The Lachnospiraceae and Ruminococcaceae are two of the most abundant families from the order Clostridiales found in the mammalian gut environment, and have been associated with the maintenance of gut health. While they are both diverse groups, they s...
Contrary to common belief, decomposition of diversity into independent richness and evenness components is mathematically impossible. However, richness can be decomposed into independent diversity and evenness or inequality components. The evenness o...
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...
As part of an overall decline in biodiversity, populations of many organisms are declining and species are being lost at unprecedented rates around the world. This includes many populations and species of amphibians. Although numerous factors are aff...
This paper is an overview of the diverse, predominantly molecular techniques, used in assessing plant genetic diversity. In recent years, there has been a significant increase in the application of molecular genetic methods for assessing the conserva...
Covering approximately 10,000 km2 the Sundarbans in the Northern Bay of Bengal is the largest contiguous mangrove forest on earth. Mangroves forests are highly productive and diverse ecosystems, providing a wide range of direct ecosystem services for...
Molecular analyses are providing new elements to decipher the origin, domestication and dispersal of native Amazonian crops in an expanding archaeological context. Solid molecular data are available for manioc (Manihot esculenta), cacao (Theobroma ca...
Coral reef ecosystems are increasingly subject to severe, large-scale disturbances caused by climate change (e.g., coral bleaching) and other more direct anthropogenic impacts. Many of these disturbances cause coral loss and corresponding changes in...
Maintaining soil health is fundamental to sustaining agricultural productivity, however, the intricate role of soil microbial diversity in this process is not fully understood. Current research acknowledges that soil microorganisms including bacteria...
Biodiversity is one of the most fundamental properties of Nature. It underpins the stability of ecosystems, provides vast bioresources for economic use, and has important cultural significance for many people. The Pampa biome, located in the southern...
Research on the coral-eating crown-of-thorns starfish (CoTS) has waxed and waned over the last few decades, mostly in response to population outbreaks at specific locations. This review considers advances in our understanding of the biology and ecolo...
Vibrios are ubiquitous bacteria in aquatic systems, especially marine ones, and belong to the Gammaproteobacteria class, the most diverse class of Gram-negative bacteria. The main objective of this review is to update the information regarding the ec...
It is well established that a decrease in genetic variation can lead to reduced fitness and lack of adaptability to a changing environment. Amphibians are declining on a global scale, and we present a four-point argument as to why this taxonomic grou...
The measurement of stable isotopes in ‘bulk’ animal and plant tissues (e.g., muscle or leaf) has become an important tool for studies of functional diversity from organismal to continental scales. In consumers, isotope values reflect thei...
Plastic has become a “hot topic” for aquatic ecosystems’ conservation together with other issues such as climate change and biodiversity loss. Indeed, plastics may detrimentally affect habitats and biota. Small plastics, called micr...
Plant growth-promoting bacteria (PGPB) enhance plant growth, as well as protect plants from several biotic and abiotic stresses through a variety of mechanisms. Therefore, the exploitation of PGPB in agriculture is feasible as it offers sustainable a...
The purpose of this study is to review theoretical and empirical findings in economics with respect to the challenging question of how to manage invasive species. The review revealed a relatively large body of literature on the assessment of damage c...
‘Biodiversity’ means the variety of life and it can be studied at different levels (genetic, species, ecosystem) and scales (spatial and temporal). Last decades showed that marine biodiversity has been severely underestimated at all levels. In order...
The Sundarbans is a deltaic mangrove forest, formed about 7000 years ago by the deposition of sediments from the foothills of the Himalayas through the Ganges river system, and is situated southwest of Bangladesh and south of West Bengal, India. Howe...
Cattle are our most important livestock species because of their production and role in human culture. Many breeds that differ in appearance, performance and environmental adaptation are kept on all inhabited continents, but the historic origin of th...
The practice of adding organic amendments to crop soils is undergoing resurgence as an efficient way to restore soil organic matter content and to improve soil quality. The quantity and quality of the organic matter inputs affect soil physicochemical...
The science of taxonomy, albeit being fundamental for all organismic research, has been underfunded and undervalued for about two generations. We analyze how this could happen, particularly in times of a biodiversity crisis, when we have increased aw...
Fungal taxonomy research, and specifically the study of macro and micro morphological characteristics, requires precise temperature control. This is because variation in temperature can affect macrofungal microstructures. Understanding the appropriat...
Riparian zones are critical for functional integrity of riverscapes and conservation of riverscape biodiversity. The synergism of intermediate flood-induced disturbances, moist microclimates, constant nutrient influx, high productivity, and resource...
Species are being lost at increasing rates due to anthropogenic effects, leading to the recognition that we are witnessing the onset of a sixth mass extinction. Emerging infectious disease has been shown to increase species loss and any attempts to r...
Among the diversity of secondary metabolites which are produced by plants as means of defence against herbivores and microbes, pyrrolizidine alkaloids (PAs) are common in Boraginaceae, Asteraceae and some other plant families. Pyrrolizidine alkaloids...
