Biological invasions need to be assessed as spatial processes, incorporating information on introduction sites, environmental suitability, dispersal parameters and negative impacts. The above allows us to develop risk maps, which are an important tool to determine the probability and consequences of an invasion in each area. In this study, we developed species niche-based distribution models for Vespa mandarinia and V. velutin...

The daily values of UVB irradiation (290–315 nm), I UVB, and the broadband total irradiation (300–2800 nm), I T , measured on a horizontal plane have been correlated for the period 2000–2008 at 16 measurement sites in Spain. The results have been compared with the daily experimental values registered at the same sites during the period 2009–2011. The coefficients of determination R 2 obtained by applying a linear regression ar...

UV erythemal irradiance (UVER) has been studied on a horizontal plane and on vertical surfaces with different orientations in Valencia, Spain. The evolution of the solar noon value and the maximum daily value over a year has been analysed from the instantaneous UVER taken every five minutes on the horizontal plane and on vertical surfaces with north, south, east and west orientations. The annual evolution of these values shows...

The Neolithic transition has been widely debated particularly regarding the extent to which this revolution implied a demographic expansion from the Near East. We attempted to shed some light on this process in northeastern Iberia by combining ancient DNA (aDNA) data from Early Neolithic settlers and published DNA data from Middle Neolithic and modern samples from the same region. We successfully extracted and amplified mitoch...

Low ozone level episodes (also known as mini‐holes) have been analysed over Valencia, Spain, during the period from 1 January 2000 to 31 December 2007. In this study, 24 episodes, lasting 1 or 2 days each, were detected. Most of them can be explained dynamically by the existence of an anticyclone over the Azores, which sends air masses coming from the Caribbean over the Iberian Peninsula. A positive anomaly in the vertical tem...

The study develops a simple but physically based model for estimating erythemal irradiance [(UV erythemal radiation (UVER)] for cloudless urban regions with substantial aerosol load, such as that of the Valencia environment in Spain. The model estimates direct and diffuse UVER for cloudless aerosol‐free conditions using the LibRadtran model with a DISORT algorithm. Aerosol optical thickness for UVER (τ aER ) is obtained as a r...

The influence of cloudiness over experimental UV erythemal radiation (UVER) has been studied. This influence has been analysed considering total cloudiness and low clouds. The measurements of cloudiness correspond to the daily values registered at 13:00 GMT at the Meteorological Centre of Valencia, which is part of the State Agency of Meteorology of Spain (AEMET). The UVER measurements were made using a YES UVB‐1 radiometer lo...

Ultraviolet erythemal radiation (UVER) values have been simulated for different values of column ozone and aerosol optical depth (AOD) using a multiple scattering model: SBDART. The results show that UVER decreased when atmospheric ozone and aerosols increased, with the ozone having greater influence than AOD. To quantify these dependencies the influence of aerosols on the simulated values of UVER has been analysed for differe...

The values of three clearness indices have been measured for the city of Valencia: k t , the clearness index for the whole solar spectrum, k tUV the clearness index for the ultraviolet range, and the erythemal clearness index for the erythemal radiation k tUVER , corresponding to the solar radiation weighted by the erythemal action spectrum on human skin, normalized with respect to the solar constant corresponding to that spec...

Although ultraviolet B radiation (UVB), the solar radiation band between 280 and 315 nm, is only a small fraction of the extraterrestrial solar radiation, it accounts for 80% of the harmful effects of exposure to the sun. In this work values of erythemal solar irradiance (UVER) measured in Valencia on a horizontal plane in the period between June 2003 and June 2005 are analysed and compared with measures of UV (A + B) and glob...

During the past 2 years automatic measurements of UVB solar irradiance have been made sstematically at ground level at a number of points in Spain. Values for both the ultraviolet erythemal radiation and the ultraviolet index (UVI) have been obtained from these measurements. In this paper we present a first analysis of these values for two locations on the Spanish Mediterranean coast—Valencia and Barcelona—an area where a larg...