Search results for "biodiversity | causal language"

Personality predicts social dominance in female zebra finches, Taeniopygia guttata, in a feeding context.

2011

6 pages; International audience; Although personality has been defined as a suite of correlated behaviours, most studies of animal personality actually consider correlations between a few traits. We examined the repeatability and correlational structure of five potential personality traits (activity, neophobia, exploratory tendencies, risk-taking behaviour and obstinacy), in female zebra finches. In addition, we assessed to what extent personality influenced social dominance in a feeding context in this gregarious species. All personality traits were found to be highly repeatable within individuals. In addition, except for obstinacy, all of them were related to each other, thus defining a b…

Aerobiology: an ecological indicator for early detection and control of fungal outbreaks in caves

2011

5 pages, 1 table, 13 references.

The energetic cost of humoral immunity in the Collared Dove, Streptopelia decaocto : is the magnitude sufficient to force energy-based trade-offs?

2005

International audience; 1. Energy saving is often suggested as the basis of a resource trade-off between immunocompetence and other fitness-relevant traits. This suggests that the energetic cost of an immune response is significant and sufficient to force trade-offs. To date, few studies have investigated the energetic cost of the humoral component of the immune system in birds and furthermore, existing results are contradictory. 2. We addressed this question through two experiments. In experiment 1, the basal metabolic rate (BMR) of Collared Doves, Streptopelia decaocto , challenged with sheep red blood cells (SRBC) was compared with the BMR of control birds. The energetic cost of immunity…

Isolation and characterization of microsatellite markers in the liver fluke (Fasciola hepatica)

2004

PRIMER NOTE; International audience; Six microsatellite markers were isolated from Fasciola hepatica, a re-emerging parasite that causes important veterinary and public health problems. In a sample of 52 liver flukes from a region of hyperendemicity (Bolivian Altiplano), five microsatellite were polymorphic. Our results showed that liver flukes present important genetic variability, suggesting a preferential outcrossing reproduction mode for this hermaphroditic parasite.

Biogeographic patterns of base-rich fen vegetation across Europe

2014

International audience; Questions: What is the distribution of base-rich fen vegetation and the specia- list species along European biogeographic regions? How do the gradients in spe- cies composition correlate to geography and climate at continental scale? What are the implications of such patterns for the classification of these habitats?Location: Fifteen countries of Central, Western and Northern Europe.Methods: We compiled a vegetation plot database of base-rich fens and related communities including vascular plants and bryophytes. The initial data set with 6943 plots was filtered according to the presence of specialists using discriminant analysis. We used DCA to analyse the correlatio…

Developing tools for biodiversity surveys : studies with wood-inhabiting fungi

2010

A comparative analysis of the sustainability of rice cultivation technologies using the analytic network process

2010

Sustainability of local farming systems and technologies is a very important issue that faces notorious measurement difficulties. Multi-criteria methods may help researchers to solve empirical problems in the construction of composite sustainability indicators and in ranking agricultural technologies according to their sustainability. This paper shows how a multi-criteria decision-making technique, the Analytic Network Process (ANP), can be fruitfully employed to this end. Contrary to simpler and hierarchical goal-criteria-alternative approaches, in ANP all the elements in the network can be related in any possible way, which means that a network can incorporate feedback and interdependent …

Taxonomic review of the

2017

Abstract Two new species of the genus Fulvius Stål are described from the Philippines and Papua New Guinea. A taxonomic review of representatives of the F.bifenestratus species group, illustrations of the male genitalia, a color habitus image of each species, and a key to species of the group are provided.

Du ciel noir à l'environnement nocturne : la construction d'un nouveau front de protection de la nature

2020

International audience; Depuis les années 1970 plusieurs domaines d’expertise scientifique ont contribué à faire émerger une nouvelle dimension de la protection de l’environnement liés aux effets dégradants de la pollution lumineuse. Cette dernière constitue en soi un objet de controverse entre sciences, notamment sur les différentes façons de la saisir et la définir en tant qu’objet et que fait. Nous retiendrons ici pour qualifier cette forme de pollution le caractère d’un excès de lumière artificielle entrainant des impacts sur les écosystèmes et sur la santé humaine.L’histoire du mouvement de lutte contre l’expansion de l’éclairage artificiel commence à être relativement connue, dans le …

VegItaly: The Italian collaborative project for a national vegetation database

2012

Abstract Two years after its official start, the national vegetation database VegItaly, a collaborative project supported by the Italian scientific community and developed by a large group of scientists, is presented. This article offers a concise overview of the content of the database, currently consisting of 31,100 vegetation plot, including published and unpublished data. Some basic statistics are analysed; for example, data distribution in space and time, represented vegetation types expressed as physiognomic categories. Although rather young and still in progress, VegItaly already contains data from all the Italian regions and stands as an optimal candidate for the development of an I…