Mohammed Ater

Abdelmalek Essaâdi University | UAE · Department of Biology

An important part of the production of dates is unmarketable or has a low commercial value. The valorization of this unmarketed production is done by the transformation. Among the old transformations anchored in the local traditional knowledge, there is the date syrup. It is a local product with great heritage value. Currently, there is a moderniza...

Background The carob tree ( Ceratonia siliqua L.) is one of the most iconic tree species of the Mediterranean region, with valuable economic, ecological and cultural value. Carob has been exploited around the Mediterranean region since antiquity and has been regarded as an important component of natural habitats and traditional agroecosystems. Seve...

Global changes, caused by anthropogenic activities, are imposing serious and growing challenges for both natural and human systems. For instance, climate change and the emergence of global diseases, as the recent pandemic of coronavirus (Covid-19), greatly affecting economic and social stability of many vulnerable communities worldwide. Traditional...

Climate change is expected to greatly alter and modify the ecological conditions of plant growth and distribution, particularly in the Mediterranean Basin, considered as one of the most vulnerable zone to global warming in the world. In this chapter, we look at the biogeography of the olive tree, an emblematic species of the Mediterranean Basin, re...

Morocco, like the other Mediterranean countries, is characterized by a great diversity of indigenous varieties of vines "Vitis vinifera ssp. vinifera", taking advantage of the climate and also of the heterogeneity of their landscapes Without forgetting, the know-how and agricultural practices adopted by traditional farmers who have contributed in o...

The first exploited and domesticated olive forms are still unknown. The exceptionally wellpreserved stones from the submerged Hishuley Carmel site (Israel), dating from the middle of the 7th millennium BP, offer us the opportunity to study the oldest table olives discovered so far. We apply a geometrical morphometric analysis in reference to a coll...

Legumes are an essential component of human and animal food, particularly in the Mediterranean area. While some legumes are widely cultivated and consumed, others are neglected and underused. This is the case of an ancient Mediterranean legume, chickling-vetch (Lathyrus cicera L.), currently considered as a marginal crop. In Morocco, this crop pers...

ABSTRACT Contribution to studies on dendrometric parameters and mapping of relict stands of Alnus glutinosa (L.) Gaertn., a northern species rarely found in Morocco The common alder, Alnus glutinosa (L.) Gaertn. (Betulaceae), is a key species in certain alluvial and riparian formations in continental Europe. The alders found in Morocco are at the s...

Olive is the most iconic sclerophyllous Mediterranean tree. Nowadays, six olive subspecies are currently recognized and considered to be primary genetic resources for cultivated olive breeding. Among these subspecies, only one of them, O. europaea subsp. europaea, has been domesticated. In Morocco, olive is represented by two subspecies. The first,...

The degradation of riparian ecosystems occurring throughout the past decades has motivated efforts aimed at the restoration of these ecosystems. The success of active revegetation approaches to restoration requires appropriate selection of reproductive material, which in turn requires knowledge of seed traits and germination. A. glutinosa (L.) Gaer...

Overtime, local communities across the world, have largely contributed to the creation of landscape units with great socioeconomic, cultural, and ecological interests. Traditional agroecosystems are an example of these landscape units, that constitute an important refuge for genetic resources and traditional agricultural practices. Chestnut agroeco...

In the current context of global change, the increasing frequency and the length of drought periods are testing the resistance capacities of plants of dry habitats. However, although the adaptation of plants to drought has been widely studied, the anatomical features of wood influencing the functional responses of plants to drought are still lackin...

The emergence of the Argan tree as an agricultural, pastoral, cultural, economic and ecological keystone species in Southern Morocco is considered to be linked to the settlement of agropastoral communities that favored its expansion. Nevertheless, the use and exploitation of Argan tree is documented by both few medieval written sources and archaeob...

A Global climate change has raised serious concerns about food security and the sustainability of agriculture, particularly in developing regions of the world. In response to these concerns, attention should be called to the global importance of conservation of some neglected and underutilized crops, such as Lathyrus species, which are nutrient-ric...

Morocco, with its Mediterranean climate and its various potentialities, conceals an im-portant space for the extension of viticulture in particular that of traditional grape varieties, which has undergone profound upheavals linked to economic, social and environmental constraints, which have had a negative impact on genetic diversity. The present s...

For decades, local and traditional species have been neglected and replaced by industrial and improved species. Sweet chestnut ‘Castanea sativa Mill.’, found in a small area in northern Morocco, is no exception. Indeed, Moroccan ecotypes are neither classified nor characterized. This study aims to evaluate the local genetic resources of Castanea sa...

Plants depend fundamentally on establishment from seed. However, protocols in trait-based ecology currently estimate seed size but not seed number. This can be rectified. For annuals, seed number should simply be a positive function of vegetative biomass and a negative one of seed size. Using published values of comparative seed number as the ‘gol...

