**Meet the editors**

Dr. Oscar Grillo was born in Catania (Sicily) in 1977, he is a food technologist with an international PhD in applied and environmental botany. Since 2003 he has been working as researcher at the Stazione Sperimentale di Granicoltura per la Sicilia, a governmental institute of agronomic research, mainly working with computer vision applied to food matrices and plant structures, above

all seeds, and in particular studying wheat and the related leguminous. Currently, he is working also at the Sardinian Germplasm Bank of the Biodiversity Conservation Centre of the University of Cagliari on projects devoted to seed characterization and identification by image analysis. Results of his work have been published in many peer-reviewed journals papers and international conference papers. Referee for a few peer-reviewed journals, many times he has been invited as teacher/lecturer/speaker by some universities and research centres in Spain and Italy. He has trained many MSc and PhD students, who have made their own contributions to the agronomical and botanical research.

Gianfranco Venora is a biologist, born in Caltagirone (Sicily) in 1958, where he lives and works. He took his University degree in 1981, and since 1982 he has been working as researcher at the Stazione Sperimentale di Granicoltura per la Sicilia. His working expertise is mainly about durum wheat and leguminous breeding. At the beginning of 1990, after some years of experience

on karyotyping cropped and wild species of agronomical importance, he was fascinated by computer vision applied to food matrices and plant structures, above all seeds, studying wheat and the related leguminous. He was recently nominated as professor to the research doctorate on Applied and Environmental Botany of the University of Cagliari. Many peer-reviewed journals published his papers and he was invited as speaker in many international conferences, and as teacher/lecturer by some universities and research centres in Germany, Netherlands, Bulgaria, Spain, Czech Republic and Italy. Gianfranco Venora is currently referee for about 15 peer-reviewed journals and tutor of many MSc and PhD students.

Contents

**Preface IX** 

Chapter 1 **Climate Change: Wildfire Impact 3** 

Mirza Dautbasic, Genci Hoxhaj, Florin Ioras, Ioan Vasile Abrudan and Jega Ratnasingam

Chapter 2 **Assessing Loss of Biodiversity in Europe Through** 

Andrew O. Lamb and Skip J.F. Young

**Links with Afromontane Regions and South African Biomes 113** 

Chapter 6 **Biodiversity Loss in Freshwater Mussels:** 

Trey Nobles and Yixin Zhang

Stéphane La Barre

Susana Martinez Sanchez, Pablo Ramil Rego, Boris Hinojo Sanchez and Emilio Chuvieco Salinero

Chapter 3 **Biodiversity Stability of Shallow Marine Benthos in Strait** 

Chapter 4 **Coral Reef Biodiversity in the Face of Climatic Changes 75** 

Chapter 5 **Biogeography of Platberg, Eastern Free State, South Africa:** 

Chapter 7 **Effects of Climate Change in Amphibians and Reptiles 163** 

**in Ecological Stations of Brazilian Cerrado 185**  Claudionor Ribeiro da Silva, Rejane Tavares Botrel, Jeová Carreiro Martins and Jailson Silva Machado

Robert F. Brand, L.R. Brown and P.J. du Preez

**Importance, Threats, and Solutions 137** 

Saúl López-Alcaide and Rodrigo Macip-Ríos

Chapter 8 **Identification and Analysis of Burned Areas** 

**of Georgia, British Columbia, Canada Through Climate Regimes, Overfishing and Ocean Acidification 49**  Jeffrey B. Marliave, Charles J. Gibbs, Donna M. Gibbs,

**Remote Sensing: The Necessity of New Methodologies 19** 
