2020 May - 43 articles
The Galaxiidae is a Southern Hemisphere family of freshwater fish, considered to be of Gondwanan origin based on the current distribution of species in New Zealand, Australia (including Tasmania), New Caledonia, Africa, South America, and on some ass...
Worldwide, caves and groundwater habitats harbor thousands of species modified and limited to subterranean habitats in karst. Data are concentrated in Europe and USA, where a number of detailed analyses have been performed. Much less is known with re...
Symbiotic biological nitrogen fixation (BNF) is a complex process that involves rhizobia, a diverse group of α and β-proteobacteria bacteria, and legume species. Benefits provided by BNF associated with legume trees in tropical environment...
The Mediterranean fruit fly, Ceratitis capitata Wied., is among the most serious pests in horticulture worldwide, due to its high reproductive potential, difficulty of control and broad polyphagy. The aim of this study was to measure—by means o...
The community composition of decapods associated with subtidal tropical seagrass meadows was analyzed in a pristine reef lagoon on the Mexican Caribbean coast in the summer of 1995 and winter of 1998. The macrophyte community was dominated by Thalass...
Salvinia molesta D.S. Mitchell (Salviniaceae) is a damaging free-floating invasive alien macrophyte native to South America. The biological control programme against S. molesta by the weevil Cyrtobagous salviniae Calder and Sands (Erirhinidae) has be...
Sea turtles migrate thousands of miles annually between foraging and breeding areas, carrying dozens of epibiont species with them on their journeys. Most sea turtle epibiont studies have focused on large-sized organisms, those visible to the naked e...
Information on the trophic ecology of the Alpine salamander, Salamandra atra, is scattered and anecdotal. We studied for the first time the trophic niche and prey availability of a population from an area located in Italian Dolomites during the first...
Despite the ubiquity of multiple plant invasions, the underlying mechanisms of invasive-invasive interactions remain relatively unknown. Given the importance of plant–soil feedback (PSF) in contributing to single species invasions, it may be an...
Detecting patterns of species co-occurrence is among the main tasks of plant community ecology. Arable plant communities are important elements of agroecosystems, because they support plant and animal biodiversity and provide ecosystem services. Thes...
While over hundreds of terrestrial fungal genera have been shown to play important roles in the biodegradation of hydrocarbons, few studies have so far focused on the fungal bioremediation potential of petroleum in the marine environment. In this stu...
Paramecium (Ciliophora) is an ideal model organism to study the biogeography of protists. However, many regions of the world, such as Central America, are still neglected in understanding Paramecium diversity. We combined morphological and molecular...
Holospora-like bacteria (HLB) are obligate intracellular Alphaproteobacteria, inhabiting nuclei of Paramecium and other ciliates such as “Candidatus Hafkinia” is in Frontonia. The HLB clade is comprised of four genera, Holospora, Preeria,...
This paper describes Sporolithon franciscanum, a new rhodolith-forming species of non-geniculate coralline algae found at depths between 47–52 m near the São Francisco river mouth, the second largest and the most extensive drainage basin...
Endosymbiosis between coccoid green algae and ciliates are widely distributed and occur in various phylogenetic lineages among the Ciliophora. Most mixotrophic ciliates live in symbiosis with different species and genera of the so-called Chlorella cl...
The introduction of exotic species to new regions offers opportunities to test fundamental questions in ecology, such as the context-dependency of community structure and assembly. Annual grasslands provide a model system of a major unidirectional in...
Island invasions may cause severe changes in biodiversity, but the factors that influence these changes are not well understood. We established 120 plots in Cycas micronesica habitats throughout Guam in 2005 following the invasion of the armored scal...
The psittacine beak and feather disease (PBFD) is a globally widespread infectious bird disease that mainly affects species within the Order Psittaciformes (parrots and allies). The disease is caused by an avian circovirus (the beak and feather disea...
In benthic ecosystems, organic matter (OM), prokaryotes, and meiofauna represent a functional bottleneck in the energy transfer towards higher trophic levels and all respond to a variety of natural and anthropogenic disturbances. The relationships be...
Species of the anthozoan order Zoantharia (=Zoanthidea) are common components of subtropical and tropical shallow water coral reefs. Despite a long history of research on their species diversity in the Caribbean, many regions within this sea remain u...
This paper deals with the vegetation development in four glacier forelands, aligned along a distance of 250 km from West to East in the siliceous Eastern Central Alps. The study employs a chronosequence approach, which assumes a temporal sequence in...
