Climate and land-use changes influence the transmission of vector-borne diseases by affecting the distribution and survival of disease vectors. Numerous diseases are transmitted by phlebotomine sand flies (Diptera: Psychodidae: Phlebotominae), including leishmaniasis. Several major sand fly-borne diseases are responsible for high global disease burdens and high socio-economic costs. In Europe, over 20 known sand fly vector spe...

Advances in drug discovery and material design rely heavily on in silico analysis of extensive compound datasets and accurate assessment of their properties and activities through computational methods. Efficient and reliable prediction of molecular properties is crucial for rational compound design in the chemical industry. To address this need, we have developed predictive models for nine key properties, including the octano...

Peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor gamma (PPARγ) antagonists play a critical role in regulating glucose and lipid metabolism, making them promising candidates for antidiabetic therapies. To support the ongoing search of such compounds, this study introduces two advanced in silico models for predicting the binding affinity and biological activity of small molecules targeting PPARγ. A neural network was developed to clas...

Soilless cultivation facilitates efficient and intensive crop production, without the need for soil, making it an effective method for urban agriculture applications. However, soilless cultivation systems predominantly rely on the use of synthetic fertilizers. Therefore, the current study was conducted to evaluate struvite, produced from the digestated effluents of anaerobically treated livestock waste, as a complete replaceme...

The increasing demand for sustainable fertilizers has made phosphorus recovery from waste a win–win solution. The present study shows the effects of two different types of organo-mineral fertilizers, derived from liquid digestate, on Cucurbita pepo L. (zucchini) seed germination and seedling growth. Organo-mineral fertilizers (OMF) were obtained from two biogas plants—one in Cyprus and one in Sardinia. In Cyprus, it was extrac...

By evaluating genetic variation across the entire genome, one can address existing questions in a novel way while raising new ones. The latter includes how different local environments influence adaptive and neutral genomic variation within and among populations, providing insights into local adaptation of natural populations and their responses to global change. Here, under a seascape genomic approach, ddRAD data of 4609 sing...

To determine the drivers of phytoplankton biomass, we collected standardized morphometric, physical, and biological data in 230 lakes across the Mediterranean, Continental, and Boreal climatic zones of the European continent. Multilinear regression models tested on this snapshot of mostly eutrophic lakes (median total phosphorus [TP] = 0.06 and total nitrogen [TN] = 0.7 mg L −1 ), and its subsets (2 depth types and 3 climatic...

The European Regulation (EU) 1143/2014 on Invasive Alien Species entered into force in 2015, with the aim to fulfill regional and international biodiversity goals in a concerted manner. To date, the Regulation listed 66 Invasive Alien Species (IAS) that are subject to legal controls. Only one of these is marine. A recent lionfish (Pterois miles) invasion has been closely monitored in the Mediterranean and a detailed risk asses...