Search results for " health."
showing 10 items of 45840 documents
Early Diagnosis of Vegetation Health From High-Resolution Hyperspectral and Thermal Imagery: Lessons Learned From Empirical Relationships and Radiati…
2019
[Purpose of Review] We provide a comprehensive review of the empirical and modelling approaches used to quantify the radiation–vegetation interactions related to vegetation temperature, leaf optical properties linked to pigment absorption and chlorophyll fluorescence emission, and of their capability to monitor vegetation health. Part 1 provides an overview of the main physiological indicators (PIs) applied in remote sensing to detect alterations in plant functioning linked to vegetation diseases and decline processes. Part 2 reviews the recent advances in the development of quantitative methods to assess PI through hyperspectral and thermal images.
Diverse growth trends and climate responses across Eurasia’s boreal forest
2016
The area covered by boreal forests accounts for similar to 16% of the global and 22% of the Northern Hemisphere landmass. Changes in the productivity and functioning of this circumpolar biome not o ...
Reevaluating the Role of Organic Matter Sources for Coastal Eutrophication, Oligotrophication, and Ecosystem Health
2019
Organic matter (OM) in aquatic systems is either produced internally (autochthonous OM) or delivered from the terrestrial environment (ter-OM). For eutrophication (or the reverse – oligotrophication), the amount of autochthonous OM plays a key role for coastal ecosystem health. However, the influence of ter-OM on eutrophication or oligotrophication processes of coastal ecosystems is largely unclear. Therefore, ter-OM, or ter-OM proxies are currently not included in most policies or monitoring programs on eutrophication. Nevertheless, ter-OM is increasingly recognized as a strong driver of aquatic productivity: By influencing underwater light conditions and nutrient- and carbon availability,…
Magnitude and direction of parasite‐induced phenotypic alterations: a meta‐analysis in acanthocephalans
2020
Several parasite species have the ability to modify their host's phenotype to their own advantage thereby increasing the probability of transmission from one host to another. This phenomenon of host manipulation is interpreted as the expression of a parasite extended phenotype. Manipulative parasites generally affect multiple phenotypic traits in their hosts, although both the extent and adaptive significance of such multidimensionality in host manipulation is still poorly documented. To review the multidimensionality and magnitude of host manipulation, and to understand the causes of variation in trait value alteration, we performed a phylogenetically corrected meta-analysis, focusing on a…
Dental microwear texture reflects dietary tendencies in extant Lepidosauria despite their limited use of oral food processing
2019
Lepidosauria show a large diversity in dietary adaptations, both among extant and extinct tetrapods. Unlike mammals, Lepidosauria do not engage in sophisticated mastication of their food and most species have continuous tooth replacement, further reducing the wear of individual teeth. However, dietary tendency estimation of extinct lepidosaurs usually rely on tooth shape and body size, which allows only for broad distinction between faunivores and herbivores. Microscopic wear features on teeth have long been successfully applied to reconstruct the diet of mammals and allow for subtle discrimination of feeding strategies and food abrasiveness. Here, we present, to our knowledge, the first de…
Technology generation to dissemination: lessons learned from the tef improvement project
2018
Indigenous crops also known as orphan crops are key contributors to food security, which is becoming increasingly vulnerable with the current trend of population growth and climate change. They have the major advantage that they fit well into the general socio-economic and ecological context of developing world agriculture. However, most indigenous crops did not benefit from the Green Revolution, which dramatically increased the yield of major crops such as wheat and rice. Here, we describe the Tef Improvement Project, which employs both conventional- and molecular-breeding techniques to improve tef—an orphan crop important to the food security in the Horn of Africa, a region of the world w…
Paysandisia archon: Behavior, Ecology, and Communication
2017
This chapter on Paysandisia archon behavior, ecology, and communication is presented in three parts. The first part deals with reproductive behavior and the sex pheromone. In this section, mating behavior is described with a consideration of optimal age and diel periodicity. Early observations have shown that mating can occur a few hours after adult molting, from noon to the beginning of the afternoon, according to timing of emergence. The female is described as flying close to perching males and the pair then fly together before mating. The male exhibits a scratching movement with the mid-legs while the female extrudes the abdominal tips. Putative sex pheromone production is discussed in r…
Drastic Genome Reduction in an Herbivore's Pectinolytic Symbiont.
2017
Pectin, an integral component of the plant cell wall, is a recalcitrant substrate against enzymatic challenges by most animals. In characterizing the source of a leaf beetle’s (Cassida rubiginosa) pectin-degrading phenotype, we demonstrate its dependency on an extracellular bacterium housed in specialized organs connected to the foregut. Despite possessing the smallest genome (0.27 Mb) of any organism not subsisting within a host cell, the symbiont nonetheless retained a functional pectinolytic metabolism targeting the polysaccharide’s two most abundant classes: homogalacturonan and rhamnogalacturonan I. Comparative transcriptomics revealed pectinase expression to be enriched in the symbiot…