High-altitude animals rely on vertical spatial adaptation to cope with harsh environments, yet the underlying drivers of their seasonal altitudinal distribution remain poorly understood. This study investigated how solar radiation, seasonal high-qual...
We analyzed elevational species richness gradients (“decline”, “increase”, “unimodal”, or “bimodal”) in the Himalayan range using data from 157 publications covering both plants and animals. Our study t...
This study enhances and improves the current knowledge of blackfly diversity in the mountainous regions of Eastern Andalusia, with a focus on how simuliid species are distributed through altitude. It provides an updated checklist of species recorded...
Bumblebees are the most important pollinators in alpine areas. Their survival is vulnerable to anthropogenic disturbance. To comprehend the variation in bumblebee diversity in different habitat types and altitudinal gradient, this study carried out t...
Here we investigate the interaction between ecology and climate concerning the distribution of rainforest species differentially distributed along altitudinal gradients of eastern Australia. The potential distributions of the two species closely asso...
Enset is a staple crop of the southern Ethiopian highlands. Small-holder farmers cultivate enset as part of mixed subsistence farming systems, in which enset provides substantial food security services. While its cultivation is unique to this region,...
Climate change is compelling species to seek refuge at higher elevations and latitudes. While researchers commonly study these migrations using discontinuous elevational transects, this methodology may introduce significant biases into our understand...
Soil health and fertility are essential components of sustainable land management. In Bhutan, where agricultural practices range from organic to conventional systems, and natural vegetation areas persist across varied elevations. Understanding how th...
Climate is critical for plant altitudinal distribution patterns. Non-climatic factors also have important effects on vegetation altitudinal distribution in mountain regions. The purpose of this study was to explore the current distribution of plant d...
Plants have evolved several metabolic pathways as a response to environmental stressors such as low temperatures. In this perspective, it is paramount to highlight physiological mechanisms of plant responses to altitudinal gradients as a proxy to eva...
Investigating altitudinal distribution patterns of species richness represents a fundamental research objective in biogeography and community ecology. Hainan Island has tropical rainforests ranging from sea level to >1800 m a.s.l., with various an...
The pattern of earthworm diversity along altitudinal gradients has rarely been investigated. The aim of the current study was to examine the patterns of earthworm diversity on the western slopes of Kopaonik Mountain. Earthworms were sampled in four-m...
Understanding how plant community characteristics and soil properties vary along altitudinal gradients is essential for ecosystem conservation, restoration, and for predicting ecosystem responses to global environmental change. This study investigate...
Physiological thermal limits of organisms are linked to their geographic distribution. The assessment of such limits can provide valuable insights when monitoring for environmental thermal alterations. Using the dynamic critical thermal method (CTM),...
The altitudinal patterns of soil fungi have attracted considerable attention; however, few studies have investigated the diversity and community assembly of fungal functional guilds along an altitudinal gradient. Here, we explored ectomycorrhizal (Ec...
In maize, we studied the causes of genome size variation and their correlates with cultivation altitude that suggests the existence of adaptive clines. To discuss the biological role of the genome size variation, we focused on Bolivian maize landrace...
Rapoport’s rule proposes that a species’ range size increases with the increase in a gradient (such as latitude, altitude or water depth). However, altitudinal distributions and Rapoport’s rule have rarely been tested for Asian Lepi...
Introduction: This study focuses on the central mountain region of the Peruvian Andes, particularly its western slopes, high-altitude areas, and inter-Andean valleys situated above 3000 m.a.s.l. Despite its ecological importance, the region remains u...
Plant species are distributed in different types of habitats, forming different communities driven by different sets of environmental variables. Here, we assessed potential plant communities along an altitudinal gradient and their associations with d...
Understanding how climatic variability shapes the reproductive behavior of perennial crops is essential for improving their adaptation to tropical mountain environments. This study examined the influence of altitudinal and thermal gradients on flower...
Mountain ecosystems offer valuable opportunities to study species distribution and diversity along altitudinal gradients, particularly for amphibians. This research examined amphibian species distribution, diversity, and conservation across an elevat...
A team of non-holonomic constant-speed under-actuated unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) with lower-limited turning radii travel in 3D. The space hosts an unknown and unpredictably varying scalar environmental field. A space direction is given; this dir...
Grasshoppers (Acridoidea) are one of the most essential components of grassland ecosystems. They are mainly primary consumers and some of them, e.g., the Italian locust, may be very important pests. The main goal of this article is to discuss possibl...
Research Highlights: Age structure was used to infer fire regimes in the Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve. Uneven-aged structures in stands dominated and co-dominated by pine and fir species, which are distributed according to an altitudinal gradi...
We analyzed the alpha and beta components of male Trichoptera diversity along an altitudinal gradient ranging from 136 to 2432 m a.s.l. by studying five assemblages of adult male caddisflies in five streams of the Sierra de Juárez, Oaxaca, Mex...
