2020 October - 45 articles
Agricultural grasslands provide vital habitats for many species. Yet despite representing a significant proportion of European land use, they are disproportionately understudied compared to arable systems. Increases in productivity and intensificatio...
Genetic studies on model plants and crops in the last few decades have uncovered numerous genes that play vital roles in plant tolerance to adverse environments. These genes could be used as targets for genetic engineering to improve plant tolerance...
The knowledge on the hard bottom polychaete assemblages in the Northern Adriatic Sea, a Mediterranean region strongly affected by environmental pressures, is scarce and outdated. The objective of this paper was to update the information on polychaete...
In this study, we performed a bibliographical review examining the scientific literature on “feeding in Anthozoa” for the period from 1890 to 2019, using the scientific database Google Scholar, supplemented with additional literature. Thi...
Megalobrama terminalis, which inhabits the Sino-Russian Heilong-Amur River Basin, has decreased critically since the 1960s. It has been listed in the Red Book of Endangered Fish Species by the Russian Federation in 2004. To guide the utilization and...
In recent decades, independent national and international research programs have revealed possible reasons for the death of managed honey bee colonies worldwide. Such losses are not due to a single factor, but instead are due to highly complex intera...
Current knowledge regarding the vocal behavior in tropical non-passerines is very limited. Here, we employed passive acoustic monitoring to study the vocal activity of the white-tipped dove (Leptotila verreauxi) at three sites over a year in the Braz...
In a region with poor soil fertility, low annual precipitation and large areas of homogenous Pinus sylvestris L. forests, conservation of old sessile oak (Quercus petraea (Matt.) Liebl.) trees is one option to enrich structure and species richness. W...
Deforestation is a major threat to biodiversity, particularly within tropical forest habitats. Some of the fastest diminishing tropical forest habitats in the world occur in Indonesia, where fragmentation is severely impacting biodiversity, including...
Ecological diversity among diurnal birds of prey, or raptors, is highlighted regarding their sensory abilities. While raptors are believed to forage primarily using sight, the sensory demands of scavengers and predators differ, as reflected in their...
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Catastrophic wildfire is increasingly common in forests of the western United States because climate change is increasing ambient temperatures and periods of drought. In 2011, the Las Conchas wildfire burned in the Santa Fe National Forest of New Mex...
Organisms are adapted to their environment through a suite of anatomical, morphological, and physiological traits. These functional traits are commonly thought to determine an organism’s tolerance to environmental conditions. However, the diffe...
Plant-associated microbiomes have been suggested as pivotal for the growth and health of natural vegetation and agronomic plants. In this sense, plant-associated microbiomes harbor a huge diversity of microorganisms (such as bacteria and fungi) which...
Structural complexity spanning fine to broad spatial scales can influence the distribution and activity of key organisms within marine ecosystems. However, the relative importance of hard (e.g., corals) and/or soft (e.g., macroalgae) structural compl...
Plant-associated bacterial assemblages are critical for plant fitness. Thus, identifying a consistent plant-associated core microbiome is important for predicting community responses to environmental changes. Our target was to identify the core bacte...
Desert aquatic systems are widely separated, lack hydrologic connections, and are subject to drought. However, they provide unique settings to investigate distributional patterns of micrometazoans, including rotifers. Thus, to understand rotifer biod...
Prioritizing the prevention and control of non-native invasive species requires understanding where introductions are likely to occur and cause harm. We developed predictive models for Eurasian watermilfoil (EWM) (Myriophyllum spicatum L.) occurrence...
Animals in many phyla are adapted to and thrive in the constant darkness of subterranean environments. To do so, cave animals have presumably evolved mechano- and chemosensory compensations to the loss of vision, as is the case for the blind characif...
Chondrichthyans are one of the most threatened marine taxa worldwide. This is also the case in the Mediterranean Sea, which is considered an extinction hotspot for rays and sharks. The central position of the Italian peninsula makes it an ideal locat...
While recent advances in next-generation sequencing technologies have accelerated research in microbial ecology, the application of high throughput approaches to study the ecology of nematodes remains unresolved due to several issues, e.g., whether t...
Diatom community composition and abundances on different thallus parts of adult and juvenile specimens of Eckloniamaxima and Laminariapallida were examined in False Bay, South Africa, using light and scanning electron microscopy. Altogether, 288 thal...
This study contributes to an understanding of megadiversity in the arid-adapted ant genus Melophorus by presenting an integrated genetic, morphological and distributional analysis of diversity within the M. rufoniger group in the 400,000 km2 Top End...
