Pilar Andrés

Centre for Research on Ecology and Forestry Applications | CREAF · Department of Ecology

This paper describes an assessment framework tool to analyze the performance of nature-based solutions (NBS) for hydro-meteorological risk management. The tool is based on multi-criteria decision analysis within the context of NBSs, an umbrella concept currently in focus that promotes nature and provides ecological and socioeconomic benefits. The p...

The soil of most Spanish vineyards is strongly eroded and carbon depleted and is very poor in biodiversity. Growing evidence of the negative impacts of soil degradation on climate change mitigation, water quality, and plant production is pushing a shift from intensive viticulture to more sustainable management strategies of the vineyards. Among the...

Nature-based solutions (NBSs) for risk reduction produce environmental effects that must be assessed to evaluate their performance. In a context of climate change and growing concern about the loss of biodiversity, indicators informing about ecosystem complexity, resilience and stability are required. NBS projects hardly ever include environmental...

Ecological restoration is key to counteracting anthropogenic degradation of biodiversity and to reducing disaster risk. However, there is limited knowledge of barriers hindering the wider implementation of restoration practices, despite high level political priority to halt the loss of biodiversity. In Europe, progress on ecological restoration has...

Plant litter decomposition is a key process for carbon dynamics and nutrient cycling in terrestrial ecosystems. The interaction between litter properties, climatic conditions and soil attributes, influences the activity of microorganisms responsible for litter mineralization. So far, studies using standardized litters to investigate the response of...

Biochar is a high carbon material resulting from biomass pyrolysis that, when applied to croplands, can increase soil carbon and soil water retention. Both effects are of critical importance in semi-arid regions, where carbon decline and desertification are the main drivers of soil degradation. Since most environmental services provided by soil are...

General knowledge of the small, invisible, or hidden organisms that make soil one of the most biodiverse habitats on Earth is thought to be scarce, despite their importance in food systems and agricultural production. We provide the first worldwide review of high-quality research that reports on farmers’ knowledge of soil organisms in agriculture....

Key messages • Soil is an important habitat for thousand millions of organisms. • Soil biodiversity is extremely diverse in shapes, colours, sizes and functions. • Soil biodiversity is globally distributed, from deserts to polar regions through grasslands, forests, urban and agricultural areas. • Soil biodiversity supports many services essential t...

Integrar las comunidades del suelo en la teoría ecológica general es uno de los desafíos actuales de la Ecología Terrestre. Las comunidades de organismos del suelo son responsables de la descomposición y el reciclado de nutrientes, procesos esenciales para el funcionamiento de los ecosistemas terrestres y los ciclos biogeoquímicos a escala global....

SPE EA Pôle BIOME The Atlas is divided in 8 chapters covering all the aspects of soil biodiversity: - Chapter I: The soil habitat - Chapter II: Diversity of soil organisms - Chapter III: Geographical and temporal distribution - Chapter IV: Ecosystem functions and services - Chapter V: Threats - Chapter VI: Interventions - Chapter VII: Policy, educa...

Purpose The main objective of the present study was to evaluate the toxicity of two reference chemicals, Carbendazim and Phenmedipham, for the compostworm Eisenia andrei (effects of Carbendazim) and the potworm Enchytraeus crypticus (effects of Phenmedipham) in 12 Mediterranean soils with contrasting soil properties. The observed toxicity was also...

Biochar is an organic material produced via the pyrolysis of C-based biomass, which is increasingly being recognized by scientists and policy makers for its potential role in carbon sequestration, reducing greenhouse gas emissions, waste mitigation, and as a soil amendment. Recent studies indicated that biochar improves soil fertility through its p...

Cedrela odorata (Spanish cedar) is a valuable multi-purpose tree which Central American rural communities and farmers give priority to introducing in pastures and home gardens. In order to propose realistic methods for C. odorata production in local nurseries in the dry tropical region of Nicaragua, we studied: (a) the ability of locally collected...

Nineteen Mediterranean natural soils with a wide range of properties and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) artificial soil were used to assess the influence of soil properties on the results of avoidance and reproduction tests carried out with the soil collembolan species Folsomia candida. Compared to natural soils,...

A current challenge in soil ecotoxicology is the use of natural soils as test substrates to increase ecological relevance of data. Despite the existence of six natural reference soils (the Euro-soils), some parallel projects showed that these soils do not accurately represent the diversity of European soils. Particularly, Mediterranean soils are no...

Composting is a waste management technology that is becoming more widespread as a response to the increasing production of sewage sludge and the pressure for its reuse in soil. In this study, different bioassays (plant germination, earthworm survival, biomass and reproduction, and collembolan survival and reproduction) were assessed for their usefu...

Intensive deforestation is reducing dry tropical forest areas worldwide and increasing its fragmentation. Forest remnants can be the basis for the future recovery of this forest type if appropriate management practices are applied. This requires a better knowledge of their conservation status and the assessment of their perceived value by land user...

Background, aim, and scopeNonylphenol polyethoxylates (NPEOs) are a widely used class of nonionic surfactants known to be toxic and endocrine-disrupting contaminants. Their use and production have been banned in the European Union and substituted by other surfactants considered as environmentally safer. However, their use continues in many countrie...