Geometrids are a species-rich group of moths that serve as reliable indicators for environmental changes. Little is known about the Mongolian moth fauna, and there is no comprehensive review of species richness, diversity, and distribution patterns o...
Species introductions and extirpations are key aspects of aquatic ecosystem change that need to be examined at large geographic and temporal scales. The Pánuco Basin (Eastern Mexico) has high ichthyological diversity and ecological heterogenei...
The Okavango River Basin is a hotspot of bat diversity that requires urgent and adequate protection. To advise future conservation strategies, we investigated the relative importance of a range of potential environmental drivers of bat species richne...
Fungal endophytes play important roles in plant fitness and plant–microbe interactions. Kudzu (Pueraria montana var. lobata) is a dominant, abundant, and highly aggressive invasive plant in the Southeast United States. Kudzu serves as a pathoge...
The influence of contrasting lentic and lotic hydrological environments on the morphology of members of the Galaxias vulgaris species complex was examined. Morphological variation between habitat types was investigated by comparison of populations of...
We propose to erect a new genus of terrestrial-breeding frogs of the Terrarana clade to accommodate three species from the Province La Convención, Department of Cusco, Peru previously assigned to Bryophryne: B. flammiventris, B. gymnotis, and...
Intraspecific trait variation in generalist animals is widespread in nature, yet its effects on community ecology are not well understood. Newts are considered opportunistic feeders that may co-occur in different syntopic conditions and represent an...
The Orchidaceae family is a diverse family of flowering plants that occur naturally in most parts of the world. However, fungal communities inhabiting different parts of orchids are not sufficiently described. The aim of the study was to conduct a my...
European cave salamanders of the genus Hydromantes are a group of eight species endemic to Italy and south-eastern France. Knowledge on the trophic niche of European Hydromantes is poor, and the few available studies only partially investigate their...
A central problem in evolutionary biology is to determine whether adaptive phenotypic variation within species (microevolution) ultimately gives rise to new species (macroevolution). Predation environment can select for trait divergence among populat...
South American galaxiids occupy both Patagonia and the ichthyogeographic Chilean Province, encompassing glacial Andean deep lakes, shallow plateau lakes, reservoirs, short Pacific rivers and long Atlantic rivers. The total fish fauna includes 29 spec...
Population surveying and monitoring are important for identifying conservation needs and tracking trends in populations, communities, and ecosystems over time and laying the groundwork for conservation management and policy decisions. If species or p...
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 pink sea fan Eunicella verrucosa (Cnidaria, Anthozoa, Alcyonacea) can form coral forests at mesophotic depths in the Mediterranean Sea. Despite the recognized importance of these habitats, they have been scantly studied and their distribution is...
Pinus heldreichii is a high-altitude coniferous tree species naturaly occurring in small and disjuncted populations in the Balkans and southern Italy. The aim of this study was to assess diversity and composition of fungal communities in living needl...
From a functional standpoint, the humerus is a key element in the skeleton of vertebrates as it is the forelimb’s bone that connects with the pectoral girdle. In most birds, the humerus receives both the forces exerted by the main flight muscle...
Habitat degradation, organismal needs, and other effects influencing freshwater mussel declines have been subject to intense focus by conservationists for the last thirty plus years. While researchers have studied the physical habitat requirements an...
Intense and prolonged mortality caused by over-exploitation could drive the decay of genetic diversity which may lead to decrease species’ resilience to environmental changes, thus increasing their extinction risk. Swordfish is a high commercia...
The Salento peninsula is a portion of the Italian mainland separating two distinct Mediterranean basins, the Ionian and the Adriatic seas. Several authors have studied the marine Heterobranchia (Mollusca, Gastropoda) fauna composition living in the I...
Most flowering plants rely on animals for pollination and most animal pollinators rely on flowering plants for food resources. However, there is an ongoing concern that anthropogenic-induced global change threatens the mutualistic association between...
The discipline of subterranean biology has provided us incredible information on the diversity, ecology and evolution of species living in different typologies of subterranean habitats. However, a general lack of information on the relationships betw...
Tardigrada (water bears) are microscopic invertebrates inhabiting aquatic (freshwater and marine) and terrestrial habitats. They are thriving in almost all Earth ecosystems from deepest oceans to highest mountains, from tropics to polar regions. Wate...
Get Alerted
Add your email address to receive forthcoming issues of this journal.