Increasing evidence suggests that coral reefs exposed to elevated turbidity may be more resilient to climate change impacts and serve as an important conservation hotspot. However, logistical difficulties in studying turbid environments have led to p...
Research policies ensuing from the Convention on Biological Diversity made huge funds available to study biodiversity. These were mostly dedicated to projects aimed at providing services to taxonomy via information and technology, or to develop “mode...
The alpine belt hosts the treeless vegetation above the high elevation climatic treeline. The way alpine plants manage to thrive in a climate that prevents tree growth is through small stature, apt seasonal development, and ‘managing’ the microclimat...
Fenugreek (Trigonella foenum-graecum L.) is one of the oldest cultivated plants grown for its leaves and seeds that are used for both culinary and medicinal purpose. This study aims to evaluate the effect of ethanol concentration (30, 50, 70 and 96%...
Many plants produce secondary metabolites (PSMs) with antiviral activities. Among the antiviral PSMs, lipophilic terpenoids in essential oils can disturb the lipid envelope of viruses. Phenols and polyphenols (flavonoids, rosmarinic acid and tannins)...
The emergence of sedentism and agriculture in Amazonia continues to sit uncomfortably within accounts of South American pre-Columbian history. This is partially because deep-seated models were formulated when only ceramic evidence was known, partly b...
Complex systems science has contributed to our understanding of ecology in important areas such as food webs, patch dynamics and population fluctuations. This has been achieved through the use of simple measures that can capture the difference betwee...
The predominant analytical approach to associate landscape patterns with gene flow processes is based on the association of cost distances with genetic distances between individuals. Mantel and partial Mantel tests have been the dominant statistical ...
DNA barcoding has transformed the fields of ecology, evolution, and conservation by providing a rapid and effective tool for species identification. The growth of DNA barcodes as a resource for biologists has followed advances in computational and se...
Molecular markers have proven to be invaluable tools for assessing plants’ genetic resources by improving our understanding with regards to the distribution and the extent of genetic variation within and among species. Recently developed marker techn...
Climate change is one of the greatest threats to the persistence of coral reefs. Sustained and ongoing increases in ocean temperatures and acidification are altering the structure and function of reefs globally. Here, we summarise recent advances in...
Vespa velutina, or Asian yellow-legged hornet, was accidentally introduced from China to other parts of the world: South Korea in 2003, Europe in 2004, and Japan in 2012. V. velutina represents a serious threat to native pollinators. It is known to b...
It has long been appreciated that analyses of genomic data (e.g., whole genome sequencing or sequence capture) have the potential to reveal the tree of life, but it remains challenging to move from sequence data to a clear understanding of evolutiona...
Carica papaya L. (family: Caricaceae), also known as ‘papaya,’ is a tropical American fruit tree. Due to the bioactive components (carpaines, BITC, benzyl glucosinolates, latex, papain, zeaxanthin, choline, etc.) in its seeds, leaves, and...
This work presents refined, updated subregional and regional non-indigenous species (NIS) inventories for the Mediterranean Sea, validated by national and taxonomic experts, with species records observed until December 2020. These datasets will be us...
In spite of the worldwide largest proportional loss of mires, Europe is a continent with important mire diversity. This article analyses the condition and protection status of European mire ecosystems. The overview is based on the system of European...
Microbial symbiotic communities of marine macro-organisms carry functional metabolic profiles different to the ones found terrestrially and within surrounding marine environments. These symbiotic bacteria have increasingly been a focus of microbiolog...
Honey is produced by honeybees from nectar and from secretions of living plants. It reflects the honeybees’ diet and the local plant communities. Honey also shows different plant compositions in different geographical locations. We propose a new meth...
Negative binomial modelling is one of the most commonly used statistical tools for analysing count data in ecology and biodiversity research. This is not surprising given the prevalence of overdispersion (i.e., evidence that the variance is greater t...
Agricultural management alters physical and chemical soil properties, which directly affects microbial life strategies and community composition. The microbial community drives important nutrient cycling processes that can influence soil quality, cro...
Despite the presence of a large number of pollinators of flowering plants worldwide, the European honey bee, Apis melifera, plays the most important role in the pollination of a number of crops, including all vegetables, non-food crops and oilseed cr...
Adaptation of reef corals to climate change is an issue of much debate, and often viewed as too slow a process to be of relevance over decadal time scales. This notion is based on the long sexual generation times typical for some coral species. Howev...
The paper describes rich, a new R package to perform species richness estimation and comparison. Species richness is the simplest surrogate for the more complex concept of species biodiversity. It is relatively easy to assess although estimations str...
Genotyping-by-sequencing (GBS) has recently emerged as a promising genomic approach for exploring plant genetic diversity on a genome-wide scale. However, many uncertainties and challenges remain in the application of GBS, particularly in non-model s...
