Laurène Marien

Soil erosion control is critical to global food production and ecosystem health worldwide, and particularly in the Mediterranean region, which is prone to erosion and is expected to be strongly affected by climatic and anthropogenic changes. In this study, which was part of the MASCC/Arimnet2 project, we aimed to inspect the vulnerability in terms of soil erosion of Mediterranean agricultural soils to global changes in order to contribute to the definition of sustainable agricultural conservation strategies for Mediterranean agro-ecosystems. Specifically, we explored how land use and management (LUM) can mitigate climate change impacts and increase agricultural attractiveness in a pasture-dominated Mediterranean mountain environment, the Cannata basin in Sicily, by 2050 under RCP4.5 climate scenarios, and testing strategies to maintain agricultural production and protect soil resources.LUM scenarios were established as a modulation of environmental protection and agricultural production/ diversification. The main management distinctions tested in this paper included intensive versus extensive practices for pasture, and conventional versus conservative practices for cereals and orchards.Soil erosion simulations, carried out with the LandSoil model, showed that the impact of climate change was very low and not significant in the studied watershed (i.e., 1.78% of erosion on average). Under current climate and compared to the baseline, LUM scenarios reported an increase in erosion for the business-as-usual (S1, +6.0%), market-oriented (S2, +57.2%) and sustainability-oriented (S4, +0.9) scenarios, respectively, whereas the nature-oriented scenario led to a slight reduction in erosion (S3, 11.3%).Our results emphasize that agricultural diversification coupled with adaptations in practices and management can improve the attractiveness of agriculture in pasture-dominated environments while maintaining soil protection at an acceptable level.

Soil erosion control is critical to global food production and ecosystem health worldwide, and particularly in the Mediterranean region, which is prone to erosion and is expected to be strongly affected by climatic and anthropogenic changes. In this paper, we explore how land use and management (LUM) can mitigate climate change impacts and increase agricultural attractiveness in pasture‐dominated Mediterranean mountain environments. One originality of the proposed research is to combine LUM scenarios incorporating environmental and socio‐economic behaviour with distributed process‐based modelling to simulate the impacts of global change. Specifically, soil erosion for different combinations of current and plausible future climate and LUM conditions were simulated on a small watershed located in eastern Sicily (Italy) using the LandSoil model. LUM scenarios were established as a modulation of environmental protection and agricultural production/diversification. The main management distinctions tested in this paper included intensive versus extensive practices for pasture, and conventional versus conservative practices for cereals and orchards. Simulations showed that the impact of climate change was very low and not significant in the studied watershed (i.e., −1.78% of erosion on average). Under current climate and compared to the baseline, LUM scenarios reported an increase in erosion for the business‐as‐usual (S1, +6.0%), market‐oriented (S2, +57.2%) and sustainability‐oriented (S4, +0.9) scenarios, respectively, whereas the nature‐oriented scenario led to a slight reduction in erosion (S3, −11.3%). Our results also emphasised that agricultural diversification coupled with adaptations in practices and management can improve the attractiveness of agriculture in pasture‐dominated environments while maintaining soil protection at an acceptable level.

Soil erosion control is critical to global food production and ecosystem health. The Mediterranean region is particularly concerned because it is prone to erosion and is expected to be strongly affected by climatic and anthropogenic changes. In this paper we explore how land use and management (LUM) can mitigate climate change impacts and increase agricultural attractiveness in pasture-dominated Mediterranean mountain environments. For that, soil erosion for different combinations of current and plausible future climate and LUM conditions were simulated on a small watershed located in eastern Sicily (Italy) using the LandSoil model. LUM scenarios were established as a modulation of environmental protection and agricultural production/diversification. The main management distinctions tested in this paper included intensive vs. extensive practices for pasture, and conventional vs. conservative practices for cereals and orchards. Simulations showed that the impact of climate change was very low and not significant in the studied watershed. Our results also emphasised that agricultural diversification coupled with adaptations in practices and management can improve the attractiveness of agriculture in pasture-dominated environments while maintaining soil protection at an acceptable level.

The distribution of the voltage-gated Kv1 K+ channels at the axon initial segment (AIS) influences neuronal intrinsic excitability. The Kv1.1 and Kv1.2 (also known as KCNA1 and KCNA2, respectively) subunits are associated with cell adhesion molecules (CAMs), including Caspr2 (also known as CNTNAP2) and LGI1, which are implicated in autoimmune and genetic neurological diseases with seizures. In particular, mutations in the LGI1 gene cause autosomal dominant lateral temporal lobe epilepsy (ADLTE). Here, by using rat hippocampal neurons in culture, we showed that LGI1 is recruited to the AIS where it colocalizes with ADAM22 and Kv1 channels. Strikingly, the missense mutations S473L and R474Q of LGI1 identified in ADLTE prevent its association with ADAM22 and enrichment at the AIS. Moreover, we observed that ADAM22 and ADAM23 modulate the trafficking of LGI1, and promote its ER export and expression at the overall neuronal cell surface. Live-cell imaging indicated that LGI1 is co-transported in axonal vesicles with ADAM22 and ADAM23. Finally, we showed that ADAM22 and ADAM23 also associate with Caspr2 and TAG-1 (also known as CNTN2) to be selectively targeted to different axonal sub-regions. Hence, the combinatorial expression of Kv1-associated CAMs may be critical to tune intrinsic excitability in physiological and epileptogenic contexts.