Search results for "59"

Consistent phenological shifts in the making of a biodiversity hotspot: the Cape flora

2011

Abstract Background The best documented survival responses of organisms to past climate change on short (glacial-interglacial) timescales are distributional shifts. Despite ample evidence on such timescales for local adaptations of populations at specific sites, the long-term impacts of such changes on evolutionary significant units in response to past climatic change have been little documented. Here we use phylogenies to reconstruct changes in distribution and flowering ecology of the Cape flora - South Africa's biodiversity hotspot - through a period of past (Neogene and Quaternary) changes in the seasonality of rainfall over a timescale of several million years. Results Forty-three dist…

Marine food web perspective to fisheries‐induced evolution

2021

Abstract Fisheries exploitation can cause genetic changes in heritable traits of targeted stocks. The direction of selective pressure forced by harvest acts typically in reverse to natural selection and selects for explicit life histories, usually for younger and smaller spawners with deprived spawning potential. While the consequences that such selection might have on the population dynamics of a single species are well emphasized, we are just beginning to perceive the variety and severity of its propagating effects within the entire marine food webs and ecosystems. Here, we highlight the potential pathways in which fisheries‐induced evolution, driven by size‐selective fishing, might reson…

Evolutionary genomics can improve prediction of species' responses to climate change

2020

Abstract Global climate change (GCC) increasingly threatens biodiversity through the loss of species, and the transformation of entire ecosystems. Many species are challenged by the pace of GCC because they might not be able to respond fast enough to changing biotic and abiotic conditions. Species can respond either by shifting their range, or by persisting in their local habitat. If populations persist, they can tolerate climatic changes through phenotypic plasticity, or genetically adapt to changing conditions depending on their genetic variability and census population size to allow for de novo mutations. Otherwise, populations will experience demographic collapses and species may go ext…

Enhancing social and health care educators’ competence in digital pedagogy: A pilot study of educational intervention

2021

The purpose of this pilot study was to explore connection of an educational intervention on the competence of health care educators and educator candidates (n=11) in digital pedagogy as a part of national TerOpe project. An educational intervention, Basics of Digital Pedagogy was developed by the TerOpe project’s experts. The participating educators and educator candidates of the educational intervention were recruited from the universities and university of applied sciences, which were involved in TerOpe project. All the participants of the educational interventions were invited to take part in this study. The educational intervention was conducted during spring 2019. Pre- and post-tests w…

Logística, trabajo y almacenes: el lado oscuro de la digitalización

2021

Social Inclusion and Exclusion in the Life Stories of Deported Asylum Seekers from Finland to Iraqi Kurdistan

2018

This study explores how social inclusion and exclusion manifest as a dynamic continuum in the everyday lived realities of irregular migrants. Based on narratives of Iraqi Kurdish asylum seekers, who were eventually deported from Finland, the analysis depicts the ways in which societal structures, personal negotiations as well as relationships and social networks interplay in lives characterized by multiple locations, transitions and positions. Establishing and maintaining social contacts, belonging to various networks and being able to decide and act are primary factors that help us understand how the narrators relate to the continuum. The participants construct narratives illustrating seve…

Context dependent variation in corticosterone and phenotypic divergence of Rana arvalis populations along an acidification gradient

2022

Background Physiological processes, as immediate responses to the environment, are important mechanisms of phenotypic plasticity and can influence evolution at ecological time scales. In stressful environments, physiological stress responses of individuals are initiated and integrated via the release of hormones, such as corticosterone (CORT). In vertebrates, CORT influences energy metabolism and resource allocation to multiple fitness traits (e.g. growth and morphology) and can be an important mediator of rapid adaptation to environmental stress, such as acidification. The moor frog, Rana arvalis, shows adaptive divergence in larval life-histories and predator defense traits along an acidi…

Toward Comprehensive Plant Microbiome Research

2020

Microbes have driven eco-evolutionary adaptations organizing biodiversity from the origin of life. They are ubiquitous and abundant, facilitating the biochemical processes that make Earth habitable and shape ecosystem structures, functions, and services. Recent studies reveal that commensalistic and beneficial microbes associated with wild and domesticated plants may aid in establishing sustainable agriculture for a changing climate. However, developing microbe-based biotechnologies and ecosystem services requires a thorough understanding of the diversity and complexity of microbial interactions with each other and with higher organisms. We discuss the hot and blind spots in contemporary re…

Alcune considerazioni sull’art. 5 della legge 359/1992 in materia di espropriazione e sulla sentenza della Corte Costituzionale n. 283 del 10-16 giug…

1994

An evolutionary perspective on stress responses, damage and repair

2022

Variation in stress responses has been investigated in relation to environmental factors, species ecology, life history and fitness. Moreover, mechanistic studies have unravelled molecular mechanisms of how acute and chronic stress responses cause physiological impacts (‘damage’), and how this damage can be repaired. However, it is not yet understood how the fitness effects of damage and repair influence stress response evolution. Here we study the evolution of hormone levels as a function of stressor occurrence, damage and the efficiency of repair. We hypothesise that the evolution of stress responses depends on the fitness consequences of damage and the ability to repair that damage. To o…