Search results for "ABI"
showing 10 items of 30486 documents
Tendencies in paleontological practice when defining species, and consequences on biodiversity studies
2005
The exploration of evolutionary patterns over geological time has recently received new impetus from the development of morphological disparity as a new biodiversity metric alongside taxonomic diversity. Clade dynamics can be analyzed by comparing and contrasting these two metrics. Like any metrics based on sampling, quantification, and naming, taxonomic diversity and morphological disparity are not free from bias. The long use of taxonomic diversity has prompted many studies of bias and its effects, whereas bias affecting morphological disparity has only been summarily explored. This is particularly so for the effect of the growth of knowledge over paleontographical time (i.e., historical …
Patterns of ecological diversification in thelodonts
2018
Here we explore the spatial, temporal and phylogenetic patterns of ecological diversification for the entire clade of thelodonts, one of the earliest groups of vertebrates and longest lasting of the Palaeozoic agnathans in the fossil record. Parsimony and maximum-likelihood methods are used to reconstruct ancestral states of their geographical distributions, habitats and lifestyles. Our results support the concept that thelodonts originated during the Middle?-Late Ordovician probably in marine open waters of Laurasia, with a demersal lifestyle on hard substrates being the ancestral condition for the whole clade. Later, thelodonts underwent a complex ecological diversification and palaeobiog…
Heteroptera of Lebanon. II.Phytocoris(Exophytocoris)RaunolinnavuoriiSp. Nov. from the Horsh Ehden Nature Reserve and Adjacent Areas (Hemiptera: Heter…
2016
Abstract A new species of Phytocoris (Heteroptera: Miridae: Mirinae: Mirini), P. (Exophytocoris) raunolinnavuorii sp. nov., is described and illustrated from Lebanon. The new species, easily distinguished from all the other species of the subgenus by its coloration and male genitalia, belongs to the Phytocoris pinihalepensis-group. The new species lives on the conifers Abies cilicica (Antoine & Kotschy) Carriere (Pinaceae) and Juniperus excelsa M. Bieb. (Cupressaceae).
Values and challenges in the assessment of coprophilous fungi according to the IUCN Red List criteria: the case study of Poronia punctata (Xylariales…
2020
Coprophilous fungi are specialized microorganisms, playing key roles in ecosystems and in several other contexts, whose protection requires more substantial efforts. This paper aims to highlight and discuss valuable and critical aspects faced during the process of the threat status assessment of Poronia punctata, providing inspirations for future conservation actions.
Using latent variable models to identify large networks of species‐to‐species associations at different spatial scales
2015
Summary We present a hierarchical latent variable model that partitions variation in species occurrences and co-occurrences simultaneously at multiple spatial scales. We illustrate how the parameterized model can be used to predict the occurrences of a species by using as predictors not only the environmental covariates, but also the occurrences of all other species, at all spatial scales. We leverage recent progress in Bayesian latent variable models to implement a computationally effective algorithm that enables one to consider large communities and extensive sampling schemes. We exemplify the framework with a community of 98 fungal species sampled in c. 22 500 dead wood units in 230 plot…
Towards European Dimensions of City Resilience
2016
International audience; Disaster resilience is becoming more important and raises the highest concerns worldwide, including in Europe. Cities have a vital role for resilience because a majority of the population resides in the cities. Despite the recognition of the importance of city resilience, there is no strong consensus what city resilience is and its dimensions, and how the resilience concept should be transferred into management practice in the cities. In this paper, we conduct a survey of EU sectorial approaches in terms of EU-funded projects related to climate change and critical infrastructure, where urban or city resilience are in focus. The goal is to obtain an overview of how th…
Linking species habitat and past palaeoclimatic events to evolution of the teleost innate immune system
2017
Host-intrinsic factors as well as environmental changes are known to be strong evolutionary drivers defining the genetic foundation of immunity. Using a novel set of teleost genomes and a time-calibrated phylogeny, we here investigate the family of Toll-like receptor ( TLR ) genes and address the underlying evolutionary processes shaping the diversity of the first-line defence. Our findings reveal remarkable flexibility within the evolutionary design of teleost innate immunity characterized by prominent TLR gene losses and expansions. In the order of Gadiformes, expansions correlate with the loss of major histocompatibility complex class II ( MHCII ) and diversifying selection analyses sup…
Stabilizing selection on microsatellite allele length at arginine vasopressin 1a receptor and oxytocin receptor loci
2017
The loci arginine vasopressin receptor 1a ( avpr1a ) and oxytocin receptor ( oxtr ) have evolutionarily conserved roles in vertebrate social and sexual behaviour. Allelic variation at a microsatellite locus in the 5′ regulatory region of these genes is associated with fitness in the bank vole Myodes glareolus . Given the low frequency of long and short alleles at these microsatellite loci in wild bank voles, we used breeding trials to determine whether selection acts against long and short alleles. Female bank voles with intermediate length avpr1a alleles had the highest probability of breeding, while male voles whose avpr1a alleles were very different in length had reduced probability of …
Ant recognition cue diversity is higher in the presence of slavemaker ants
2015
Social insect colonies defend themselves from intruders through nestmate recognition, yet the evolution and maintenance of recognition cue diversity is still poorly understood. We compared the recognition cue diversity of 9 populations of Temnothorax longispinosus ant colonies, including populations that harbored the socially parasitic slavemaker ant, Protomognathus americanus. Although ants recognize friends from foe based on recognition cues encoded in their cuticular hydrocarbon profile, which specific compounds are involved in recognition is unknown for most species. We therefore started by statistically identifying 9 putative recognition compounds involved in worker and colony aggressi…
Identification and expression analysis of theSpodoptera exiguaneuropeptidome under different physiological conditions
2018
Neuropeptides are small signalling molecules acting as neurohormones, neurotransmitters and neuromodulators. Being part of the chemical communication system between cells within an organism, they are involved in the regulation of different aspects of animal physiology and behaviour such as feeding, reproduction, development and locomotion. Transcriptomic data from larval and adult tissues have been obtained and mined to generate a comprehensive neuropeptidome for the polyphagous insect pest Spodoptera exigua. Sixty-three neuropeptides have been identified and described based on their tissue specificity and their regulation in response to different abiotic perturbations. Expression analyses …