Search results for "MPL"
showing 10 items of 21777 documents
Cryptic taxa should have names: Reflections in the glasswort genusSalicornia(Amaranthaceae)
2012
Incongruence between morphology and molecules, i.e., genetic differentiation of lineages that are morphologically identical, or morphological variation among accessions sharing identical genotypes, has been increasingly reported and is most problematic in taxa with reduced morphologies. We here review and discuss these issues for plant taxonomy, taking Salicornia, one of the taxonomically most challenging genera of angiosperms, as a model. We argue in favour of a taxonomic system that remains as much 'workable' as possible for traditional morphology-based taxonomy, but avoids merging genetically widely divergent lineages despite their morphological similarity. Our revised classification of …
Survey of the distribution of Bemisia tabaci (Hemiptera: Aleyrodidae) in Lazio region (Central Italy): a threat for the northward expansion of Tomato…
2018
Bemisia tabaci (Hemiptera: Aleyrodidae) is responsible for severe damage to horticultural and ornamental crops worldwide, mainly for its role as virus vector. In Italy, the B. tabaci Mediterranean (MED) and Middle East–Asia Minor 1 (MEAM1) cryptic species are widespread in the Southern regions as well as in Sicily and Sardinia. During the last two decades, MED populations progressively increased, in those areas where intensive farming is applied. The recent introduction of the begomovirus Tomato leaf curl New Delhi virus (ToLCNDV) prompted extensive surveys of both vector and symptomatic plants. In 2016 and 2017, monitoring activities were carried out in Lazio region (Central Italy) where b…
Is it really you,Orthotrichum acuminatum? Ascertaining a new case of intercontinental disjunction in mosses
2015
Intercontinental disjunct distributions are a main issue in current biogeography. Bryophytes usually have broad distribution ranges and therefore constitute an interesting subject of study in this context. During recent fieldwork in western North America and eastern Africa, we found new populations of a moss morphologically similar to Orthotrichum acuminatum. So far this species has been considered to be one of the most typical epiphytic mosses of the Mediterranean Basin. The new findings raise some puzzling questions. Do these new populations belong to cryptic species or do they belong to O. acuminatum, a species which then has a multiple-continent disjunct range? In the latter case, how c…
Integrative taxonomy sheds light on an old problem: theUlota crispacomplex (Orthotrichaceae, Musci)
2016
The combined use of morphological and molecular analyses has been proven to be useful in resolving taxonomic complexes with hidden diversity. In bryology, however, integrative taxonomy has rarely been employed to revisit relevant old, unresolved problems. One of these classical controversies is whether the Ulota crispa complex comprises one or three species. To elucidate this, an exhaustive morphological revision, based on numerous herbarium and fresh specimens from most of the Holarctic areas in which U. crispa has been reported, and molecular analyses, using one nuclear (ITS2) and three plastid (trnG, trnL-trnF, atpB-rbcL) loci on a selection of representative specimens, have been perform…
Integrative taxonomy resolves species identities within the Macrobiotus pallarii complex (Eutardigrada: Macrobiotidae)
2021
AbstractThe taxonomy of many groups of meiofauna is challenging due to their low number of diagnostic morphological characters and their small body size. Therefore, with the advent of molecular techniques that provide a new source of traits, many cryptic species have started to be discovered. Tardigrades are not an exception, and many once thought to be cosmopolitan taxa are being found to be complexes of phenotypically similar species. Macrobiotus pallarii Maucci, 1954 was originally described in South Italy and has been subsequently recorded in Europe, America, and Asia. This allegedly wide geographic range suggests that multiple species may be hidden under this name. Moreover, recently, …
Lung function assessment in the Pacific walrus (Odobenus rosmarus divergens) while resting on land and submerged in water
2020
In the present study, we examined lung function in healthy resting adult (born in 2003) Pacific walruses (Odobenus rosmarus divergens) by measuring respiratory flow ([Formula: see text]) using a custom-made pneumotachometer. Three female walruses (670-1025 kg) voluntarily participated in spirometry trials while spontaneously breathing on land (sitting and lying down in sternal recumbency) and floating in water. While sitting, two walruses performed active respiratory efforts, and one animal participated in lung compliance measurements. For spontaneous breaths, [Formula: see text] was lower when walruses were lying down (e.g. expiration: 7.1±1.2 l s-1) as compared with in water (9.9±1.4 l s-…
Prefoldins contribute to maintaining the levels of the spliceosome LSM2–8 complex through Hsp90 in Arabidopsis
2020
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Dynamic complexities in host-parasitoid interaction
1999
In the 1970s ecological research detected chaos and other forms of complex dynamics in simple population dynamics models, initiating a new research tradition in ecology. However, the investigations of complex population dynamics have mainly concentrated on single populations and not on higher dimensional ecological systems. Here we report a detailed study of the complicated dynamics occurring in a basic discrete-time model of host-parasitoid interaction. The complexities include (a) non-unique dynamics, meaning that several attractors coexist, (b) basins of attraction (defined as the set of the initial conditions leading to a certain type of an attractor) with fractal properties (pattern of…
The effect of random and density‐dependent variation in sampling efficiency on variance of abundance estimates from fishery surveys
2019
Abundance indices (AIs) provide information on population abundance and trends over time, while AI variance (AIV) provides information on reliability or quality of the AI. AIV is an important output from surveys and is commonly used in formal assessments of survey quality, in survey comparison studies, and in stock assessments. However, uncertainty in AIV estimates is poorly understood and studies on the precision and bias in survey AIV estimates are lacking. Typically, AIV estimates are “design based” and are derived from sampling theory under some aspect of randomized samples. Inference on population density in these cases can be confounded by unaccounted process errors such as those due …
Importance of meteorological variables for aeroplankton dispersal in an urban environment
2016
Passive wind dispersal is one of the major mechanisms through which organisms disperse and colonize new areas. The detailed comprehension of which factors affect this process may help to preserve its efficiency for years to come. This is especially important in the current context of climate change, which may seriously alter weather regimes that drive dispersal, and is crucial in urban contexts, where biodiversity is dramatically threatened by pollution and fragmentation of natural patches. Despite its interest, the analysis of factors affecting aeroplankton dispersal in urban environments is rare in literature. We sampled aeroplankton community uninterruptedly every 4 hours from 17th May t…