Traditional rural social–ecological systems (SES) share many features which are crucial for sustainable development. Eastern European countries such as Romania, are still rich in traditional cultural landscapes. However, these landscapes are increasingly under internal (e.g., people's aspirations toward western socioeconomic ideals) and external (institutional changes, globalization of the commodity market, connectivity with other cultures) pressures. Therefore, understanding the ways how traditional SES navigated past and more recent changes is of crucial importance in getting insights about the future trajectory of these systems. Here, we present the rural SES from the Saxon region of Transylvania through the lens of institutional transitions which happened in the past century in this region. We show that the rural SES went through episodic collapses and renewals, their cyclic dynamic being related to the episodic changes of the higher level formal institutions. These episodic collapses and renewals created a social–ecological momentum for the sustainability of these SES. While we recognize that policy effectiveness depends on institutional stability (and institutions are unstable and prone to collapses), maintaining those social–ecological system properties which can assure navigation of societies through the challenges imposed by global changes should be in the heart of every governance system. Such properties includes wide extent of native vegetation, fertile soils, wide range of provisioning ecosystem services, genuine links between people and landscapes and knowledge about the social–ecological systems. These features could provide important capitals and memory elements for the (re)emergence of social–ecological systems (old or new).
Large, old trees are keystone ecological structures, their decline having disproportional ecological consequences. There is virtually no information available regarding the status and occurrence of old trees in traditional cultural landscapes from Eastern Europe. In this study, we explore the environmental determinants of the old oaks found in wood-pastures from a changing traditional rural landscape from Central Romania. Both the old oaks and the wood-pastures harboring them have exceptional cultural, historical, and ecological values, yet are vulnerable to landuse change. We surveyed 41 wood-pastures from Southern Transylvania and counted the old oaks in them. We then related the number of old oaks from these wood-pastures to a set of local and landscape level variables related to woodpastures. We found 490 old oaks in 25 wood-pastures. The number of old oaks was positively related to the size of the wood-pasture and the amount of pasture and forest around it (500 m buffer), and negatively related to the proximity of the village. Furthermore, we found a significant interaction between the effects of sheepfolds in the wood-pasture and the size of the wood-pasture on the number of old trees, indicating a negative influence of sheepfolds on the number of old trees in smaller sized wood-pastures. There is an increasing risk for losing old trees in the traditional cultural landscapes due to the lack of formal recognition of these trees. Therefore, while presenting the positive example of local initiatives and citizen science, we argue for an urgent development and implementation of conservation policies along with education strategies targeting the old trees and rural communities from the changing traditional cultural landscapes of Eastern Europe.
Blood biochemistry parameters are valuable tools for monitoring fish health. Their baseline values are still undefined for a multitude of farmed fish species. In this study, changes in the blood profile of rainbow trout females (Oncorhynchus mykiss) from three farms were investigated using different biomarkers during the summer season. In the given context, the main water physicochemical parameters were investigated and twelve biochemical parameters were measured from blood samples of rainbow trout reared in the Fiad, Șoimul de Jos, and Strâmba farms. We selected these farms because the genetic background of the rainbow trout is the same, with all studied specimens coming from the Fiad farm, which has an incubation station. Forty-five samples were collected monthly (May to August) throughout summer to observe the changes in the blood profile of rainbow trout. Principal component analysis showed a clear separation both among the studied farms and months. Furthermore, significant correlations (p < 0.05) between the majority of the biochemical parameters were found, indicating that the environmental parameters can influence several blood parameters at the same time. The present study provides several useful norms for assessing the welfare of rainbow trout, indicating that the relationships among different parameters are important factors in interpreting the blood biochemical profiles.
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