The Mediterranean region is vulnerable to climatic changes. A warming trend exists in the basin with changes in rainfall patterns. It is expected that vector-borne diseases (VBD) in the region will be influenced by climate change since weather conditions influence their emergence. For some diseases (i.e., West Nile virus) the linkage between emergence andclimate change was recently proved; for ...

the north atlantic oscillation (nao) is one of the most prominent modes of low-frequency variability over the atlantic basin in the northern hemisphere. in the past decades, the impact of nao has attracted increasing scientific interest because the nao exerts an important impact on the regional climate and weather in the north atlantic region and adjacent continents. of particular interest is t...

The ongoing outbreak of West Nile virus (WNV) infections in humans in Greece described in this issue of Eurosurveillance is a timely reminder that WNV is a reemerging pathogen in Europe [1]. So far, WNV has been documented in animals and humans in several countries across Europe, mainly in central Europe and in the Mediterranean region. Over the last 15 years, outbreaks in horses and/or humans ...

this study was aimed to assess the causes of the structural decline in the renewal rate of apristine oak forest close to rome (central italy) by analyzing long-term measurements of the water budget in open and fenced areas. despite dry climate conditions in the area, long-term soil moisture measurements at 100 cm soil depth indicated that an enough large amount of water is available to oaks dur...

greece has experienced particularly severe and frequent forest fires during summer 2007 together with exceptionally dry meteorological conditions culminated in distinct heat waves. the present study analyzes the time pattern of daily values of two fire risk indices (nesterov and angstrom) based on meteorological data made available for a number of gauging stations between 1 june and 31 august o...

land vulnerable to desertification increased in the mediterranean basin since world war ii dueto several interacting factors including climate variations, land-use changes and growing human pressure. itwas hypothesized that the increase in the level of land vulnerability is not distributed homogeneously overtime and space while impacting preferentially landscapes surrounding large urban agglome...

the present study illustrates the long-term changes in selected socioeconomic variables (population,industrial activities, settlement dispersion, and land-use) together with climate aridity trends in thriasio, the larger industrial area of greece located twenty kilometers far from athens. this region, originally devoted to agriculture, experienced fast industrial and economic development during...

the mediterranean is one of the most important cyclogenesis regions in the northern hemisphere. the depressions occurring in specific areas of the mediterranean region and cyclonic tracks have been the subject of extensive climatological research. the climate of the mediterranean region is conditioned by its position in the transition area between the sub-tropical high pressure belt and the mid...

The wood warbler (Phylloscopus sibilatrix) is a migratory species in the western Mediterranean wintering in the Gulf of Guinea region, West Africa. In autumn and spring, this species, along with the populations breeding in Ireland and Britain, uses the Italian peninsula as its main axis of migration. From the data of captured birds at several ringing stations in the western Mediterranean (Balea...

The olive is widely cropped in Tunisia where also oleaster trees thrive all around orchards and in natural sites. Little is known on the genetic relationships between the olive crop and oleaster trees in Tunisia. Fifty-two oleaster trees and fifteen cultivars were sampled from Tunisia. SSR genotyping was performed in polyacrylamide gels after fluorescent labeling. We used seven nuclear and two ...