Search results for " trait"
showing 10 items of 764 documents
sPlotOpen – An environmentally balanced, open‐access, global dataset of vegetation plots
2021
Datos disponibles en https://github.com/fmsabatini/sPlotOpen_Code
Impacts of agricultural intensification on bird communities: New insights from a multi-level and multi-facet approach of biodiversity
2016
International audience; Following the multiplicity of studies dealing with the effects of agricultural intensification on bird diversity, one of the lessons drawn is that these effects depend on both the taxonomic group, the component of diversity, the aspect of intensification, and the spatial scale. This often leads to disparate results among studies suggesting that the investigation of agriculture-biodiversity relationships suffers from scale-dependence, information redundancy, non-linearity problems, and thus, unpredictability.Here, we propose a multi-scale and multi-facet approach to clarify the impacts of agricultural intensification on biodiversity and possible mitigating actions. Ou…
Reproductive timing and individual fitness
2002
Estimation of individual fitness – i.e. description of the extent to which an individual's genes are represented in future generations – is a feature central to most evolutionary studies. Lifetime reproductive success (LRS) is a commonly used estimate of individual fitness, but because it is rate-insensitive (i.e. timing of reproductive events is not incorporated), it may give a biased estimate of fitness when reproductive timing is an important component of fitness. A review of all empirical studies which have used a recently derived, rate-sensitive estimate of individual fitness, λind revealed that λind ranks the fitness of phenotypes differently from LRS, and that this difference may lea…
A Methodology to Derive Global Maps of Leaf Traits Using Remote Sensing and Climate Data
2018
This paper introduces a modular processing chain to derive global high-resolution maps of leaf traits. In particular, we present global maps at 500 m resolution of specific leaf area, leaf dry matter content, leaf nitrogen and phosphorus content per dry mass, and leaf nitrogen/phosphorus ratio. The processing chain exploits machine learning techniques along with optical remote sensing data (MODIS/Landsat) and climate data for gap filling and up-scaling of in-situ measured leaf traits. The chain first uses random forests regression with surrogates to fill gaps in the database (> 45% of missing entries) and maximizes the global representativeness of the trait dataset. Plant species are then a…
Facebook groups as citizen science tools for plant species monitoring
2021
I social network sono canali di comunicazione utilizzati per condividere enormi quantità di dati, che possono essere utilizzati per la ricerca scientifica, anche nel campo della biodiversità. Per sapere quanto i dati ricavati dai social network possono integrare quelli raccolti per scopi scientifici, è necessario individuarne i bias. Utilizzando i dati estratti da un gruppo Facebook specializzato nella flora vascolare siciliana, abbiamo analizzato quali sono i caratteri che aumentano la probabilità che una pianta spontanea venga fotografata e postata su un social network. A tal fine, abbiamo confrontato frequenze e attributi delle specie fotografate dai membri del gruppo Facebook con quelli…
On personality, energy metabolism and mtDNA introgression in bank voles
2014
Consistent interindividual differences in behaviour, or animal personality, are emerging as an important determinant of a wide range of life history traits and fitness. Individual behaviour, however, may be constrained by between-individual variability in energy metabolism and may become unstable owing to intrinsic and extrinsic stressors. Here we tested the relationship between personality and physiology using wild-caught bank voles, Myodes glareolus, that varied according to mtDNA type (original or introgressed from Myodes rutilus). Personality traits and their within-individual consistency were assessed using an open field test and basal metabolic rate (BMR) was measured in an open-flow …
Fruit Quality Traits of Six Ancient Apple (Malus domesticaBorkh) Cultivars Grown in the Mediterranean Area
2015
ABSTRACTToday, ancient cultivars have been considered obsolete and replaced, leading to a dramatic loss of genetic diversity. In this trial we examined the quality of the six ancient apple cultivars: Bommino, Gelato, Miliadeci, Rotolari, Turco, and Virchiata. Fruit was submitted to the determination of physicochemical traits and a sensory profile was defined by a trained panel using 20 attributes. We also detected biometric data using a specific descriptor list. Obtained data showed interesting physicochemical and sensory traits among the observed cultivars. ‘Rotolari’, ‘Bommino’, and ‘Gelato’ should be used in breeding programs and revaluated for a placement on specific local markets.
Antibiotics accelerate growth at the expense of immunity
2021
Antibiotics have long been used in the raising of animals for agricultural, industrial or laboratory use. The use of subtherapeutic doses in diets of terrestrial and aquatic animals to promote growth is common and highly debated. Despite their vast application in animal husbandry, knowledge about the mechanisms behind growth promotion is minimal, particularly at the molecular level. Evidence from evolutionary research shows that immunocompetence is resource-limited, and hence expected to trade off with other resource-demanding processes, such as growth. Here, we ask if accelerated growth caused by antibiotics can be explained by genome-wide trade-offs between growth and costly immunocompete…
High-Pressure Carbon Dioxide Use to Control Dried Apricot Pests, Tribolium castaneum and Rhyzopertha dominica, and Assessing the Qualitative Traits o…
2021
One of the new ways of warehouse pest control is the carbon dioxide treatment, which had no residues on the target products. In the present research, at first, CO2 gas was applied to control two important pest species infesting dried apricots. Dry apricots infested with adults of Tribolium castaneum (Herbst) or Rhyzopertha dominica (F.) were exposed to CO2 gas pressures correspond to 9.1, 16.7, 23.1, 28.6, and 33.4 mol% for 24 h. The results showed higher mortality rates with increasing the gas pressures in all the experiments. The minimum and maximum losses of the pests were determined at concentrations of 9.1 and 33.4 mol%, respectively. Evaluation of CO2 gas effects on the quality charac…
Social organization and the evolution of life-history traits in two queen morphs of the ant Temnothorax rugatulus.
2020
ABSTRACT During the evolution of social insects, not only did life-history traits diverge, with queens becoming highly fecund and long lived compared with their sterile workers, but also individual traits lost their importance compared with colony-level traits. In solitary animals, fecundity is largely influenced by female size, whereas in eusocial insects, colony size and queen number can affect the egg-laying rate. Here, we focused on the ant Temnothorax rugatulus, which exhibits two queen morphs varying in size and reproductive strategy, correlating with their colony's social organization. We experimentally tested the influence of social structure, colony and body size on queen fecundity…