Oenothera drummondii Hook. (Onagraceae) has life-history traits that make it an invasive species. Native populations are distributed along the coastal dunes from North Carolina in the United States to Tabasco in the Gulf of Mexico. It has been report...
Consumer communities play an important role in maintaining ecosystem structure and function. In seagrass systems, algal regulation by mesograzers provides a critical maintenance function which promotes seagrass productivity. Consumer communities also...
In recent years, biofilm-forming diatoms have received increased attention as sea turtle epibionts. However, most of the research has focused on carapace-associated taxa and communities, while less is known about diatoms growing on sea turtle skin. T...
Multiple ecological and genetic studies of diatom algae require an axenic culture. However, algae-associated bacterial biofilms often form in diatom-produced mucus, both during creation of monoclonal cultures from single cells and during biomass grow...
The genus Crocidura (Eulipotyphla, Soricidae) is the most speciose genus amongst mammals, i.e., it includes the highest number of species. Different species are distinguished by skull morphology, which often prevents the identification of individuals...
Parrotfish perform a variety of vital ecological functions on coral reefs, but we have little understanding of how these vary spatially as a result of inter-habitat variability in species assemblages. Here, we examine how two key ecological functions...
Parrotfish provide important ecological functions on coral reefs, including the provision of new settlement space through grazing and the generation of sediment through bioerosion of reef substrate. Estimating these functions at an ecosystem level de...
Juvenile fish often use alternative habitats distinct from their adult phases. Parrotfishes are an integral group of coral reef fish assemblages, are targeted in fisheries, are sensitive to reef disturbances, and have been documented as multiple-habi...
Yellow-naped amazons, Amazona auropalliata, have experienced a dramatic population decline due to persistent habitat loss and poaching. In 2017, BirdLife International changed the species’ status from threatened to endangered and estimated that...
Vascular epiphytes contribute up to 35% of the plant diversity and foliar biomass of flowering plants. The family Bromeliaceae is a monophyletic group of plants native to the Neotropics. Epiphytic bromeliads form associations with distinct groups of...
The aim of the present work was to present the ecological and morphological characteristics of species from the genus Achnanthes Bory sensu stricto, which develops in terrestrial mosses near the Rio de Janeiro Botanic Garden, Brazil. A literature com...
Determination of the relationships between environmental factors and diatom assemblages is usually made for several hundred lakes spread over a large area. However, the analysis of several lakes located near Lake Wigry also gives interesting results....
This article addresses a case study on the application of criteria for harvesting, aiming at restoration and profitability in a degraded tropical forest in the Amazon. The objective is to provide technical and economic information to promote a truly...
The recent accelerated ocean acidification and global warming caused by increased atmospheric carbon dioxide may have an impact on the physiology and ecology of marine animals. This study was conducted to determine the egg production rate (EPR) and h...
African ecosystems comprise a wealthy repository of biodiversity with a high proportion of native and endemic plant species, which makes them biologically unique and providers of a wide range of ecosystem services. A large part of African populations...
Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) establish symbiotic associations with most terrestrial plants. These soil microorganisms enhance the plant’s nutrient uptake by extending the root absorbing area. In return, the symbiont receives plant carbohy...
The historical loss of natural wetlands in Romania is significant. The building of lakes, ponds, and dams has compensated for some of these losses, as was the case in the study area, the artificial wetlands designated as the Natura 2000 (special prot...
A floristic survey was performed on a temporary pond, “Laqui du Seignavoux”, situated in the Mont-Dore massif of the French Massif Central, between 2017 and 2019. Except in 2017, each year, we performed four sampling campaigns from April/...
The Astyanax species complex has two morphs: a blind, depigmented morph which inhabits caves in México and an eyed, pigmented surface-dwelling morph. The eyed morph can also be found in a few caves, sometimes hybridizing with the cave morph. T...
In the western U.S., the black-backed woodpecker has been found to be associated with dense montane conifer forests with high snag densities, typically resulting from moderate- to high-severity wildland fires. However, black-backed woodpeckers are oc...
Rodent assemblages have ecological importance in ecosystem functioning and protected area management. Our study examines the patterns of assemblages of rodents across four habitat types (i.e., Miombo woodland, Acacia woodland, grasslands and farmland...
Global fisheries are in decline, calling for urgent evidence-based action. One such action is the identification and protection of fishery-associated habitats such as seagrass meadows and kelp forests, both of which have suffered long-term loss and d...
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