Cette étude contribue à l'évaluation de l'agrodiversité dans les agroécosystèmes oasiens où nous avons inventorié les cultures pratiquées à base de variétés locales ainsi le savoir-faire traditionnel associé. Elle est basée sur l'utilisation d'enquêtes avec les agriculteurs structurées en questionnaires qui comportent les aspects relatifs à l'agrob...

Les oliveraies traditionnelles du nord-ouest du Maroc se différencient par une diversité variétale relativement importante contrairement au paysage oléicole marocain dominé par une seule variété, la Picholine marocaine. En effet, les pratiques traditionnelles locales à travers le maintien des vergers poly-variétaux ont permis la conservation de var...

Decline of Alnus glutinosa (L.) Gaertn caused by Phytophthora xalni is an emerging threat to riparian ecosystems, from northern to southern Europe. Reported intraspecific variation within this tree species suggests a variation in resistance in response to the pathogen. This work aimed at investigate the different response of A. glutinosa population...

Human activities increase in ecosystems, and cropping systems are more and more intensified. In Morocco, the development of an intensive agriculture in the "Morocco Green Plan" will necessarily induce the emergence of plant diseases, including plant-parasitic nematodes (PPN). Their management is a major challenge in agriculture. On the olive tree,...

Cette note concerne une espèce relictuelle rare et menacée au Maroc Betula pendula Roth subsp. fontqueri (Rothm.). C’est une espèce à haute valeur patrimoniale et de grand intèrêt pour la biodiversité. La note présente une actualisation des donnèes sur la localisation des sites où cette cette espèce existe dans le nord du Maroc et propose une révis...

Climate-related studies have generally focussed upon physiologically well-defined ‘mechanistic’ traits rather than ‘functional’ ones relating indirectly to resource capture. Nevertheless, field responses to climate are likely to typically include both ‘mechanistic’ specialization to climatic extremes and ‘functional’ strategies that optimize resour...

Supporting information

Le pays Jbala possède un éventail important de produits, fruits de l’agrodiversité et des savoir-faire des paysans dans des agrosystèmes traditionnels qui caractérisent cette région. Il représente un territoire géographiquement délimité et hébergeant une communauté avec des traits culturels distinctifs et une originalité qui lui confèrent une certa...

This work presents the results of a cartographic study of the spatiotemporal evolution of vegetation cover in the forest areas of Mallalyine and Taghramt in the western Rif. It is based on a field survey and the photointerpretation of aerial photographs taken in 1986 and Google Earth images from 2013 (a period of twenty-seven years). Our study repo...

During the excavations of a Roman amphora workshop and oil mill of the 1st–4th century ad in Las Delicias, Genil valley, Ecija, Spain, large quantities of charred olive stones were recovered. The assemblages discovered in the pottery kilns demonstrate the use as fuel of olive residues, which were obtained from the extraction of the oil in the nearb...

Systèmes de production oasiens et sylvo-pastoraux : intéractions, complémentarités et développement durable. Cas du bassin de Ghéris (Maroc). IRCA/INRA. 159p. ; Ait Hmida A., 2003. Système de production et stratégies des agriculteurs dans les oasis de la région d'Errachidia au Maroc. Analyse des systèmes de production oasiens et des stratégies dans...

The fig tree is an emblematic fruit tree of the Mediterranean region as much as olive, grapevine or almond. Its cultivation is widespread in the Rif Mountains where it has a characteristic feature of traditional agroecosystems. Varietal diversity is exceptionally high, estimated at over 100 local varieties. From a socio-economic perspective, the fi...

In this contribution, we will present some aspects of the history, nomenclature and uses of the culture of the bitter vetch (Vicia ervilia L. Willd.). Although this crop is currently considered to be minor and used only in animal feed, this has not always been the case. At certain times in history, the cultivation of the bitter vetch was more impor...

• Background and Aims While the ‘worldwide leaf economics spectrum’ (Wright IJ, Reich PB, Westoby M, et al. 2004. The worldwide leaf economics spectrum. Nature 428: 821–827) defines mineral nutrient relationships in plants, no unifying functional consensus links size attributes. Here, the focus is upon leaf size, a much-studied plant trait that sca...

The oasis agroecosystem is characterized by its structure in three strata: i) the date palm stratum, ii) the fruit tree stratum, and iii) the herbaceous stratum (legumes, cereals and market gardening. While this production system is very intensive, it is based on the exploitation of a great wealth in agrodiversity. Indeed, although the first stratu...

Gathered food plants are not domesticated species, but consumed by the local populations. Besides the food and economic interest, they have an important socio cultural value as traditional knowledge. An ethnobotanic study was done to contribute to the knowledge of these plants, the know-how associated with their uses and their marketing. The invent...

In Morocco, The carob tree is an excellent example of a neglected resource where it is considered as a forest tree. Indeed, despite its economic importance, exploited populations are exclusively spontaneous. There is no carob orchard’s to and there is no selected variety However, compared to cereals or fruit species in unfavorable conditions, the c...

Background Plant-parasitic nematodes (PPN) are major crop pests. On olive (Olea europaea), they significantly contribute to economic losses in the top-ten olive producing countries in the world especially in nurseries and under cropping intensification. The diversity and the structure of PPN communities respond to environmental and anthropogenic fo...

