Search results for " Systematics"

Análisis conjunto y espacios naturales: una aplicación al Paraje Natural del Desert de les Palmes

2007

We use stated preference methods to analyze consumer preferences on the attributes of protected natural areas and to estimate the willingness to pay for reducing the risk of fires in the site. For the first goal, conjoint analysis is used. Three attributes are considered: biodiversity, dimension of the natural area and the economic contribution that would have to be made for its maintenance and preservation. The willingness to pay for reducing the risk of fires has been estimated using choice experiment. The data have been gathered from a mail survey conducted among people living near the Desert de les Palmes Park, a protected area located in the Valencian Community (Spain). En el trabajo s…

The Utility of Ground Bryophytes in the Assessment of Soil Condition in Heavy Metal-Polluted Grasslands

2022

Bryophytes are commonly used in biomonitoring heavy metal pollution, whereas the bioindicative value of bryophyte communities is a less known issue. The aim of the present study is to recognize the utility of the bryophyte community’s structure in the assessment of soil condition in heavy metal-polluted, dry grasslands. The study plots are examined with respect to bryophytes; vascular plants; concentrations of Zn, Pb, Cd, and As in the soil; total nitrogen and organic carbon content in the soil; and soil pH. The results show that both bryophyte species richness and composition greatly depend on soil chemical characteristics, including heavy-metal pollution levels and soil pH. Three groups o…

Exploiting the Opportunity to Use Plant-Derived Nanoparticles as Delivery Vehicles

2023

The scientific community has become increasingly interested in plant-derived nanoparticles (PDNPs) over the past ten years. Given that they possess all the benefits of a drug carrier, including non-toxicity, low immunogenicity, and a lipid bilayer that protects its content, PDNPs are a viable model for the design of innovative delivery systems. In this review, a summary of the prerequisites for mammalian extracellular vesicles to serve as delivery vehicles will be given. After that, we will concentrate on providing a thorough overview of the studies investigating the interactions of plant-derived nanoparticles with mammalian systems as well as the loading strategies for encapsulating therap…

Tadpole Responses to Environments With Limited Visibility: What We (Don’t) Know and Perspectives for a Sharper Future

2022

Amphibian larvae typically inhabit relatively shallow freshwater environments, and within these boundaries there is considerable diversity in the structure of the habitats exploited by different species. This diversity in habitat structure is usually taken into account in relation to aspects such as locomotion and feeding, and plays a fundamental role in the classification of tadpoles into ecomorphological guilds. However, its impact in shaping the sensory worlds of different species is rarely addressed, including the optical qualities of each of these types of water bodies and the challenges and limitations that they impose on the repertoire of visual abilities available for a typical vert…

Biological adaptation in light of the Lewontin–Williams (a)symmetry

2022

Neo-Darwinism characterises biological adaptation as a one-sided process, in which organisms adapt to their environment but not vice versa. This asymmetric relationship – here called Williams’ asymmetry – is called into question by Niche Construction Theory, which emphasises that organisms and their environments often mutually affect each other. Here we clarify that Williams’ asymmetry is specifically concerned with (quasi-) directed modifications towards phenotypes that increase individual fitness. This directedness – which drives the adaptive fit between organism and environment – entails far more than the mere presence of cause-effect relationships. We argue that difficulties with invoki…

The effect of spatial and temporal scale on camouflage in North African rodents

2022

Abstract Background matching, a common form of camouflage, is a widespread anti-predator adaptation that hinders detection or recognition by increasing the resemblance of prey to its environment. However, the natural environment is complex and both spatially and temporally variable, which constrains effective background matching as an anti-predator strategy. Here, using remote sensing data (publicly available satellite imagery), we investigated how variation of habitat parameters predicts background matching in 16 Sahara–Sahel rodent species across spatial and temporal scales. All fur colour parameters (hue, saturation and brightness) strongly matched the respective habitats of the differen…

Editorial: From Meristems to Floral Diversity: Developmental Options and Constraints

2021

Growth and Physiological Performance of a Coastal Species Trifolium fragiferum as Affected by a Coexistence with Trifolium repens, NaCl Treatment and…

2021

The aim of the present study was to analyze the growth and physiological performance of two coexisting species, Trifolium fragiferum, and Trifolium repens, under the effect of NaCl and rhizobial symbiosis. Seeds of T. fragiferum and T. repens were collected from populations in the wild, and plants were cultivated in an automated greenhouse, two plants per container. Three basic types of planting were performed: (1) both plants were T. fragiferum (single species), (2) one T. fragiferum and one T. repens (species coexistence), (3) both plants were T. repens (single species). For every basic type, three subtypes were made: (1) non-inoculated, (2) inoculated with rhizobia taken from T. fargifer…

First measurements of field metabolic rate in wild juvenile fishes show strong thermal sensitivity but variations between sympatric ecotypes

2021

The relationship between physiology and temperature has a large influence on population-level responses to climate change. In natural settings, direct thermal effects on metabolism may be exaggerated or offset by behavioural responses influencing individual energy balance. Drawing on a newly developed proxy, we provide the first estimates of the thermal performance curve of field metabolism in a wild fish. We investigate the thermal sensitivity of field metabolic rate in two sympatric, genetically distinct ecotypes of Atlantic cod from the Skagerrak coast of southern Norway. The combined ecotype median of field metabolic rate increased with increasing temperature until around 16°C, coincide…

Acaricidal Activity of Bufadienolides Isolated from Drimia pancration against Tetranychus urticae, and Structural Elucidation of Arenobufagin-3-O-α-L…

2022

Chemical characterization of the bulbs of Drimia pancration was conducted to isolate four steroidal saponins (1–4). Earlier, we focused on the structural elucidation of compounds 1–3. Herein, by means of 1H-NMR, 13C-NMR, Nuclear Overhauser Effects (NOE), and 2D-NMR spectra, the full stereochemical structure of 4 is reported, and all the 1H and 13C signals are assigned. Compounds 1–4 were tested for their acaricidal properties against the two-spotted spider mite Tetranychus urticae. Our results showed excellent activity of compound 1, with an LD50 (µg/cm2) of 0.29 and a LD90 (µg/cm2) of 0.96, whereas compounds 2, 3, and 4 showed moderate activity. Furthermore, t…