for many species. As a result, nurseries either produce seedlings from species where dormancy is not an obstacle, or they propagate through cuttings with the risk of decreasing the genetic diversity within and among species at the regenerated sites. In the present study, breaking of seed dormancy was investigated in valuable Mediterranean species of Prunus avium, Prunus spinosa and Rosa canina Specifically, in order to break dormancy, seeds of those species were warm-, cold-stratified and chemically treated. Based on the results, maximum germination for P. avium was 12% when seeds were warm stratified for four weeks altered with eight weeks of cold stratification. For P. spinosa, maximum percent germination was 26% when seeds were warm stratified for two weeks and continuously altered for eight weeks of cold stratification. Finally, for R. canina maximum percent germination was 40% under four weeks of warm stratification altered with twenty weeks of cold stratification, when seeds were pretreated with H2SO4 for 15 min. A maximum of twelve weeks of cold stratification for P. avium, P. spinosa and 20 weeks for R. canina provided almost zero percent germination. The results indicated that all three species experienced intense dormancy levels suggesting that those species need to be treated properly prior to sowing. Nonetheless, additional experiments are needed to achieve greater germination percentage of highly valuable species in orderto encourage seed derived seedling production.

Estimating soil erosion in Natura 2000 areas located on three semi-arid Mediterranean Islands.

A major initiative in Europe is the protection of its biodiversity. To accomplish this, specific areas from all countries of the European Union are protected by the establishment of the "Natura 2000" network. One of the major threats to these areas and in general to ecosystems is soil erosion. The objective of this study was to quantitatively estimate surface soil losses for three of these protected areas that are located on semi-arid islands of the Mediterranean. One Natura 2000 area was selected from each of the following islands: Sicily in Italy, Cyprus and Rhodes in Greece. To estimate soil losses, Gerlach troughs were used. These troughs were established on slopes that ranged from 35-40% in four different vegetation types: i) Quercus ilex and Quercus rotundifolia forests, ii) Pinus brutia forests, iii) "Phrygana" shrublands and iv) vineyards. The shrublands had the highest soil losses (270 kg ha(-1) yr(-1)) that were 5-13 times more than the other three vegetation types. Soil losses in these shrublands should be considered a major concern. However, the other vegetation types also had high soil losses (21-50 kg ha(-1) yr(-1)). Conclusively, in order to enhance and conserve the biodiversity of these Natura 2000 areas protective management measures should be taken into consideration to decrease soil losses.

New tools and approaches to promote soil and water bioengineering in the Mediterranean.

Soil loss and erosion is a major environmental problem in the Mediterranean. Soil and water bioengineering uses plants and/or parts of plants along with inert material to create solutions to fulfill soil conservation objectives combined with an ecological rehabilitation approach. The ECOMED project developed novel approaches and tools to specialize the soil and water bioengineering sector within the Mediterranean. The first activity was the Sector Needs Analysis were the responses to an online questionnaire of 110 stakeholders from the region were analyzed. The main conclusion was the need to specialize the soil and water bioengineering sector in the Mediterranean. In addition, 21 soil and water bioengineering case studies in the Mediterranean were reviewed. Many works of this type are implemented in the region, but have flaws because of the lack of training material, design routines, protocols, specific to the region. The second activity developed New Design Routines and Protocols. Specifically, three protocols, one template and one plant database were developed for the region. Finally, in the Training Material activity, six educational modules along with a handbook (that contained modules, protocols, template and case studies) were developed. Overall the ECOMED project generated new and novel material and tools that were lacking in the region to enhance the specialization process of the soil and water bioengineering sector. These should increase the adoption of soil and water bioengineering techniques with better trained and new professionals as well as improve the work performance of these interventions.