We integrate functional weed ecology with crop stable carbon and nitrogen isotope analysis to assess their combined potential for inferring arable land management practices in (semi-)arid regions from archaeobotanical assemblages. Weed and GIS survey of 60 cereal and pulse fields in Morocco are combined with crop sampling for stable isotope analysi...

We integrate functional weed ecology with crop stable carbon and nitrogen isotope analysis to assess their combined potential for inferring arable land management practices in (semi-)arid regions from archaeobotanical assemblages. Weed and GIS survey of 60 cereal and pulse fields in Morocco are combined with crop sampling for stable isotope analysi...

Ce numéro propose une relecture de la place de l’oléiculture dans l’histoire de l’Ouest méditerranéen et plus particulièrement le Maroc. L’olivier y est considéré comme un modèle des relations sociales et environnementales : la distribution de la diversité génétique, les flux de gènes entre oliviers et oléastres, ou l’équilibre entre les variétés l...

Aeropalynological sampling site recently located in the faculty of Sciences of Tetouan in northern Morocco provides the first data production and novelty of airborne pollen at the national level. To study the pollen calendar of Olea, we extract the monitoring data on this site since 2008, and estimate the main features of the pollen season (start a...

The Chefchaouen region (Northwestern Morocco) is a representative area of rural landscapes of the Rif mountains and traditional agroecosystems. Surveys were conducted with farmers in 15 villages (dchars) of the study area. The results show a varietal diversity in olive particular through the continued cultivation of local varieties. However, it sho...

Phenotypic plasticity may be defined as the ability of one genotype to exhibit different phenotypes (life history traits and morphological, anatomical, eco-physiological, biochemical characters...) in response to various abiotic or biotic ecological parameters. Phenotypic plasticity is directly linked to ecological plasticity and therefore with the...

This work is a first contribution to the comparative study of wood quantitative eco-anatomy of different olive trees (spontaneous forms and traditional cultivated varieties) growing in rather homogeneous environmental conditions. The anatomical characters involved in sap conduction are measured and analyzed using a Principal Component Analysis. Res...

Ecology and genetics of nematode communities

A total of 212 symbiotic bacteria were isolated from nodules of Vicia ervilia, a traditional crop cultivated in Northern Morocco. The isolates were recovered from 10 different sites, trapped each time with the local cultivar grown in the same field. Four loci were sequenced in order to characterize the isolates, including two housekeeping genes (re...

Bitter vetch (Vicia ervilia (L.) Willd) is a minor crop in the traditional agroecosystems of north-western Morocco. Polymorphism of microsatellite and morphological markers were used to investigate 19 Moroccan landraces by morphological and molecular markers. Thirteen morphological characters of the seed and pod showed great variability and differe...

Résumé : Ce travail constitue une première en son genre pour l’étude de la qualité physico-chimique et microbiologique des cours d’eau de Tahaddart et offre un complément aux études réalisées au niveau de Laou. Elle repose sur une méthodologie pluridisciplinaire basée sur le croisement des outils physico-chimiques, microbiologiques et statistiques...

Résumé: L’évaluation de l’intégrité écologique de deux bassins versants de la péninsule Tingitane Laou et Tahaddart par le biais de l’indice de qualité des bandes riveraines (QBR) et l’indice biotique IBMWP (The Iberian Biological Monitoring Working Party) a permis de montrer l’importance de ces indices dans les études de la qualité des eaux de sur...

Agriculture has played a pivotal role in shaping landscapes, soils and vegetation. Developing a better understanding of early farming practices can contribute to wider questions regarding the long-term impact of farming and its nature in comparison with present-day traditional agrosystems. In this study we determine stable carbon and nitrogen isoto...

This study aims to understand the past and present diversity of olive trees in Greece, according to the shape of modern and archaeological stones from various sites. It is based on a modern set of reference, which includes cultivars and wild populations from Greece and other countries around the Mediterranean Sea where olives trees grow spontaneous...

Vegetation and soil sampling were undertaken in 47 relevés in two different sites in Beni Bousera (northern Morocco), 32 relevés were on ultramafic sites (peridotite) and 15 were on adjacent non-ultramafic soils (mica-schist). Soil composition of exchangeable elements (nickel, calcium, magnesium, calcium : magnesium ratio, iron, copper) and physico...

PESTOLIVE (Contribution of olive history for the management of soil-borne parasites in the Mediterranean Basin) is a project funded by ARIMNet, an ERANET action supported by the 7th European Framework Programme and by non-European Mediterranean countries. PESTOLIVE aims at producing knowledge and tools for a new and efficient management of plant-pa...

La végétation riparienne ou ripisylve désigne des zones humides correspondant à des formations linéaires étalées le long des cours d'eau. Ces formations jouent un rôle écologique important dans l’hydrosytème en assurant la protection de la qualité d’eau. Ainsi, son importance sur le plan juridique découle de son lien étroit avec l'eau. En effet, ce...