Search results for "South"
showing 10 items of 937 documents
Antarctic and Sub-Antarctic Asteroidea database
2018
The present dataset is a compilation of georeferenced occurrences of asteroids (Echinodermata: Asteroidea) in the Southern Ocean. Occurrence data south of 45°S latitude were mined from various sources together with information regarding the taxonomy, the sampling source and sampling sites when available. Records from 1872 to 2016 were thoroughly checked to ensure the quality of a dataset that reaches a total of 13,840 occurrences from 4,580 unique sampling events. Information regarding the reproductive strategy (brooders vs. broadcasters) of 63 species is also made available. This dataset represents the most exhaustive occurrence database on Antarctic and Sub-Antarctic asteroids.
Late Cretaceous-Early Eocene origin of yams (Dioscorea, Dioscoreaceae) in the Laurasian Palaearctic and their subsequent Oligocene-Miocene diversific…
2015
Aim: Dioscorea (Dioscoreaceae) is a predominantly pantropical genus (< 600 species) that includes the third most important tropical tuber crop and species of pharmacological value. Fossil records from both the Northern and Southern Hemispheres were used to test hypotheses about the origin of the genus Dioscorea, and to examine potential macroevolutionary processes that led to its current distribution. Location: Pantropical distribution. Methods: Divergence times were estimated using the most comprehensive phylogeny of the group published to date based on plastid sequences and fossil calibrations, applying a relaxed-clock model approach. Ancestral areas and range shifts were reconstructed us…
Grass leaves as potential hominin dietary resources
2018
Discussions about early hominin diets have generally excluded grass leaves as a staple food resource, despite their ubiquity in most early hominin habitats. In particular, stable carbon isotope studies have shown a prevalent C4 component in the diets of most taxa, and grass leaves are the single most abundant C4 resource in African savannas. Grass leaves are typically portrayed as having little nutritional value (e.g., low in protein and high in fiber) for hominins lacking specialized digestive systems. It has also been argued that they present mechanical challenges (i.e., high toughness) for hominins with bunodont dentition. Here, we compare the nutritional and mechanical properties of gra…
Rediscovery of Riella alatospora (Riellaceae, Sphaerocarpales), an aquatic, South African endemic liverwort previously known from a now largely trans…
2012
7 páginas, 4 figuras.
Landscape-scale simulation experiments test Romanian and Swiss management guidelines for mountain pasture-woodland habitat diversity
2016
Distinct guidelines have been proposed in Romania and Switzerland for the management of pasture woodlands that either focused on the regulation of grazing pressure (Romanian production perspective) or overall tree cover (Swiss conservation perspective). However, the landscape structural diversity and the cover of forest-grassland ecotones, which are both crucial for nature conservation value, were not explicitly considered. We aimed to compare the country-specific management guidelines regarding their efficiency for the conservation of the structurally diverse forest-grassland mosaics in the light of recent land-use and climate change. In strategic simulation experiments using the process-b…
Low contribution of Caribbean-based researchers to academic publications on biodiversity conservation in the insular Caribbean.
2021
11 pages; International audience; The insular Caribbean is among the most threatened global biodiversity hotspots, warranting urgent and effective action in conservation. However, the capacity of Caribbean-based researchers to address challenges in biodiversity conservation appears limited. To assess the latter, we used the contribution of Caribbean-based authors to the production of peer-reviewed journal papers on biodiversity conservation in the insular Caribbean as a proxy for research capacity. Moreover, because the insular Caribbean is a complex geopolitical system including sovereign states and overseas territories, we examined the contributions of these two groups to the number of pa…
Multilocus phylogenetics of smooth clam shrimps (Branchiopoda, Laevicaudata)
2021
International audience; Laevicaudatan branchiopods, also called ‘smooth clam shrimps’ or ’pea shrimps’, are rare crustaceans found exclusively in temporary, small freshwater bodies, which stay dry most of the year. Only 42 laevicaudatan species have been described so far, 90% of which belong to the genus Lynceus. The first multilocus phylogeny of the group is provided here, based on 15 Lynceus species from North and South America, Europe, Africa, Asia, Australia and New Caledonia and using nine molecular markers (two mitochondrial and seven nuclear genes, including newly designed primers). Genetic data suggest populations of Lynceus brachyurus from Europe and North America to represent a co…
Antarctic, Sub-Antarctic and cold temperate echinoid database
2012
6 pages; International audience; This database includes spatial data of Antarctic, Sub-Antarctic and cold temperate echinoid distribution (Echinodermata: Echinoidea) collected during many oceanographic campaigns led in the Southern Hemisphere from 1872 to 2010. The dataset lists occurrence data of echinoid distribution south of 35°S latitude, together with information on taxonomy (from species to genus level), sampling sources (cruise ID, sampling dates, ship names) and sampling sites (geographic coordinates and depth). Echinoid occurrence data were compiled from the Antarctic Echinoid Database (David et al. 2005a), which integrates records from oceanographic cruises led in the Southern Oce…
Trophic ecology of a Late Pleistocene early modern human from tropical Southeast Asia inferred from zinc isotopes
2021
Tam Pà Ling, a cave site in northeastern Laos, has yielded the earliest skeletal evidence of Homo sapiens in mainland Southeast Asia. The reliance of Pleistocene humans in rainforest settings on plant or animal resources is still largely unstudied, mainly due to poor collagen preservation in fossils from tropical environments precluding stable nitrogen isotope analysis, the classical trophic level proxy. However, isotopic ratios of zinc (Zn) in bioapatite constitute a promising proxy to infer trophic and dietary information from fossil vertebrates, even under adverse tropical taphonomic conditions. Here, we analyzed the zinc isotope composition (66Zn/64Zn expressed as δ66Zn value) in the en…
Trans-equatorial migration routes, staging sites and wintering areas of a High-Arctic avian predator: the Long-tailed Skua (Stercorarius longicaudus).
2013
The Long-tailed Skua, a small (,300 g) Arctic-breeding predator and seabird, is a functionally very important component of the Arctic vertebrate communities in summer, but little is known about its migration and winter distribution. We used lightlevel geolocators to track the annual movements of eight adult birds breeding in north-east Greenland (n = 3) and Svalbard (n = 5). All birds wintered in the Southern Hemisphere (mean arrival-departure dates on wintering grounds: 24 October-21 March): five along the south-west coast of Africa (0–40uS, 0–15uE), in the productive Benguela upwelling, and three further south (30–40uS, 0–50uE), in an area extending into the south-west Indian Ocean. Diffe…