Los procesos de evaluación integrada y participativa son un buen marco metodológico-operativo para la toma de decisiones frente a cuestiones ambientales complejas que conciernen a socio-agroecosistemas de alto dinamismo e impredecibilidad a cambios y con intereses conflictivos de los actores implicados en su gestión. La finalidad del artículo es mo...

Los procesos de evaluación integrada y participativa son un buen marco metodológico-operativo para la toma de decisiones frente a cuestiones ambientales complejas que conciernen a socio-agroecosistemas de alto dinamismo e impredecibilidad a cambios y con intereses conflictivos de los actores implicados en su gestión. La finalidad del artículo es mo...

In order to evaluate the ability of three types of extracts to explain the ecotoxicological risk of treated municipal sewage sludges, the OECD 208A germination test was applied using three plants (Lolium perenne L., Brassica rapa L., and Trifolium pratense L.). Three equivalent batches of sludge, remained as dewatered sludge, composted with plant r...

Safe amendment rates (the predicted no-effect concentration or PNEC) of seven organic wastes were estimated from the species sensitivity distribution of a battery of soil biota tests and compared with different realistic amendment scenarios (different predicted environmental concentrations or PEC). None of the wastes was expected to exert noxious e...

Development of methodologies to assess the safety of reusing polluted organic wastes in soil is a priority in Europe. In this study, and coupled with chemical analysis, seven organic wastes were subjected to different aquatic and soil bioassays. Tests were carried out with solid-phase waste and three different waste eluates (water, methanol, and di...

Despite the increasing quantities of organic wastes that are being reused in soils, there are few studies that focus on the selection of bioassays for the ecotoxicological risk assessment of organic wastes to soils. In the present study, differences in feeding inhibition in the soil collembolan Folsomia candida were evaluated as an ecotoxicological...

The reproduction test with the collembolan Folsomia candida is used as a tool to evaluate the ecotoxicological potential of organic wastes currently applied to soil. Seven organic wastes (dewatered sewage sludges, thermally dried sewage sludges, composted sewage sludges, and a thermally dried pig slurry) were tested. These wastes had different orig...

As soil destruction is one of the most conspicuous environmental impacts of opencast mining, mining companies are compelled to restore the exploited areas and to develop monitoring programs to test the effectiveness of the restoration treatments. Soil physical and chemical parameters are usually used as soil quality indicators, but bioindicators ar...

The effects of dewatered, composted and dry urban sewage sludge on the soil mesofauna were tested in mesocosms. PVC containers were filled with soil/sludge mixtures in a proportion to amount to 6% organic matter content and were colonized with soil fauna coming from undisturbed forest soils. Mesocosms were incubated under laboratory conditions for...

Erosion is one of the most dramatic problems arising after land restoration in semi-arid Mediterranean areas. Topsoiling and subsequent hydroseeding are the main practices designed to reclaim motorway embankments, but there is a lack of information about the relationship between the ground cover furnished by the conventional seed mixtures and the e...

Some biological effects of soilfertilisation with sewage sludge were investigated aftersoil reclamation in an opencast mining area. Two earthwormspecies (Allolobophora chlorotica chloroticaand Nicodrilus caliginosus meridionalis) inhabitingthe reclaimed soil were tested for their response to twohigh doses of sludge (75 and 150 g kg-1 of dry sludgei...

Erosion is a worrying environmental problem in the Mediterranean basin, and effective systems of soil protection against erosive risks are in great demand. Six herbaceous species commonly used to restore Mediterranean soils (Lolium perenne, L. rigidum, Medicago sativa, Dactylis glomerata, Lotus corniculatus and Cynodon dactylon) were tested for the...

Experimental plots were laid out in a limestone quarry in Girona (Catalonia, Spain) to test the effects of sewage sludge on the soil microarthropod populations. Two different doses of sludge (7·5 per cent and 15 per cent) were applied to fertilize soil that was used to restore a quarry after opencast mining. Mean annual arthropod density increased...

The Mediterranean soil fauna is mainly composed of mites (Acari) and springtails (Collembola) (Lossaint and Rapp 1978), with mites being usually more abundant than springtails (Poinsot-Balaguer 1988). The greatest arthropod diversity is often found in the litter layer, where the arthropods closely depend on climatic factors, with Collembola being s...

This paper represents the first part of a larger work concerning the importance of the oribatid mites in the edaphic trophic chains of two forests (holm-oak and beech woods) under Mediterranean conditions. We offer here the data relating to annual changes of abundance, biomass and vertical distribution of the mesofauna sorted according taxonomic an...

We monitored several herbaceous species for revegetating motorway slopes in Catalonia, Spain, a Mediterranean country. Two main kinds of treatments were applied: hydroseeding on bare marl, chalk, and slates, and hydroseeding on embankments over gentler slopes, where soil materials previously removed were spread before hydroseeding. The greatest her...

Biomass estimation equations for individual holm oak (Quercus ilex spp. ilex) were developed using data from 71 sample trees. Diameter alone was a strong predictor of biomass, but better biomass estimates were obtained when height and crown projection radius were added to the model. In addition to total above-ground dry weight, different biomass co...

14. 0 Introducción La Cartografía es la disciplina que se ocupa de la representación de la Tierra sobre mapas. Uno de los primeros dilemas que enfrentó la cartografía fue el de determinar la forma exacta de nuestro planeta. Los griegos antiguos (entre ellos Pitágoras – año 582 antes de Cristo-), ya postularon la forma esférica de la Tierra. Eratóst...