The north flowing Falkland / Malvinas Current has generated sediment drifts at a depth of 1200-1600 m in the Patagonian middle continental slope out of early Holocene hemipelagics, late Pleistocene ice rafted clastics, and Neogene fluvial sediments. Possibly there may be two generations of drifts, Pleistocene on the outer middle slope and Holocene on the inner shelf. The ice rafted debris originated in Antarctica, at a distance of 2000 to 4000 km south of Patagonia. Scattered over the upper and middle slopes, at depths ranging from 300 to 1400 m, are cold-water coral reefs of less than a meter to about ten of meters in relief. It is inferred that most of cold-water coral structures flourish as a consequence of the Falkland /Malvinas Current that concentrates the food supply at the reef sites. Growth of cold-water coral reefs, documented by digital submarine photographs on the upper slope, at a depth of 300/400 m, may be promoted by upwelling 2 of nutrient-rich waters and associated plankton blooms created by the intrusion of Falkland /Malvinas Current onto the outer shelf.

Las Tablas de Daimiel National Park (TDNP), recognized as both Biosphere reserve by UNESCO and Ramsar site, is one of the last representatives in the Iberian Peninsula of Mediterranean wetlands linked to groundwater dynamics. It constitutes an outstanding flora and fauna reserve. The inappropriate agricultural management of the groundwater resources that support the system has caused the drying up of the wetland from 2004 to 2009. As a consequence, a smouldering peat fire started inside the TDNP in August 2009. This fire poses an enormous risk for both the physical structure supporting the ecosystem and the quality of groundwater beneath it. The situation got worse in September when a surface fire in the eastern limit of the Park, 3.5 km away from the first underground seat, transmitted to the subsoil giving rise to a second smouldering peat fire outside the Park. The analysis of key parameters monitored in several locations of the TDNP at different depths, such as soil moisture, temperature and organic matter content, shows there was enough previous evidence to foresee the peat self-combustion and the risk that any surface fire could be transmitted to the subsoil. The relatively small size of the Park, the knowledge of the spatial distribution of peat masses, together with the detailed knowledge about soil and vadose zone structure, have allowed to design and execute an emergency plan to hold the fire back. The experience has allowed to check for strong and weak points in the vigilance and alert system implemented, to confirm the effectiveness of the measures applied for the fire control and to propose short and long term actions for preventing fires from starting in the future.

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A growth model was developed to optimize the management of multi-trophic aquaculture systems by analyzing the influence of light and biomass stocking density (SD in the productivity of Ulva ohnoi fed with the effluents from Solea senegalensis culture tanks.Experimental growth rates and productivity were determined in three flat bottom algae tanks with different incident photon irradiances ( ) (163, 280 and 886 µmol m -2 s -1 ), photoperiod 12:12h and with stocking densities ranging from 82 to 340 gdw m -2 . The distribution of photon irradiance in the algae tanks was estimated as a function of the and SD.The results obtained showed that, the algae exposed to the highest (886 µmol m -2 s -1 ) and below 170gdw m -2 experimented a strong decrease in their growth rate, together with morphological changes.The model proposed to estimate the specific growth rate ( ), on the basis of and , assumed that photosynthetic activity is dependent on the local photon flux density and, therefore, spatially distributed in the tank. The non-linear regression used to estimate the growth kinetic parameters showed a standard deviation of the distance between measured and fitted data values equal to 0.011 d -1 .In terms of biomass productivity per unit area ( ) the model shows, for each level, a trend to increase with SD, achieving a maximum , where SD can be considered optimal, and decreasing for higher SD values. The optimal SD and the maximum achievable can be also determined as a function of .