Search results for " History."
showing 10 items of 5504 documents
Last tesserae of a fading mosaic: floristic census and forest vegetation survey at Parche di Bilello (south-western Sicily, Italy), a site needing ur…
2021
This paper illustrates the botanic heritage of Parche di Bilello, a site located in the municipality of Castelvetrano. The study area hosts several woodland fragments dominated by Olea europaea var. sylvestris, Quercus suber and Quercus ilex, respectively. According to historical data, these nuclei represent the last remnants of an open forestland which covered a much wider coastal area between Mazara del Vallo and Sciacca until the end of Middle Age. Phytosociological relevés were focused on these forest nuclei, probably the most representative of south-western Sicily, which correspond to three habitats included in the 92/43 EEC Directive (9320, 9330 and 9340, respectively) and represent t…
Biogeography of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungal spore traits along an aridity gradient, and responses to experimental rainfall manipulation
2020
Abstract Spore size, colour and melanin content are hypothesised to be functional in relation to environmental stress. Here, we studied AM fungal spores in arid environments of Australia and in an experimental platform simulating altered rainfall. We used microscopy and image analysis to measure spore colour and size, and a quantitative colorimetric assay to estimate melanin content in spores. In arid sites, melanin content tended to increase with increasing aridity. We observed a large range of spore colours at all sites but found a higher proportion of both dark and light spores, and fewer intermediate colours, in drier sites. Spore abundance and size varied among sites, but neither were …
Population and reproductive dynamics of the polychaete Pygospio elegans in a boreal estuary complex
2016
Pygospio elegans is an opportunistic, wide-spread spionid polychaete that reproduces asexually via fragmentation and can produce benthic and pelagic larvae, hence combining different developmental modes in one species. We documented the density, size distribution, and reproductive activity of P. elegans at four sites in the Danish Isefjord-Roskilde Fjord estuary complex, where all modes of reproduction were reported. We compared population dynamics of this species to environmental parameters such as salinity, temperature, and sediment characteristics (grain size, sorting, porosity, water content, organic content, C/N). We observed that new cohorts—resulting either from sexual or asexual rep…
Short sea migration and precocious maturation in reared Atlantic salmon post-smolts in the northern Baltic Sea
2017
Abstract Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar L.) display significant variation in life history traits, including migration patterns and age at maturity. Hatchery rearing has been shown to affect the life history, and rearing-induced changes may include unfavourable consequences, e.g. shortened sea migration period and smaller size at maturity. We report on a new phenomenon of life history of reared Atlantic salmon in the Baltic Sea area: small-sized salmon returning to freshwater only a few months after release as smolts. These “one-sea-summer (1SS)” salmon were ca. 35 cm in length and weighed ca. 400 g, being clearly larger than smolts, but substantially smaller than one-sea-winter (1SW) salmon f…
Phenotypic plasticity in growth and fecundity induced by strong population fluctuations affects reproductive traits of female fish
2016
Fish are known for their high phenotypic plasticity in life-history traits in relation to environmental variability, and this is particularly pronounced among salmonids in the Northern Hemisphere. Resource limitation leads to trade-offs in phenotypic plasticity between life-history traits related to the reproduction, growth, and survival of individual fish, which have consequences for the age and size distributions of populations, as well as their dynamics and productivity. We studied the effect of plasticity in growth and fecundity of vendace females on their reproductive traits using a series of long-term incubation experiments. The wild parental fish originated from four separate populat…
An experimental heat wave changes immune defense and life history traits in a freshwater snail
2013
The predicted increase in frequency and severity of heat waves due to climate change is expected to alter disease dynamics by reducing hosts' ability to resist infections. This could take place via two different mechanisms: (1) through general reduction in hosts' performance under harsh environmental conditions and/or (2) through altered resource allocation that reduces expression of defense traits in order to maintain other traits. We tested these alternative hypotheses by measuring the effect of an experimental heat wave (25 vs. 15°C) on the constitutive level of immune defense (hemocyte concentration, phenoloxidase [PO]‐like activity, antibacterial activity of hemolymph), and life histor…
Bachelor groups form due to individual choices or environmental disrupters in African striped mice
2021
International audience; In several mammal species, bachelor groups occur as a regular life history stage between dispersal and becoming the breeding male of a multi-female group. However, it is rarely investigated how such groups come into existence and how males that choose this strategy differ in life history traits from other males. Males of the socially flexible African striped mouse Rhabdomys pumilio have been historically reported to adopt one of three alternative tactics, i.e., small group-living philopatric males, intermediate solitary living roaming males, or large group-living territorial males. Here, we describe for the first time, bachelors as a fourth male tactic. Using long-te…
Competition for resources is ameliorated by niche differentiation between Solidago virgaurea life-history stages in the Arctic
2016
Aims Competition has been shown to modify the niche breadth of coexisting species, but within-species interactions have received little attention. Establishing small juvenile individuals and established, larger, sexually reproducing adult individuals represent two life-history stages within species. We investigated the nitrogen and carbon resource use of adult and juvenile individuals and similarity of symbiotic fungal community composition in these two plant life stages. We used the plant Solidago virgaurea growing in a simplified system in the low Arctic as model species. Methods Isotopic signatures (foliar δ15N and foliar δ13C) were analysed to characterize nitrogen acquisition and water…
Potential for managing life history diversity in a commercially exploited intermediate predator, the goldsinny wrasse (Ctenolabrus rupestris)
2019
Abstract Small-bodied wrasse species are important for structuring coastal marine ecosystems but are also increasingly harvested as parasite cleaners on farmed salmon. Identifying management regulations that will support long-term sustainability of wrasse fisheries is challenging, because there is still limited knowledge about the impacts of fisheries on the demography of these intermediate predators in their natural environments. To this end, we studied individual growth histories of goldsinny wrasse (Ctenolabrus rupestris) at a fine spatial scale across replicated marine protected areas (MPAs) and areas open to commercial harvesting on the Norwegian coast. The MPAs were established 1–7 ye…
Growth sites of polypores from quantitative expert evaluation: Late-stage decayers and saprotrophs fruit closer to ground
2017
Abstract Life history traits are key to why species occur when and where they do and how their populations will respond to environmental changes. However, dispersal-related traits of fungi are generally poorly known. We studied how spore release height from the ground, an important determinant of airborne dispersal, is connected to other traits in polypores. We collected expert evaluations of fruit body growth sites for 140 species and found that experts generally provided consistent estimates of height above the ground. Height was correlated with other traits: species fruiting on living trees, earlier decay stages and deciduous hosts tend to fruit higher above the ground. While our data do…