Bromus picoeuropeanus is a recently described species belonging to a complex genus of grasses. It inhabits stony soils at heights ranging from 1600 to 2200 m in Picos de Europa (Cantabrian Mountains, northern Spain). This species is morphologically v...
Rhizosphere effects (REs) play important roles in regulating carbon (C) and nutrient cycling in terrestrial ecosystems. However, little is known about the REs of mature trees in the field, especially at the ecosystem scale. This study aimed to explor...
Vegetation biodiversity in mountainous regions is controlled by altitudinal gradients and their corresponding microclimate. Higher temperatures, shorter snow cover periods, and high variability in the precipitation regime might lead to changes in veg...
Platanus mexicana is a dominant arboreal species of riparian ecosystems. These ecosystems are associated with altitudinal gradients that can generate genetic differences in the species, especially in the extremes of the distribution. However, studie...
The diversity and distribution of the amphibians in Rwanda was critically reviewed to provide a reliable species inventory for informed conservation management. The checklist of the amphibian species of Rwanda is based on results of our own fieldwork...
In the Maritime Alps (northwestern Italy), we collected ticks from vegetation and Alpine ibex (Capra ibex). Ixodes ricinus was the most abundant species in the study area, questing up to 1824 m a.s.l. and infesting 28 out of 72 ibexes. Haemaphysalis ...
Climate warming is expected to drive an upward altitudinal shift of species distributions in mountain areas. In this study, we consider how environmental variables constrain the distribution of freshwater mollusks across elevations based on an extens...
The previously published liverwort checklist of Laos, one of the least-studied countries in Asia, was titled “Listing the Unknown”, based on the fact that only 66 species are known for such a landscape-diverse country. Our collection reve...
Soil microbial nutrient limitation is of great significance for the maintenance of soil fertility, the sustainability of plant growth, and the stability of the alpine meadow ecosystems, which are particularly sensitive to global climate change. This...
The relationship between altitudinal and ecological gradients has long been a dominant theme in plant ecology; moreover, how species respond to climate change has renewed this interest. Mediterranean mountains are often hotspots of endemism, and some...
Phenotypic plasticity can favor the emergence of different morphotypes specialized in specific ranges of environmental conditions. The existence of intraspecific partitioning confers resilience at the species scale and can ultimately determine specie...
The Artemia exhibit broad environmental adaptability and distinct reproductive modes, making them ideal for studying stress tolerance. Solar UV-B radiation poses a threat to aquatic organisms; however, for Artemia—a key aquatic organism charact...
Himalayan forest has been threatened by rapid anthropogenic activities, resulting in the loss of forest diversity and climate change. The present study was carried out on four aspects (northern, southern, western and eastern), at three different alti...
Capercaillie (Tetrao urogallus L.), a territorial galliform species, is known to prefer mature conifer stands with canopy gaps and a vigorous understory of ericaceous species. Capercaillie is a useful umbrella species that has recently shown declinin...
Artisanal cheese microbiota plays a key role in defining its sensory properties, safety, and overall quality. Environmental factors, including altitude, influence microbial communities by altering temperature, pressure, and radiation levels, yet the...
The Balkan Peninsula is considered one of the most important centres of orchid diversity in Europe. However, the patterns of orchid species richness in the Central Balkans have not been sufficiently studied so far. The aim of this study was, therefor...
Davidia involucrata has an ancient origin, representing a remnant from the paleotropical flora that thrived during the Tertiary period. Altitudinal gradient acts as a natural testing ground for studying climate change, and research on the distributio...
Among the Apicomplexa parasites, Hepatozoon spp. have been mainly studied in domestic animals and peri-urban areas. The epidemiology of Hepatozoon spp. is poorly investigated in natural systems and wild hosts because of their scarce veterinary and ec...
Climate change and progressive aridification represent a substantial threat to the sustainability of wild medicinal plant resources in Central Asia. Rheum tataricum L.f. (R. tataricum), a mesoxerophytic species with high pharmacological potential and...
Soil microbial communities are essential drivers of ecosystem functions, yet the factors shaping their structure and function, particularly at different altitudes and between invasive and native plants, remain insufficiently understood. Using high-th...
Research Highlights: This research highlights the importance of environmental gradients in shaping tree growth responses to global change drivers and the difficulty of attributing impacts to a single directional driver. Background and Objectives: Tem...
Monitoring plant phenology is one of the means of detecting the response of vegetation to changing environmental conditions. One approach for the study of vegetation phenology from local to global scales is to apply satellite-based indices. We invest...
Against the background of global warming, forests across environmental gradients show distinct responses to climate change, necessitating research on tree growth patterns under specific conditions. Climate and competition are critical factors affecti...
This study presents isotopic compositions and their vertical profile of meteoric and surface water samples collected in the Southern Himalaya since 2015, with elevations extending all the way up to Mt. Everest’s summit. The data covering a wide...
As a key component of the ecosystem, soil seed banks (SSBs) play a vital role in the evolution and renewal of plant communities. Although the pattern and mechanisms of influence of SSBs along the altitudinal gradient have been reported, most studies...
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