Search results for "evolution"

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…

Assessment of the Sabellaria alveolata reefs’ structural features along the Southern coast of Sicily (Strait of Sicily, Mediterranean Sea)

2022

The honeycomb worm Sabellaria alveolata is a gregarious tube-dwelling polychaete that builds remarkable biogenic reefs in marine coastal waters. Sabellaria alveolata reefs are considered valuable marine habitats requiring protection measures for their conservation, as they play a key role in the functioning of coastal ecosystems. Sabellarid reefs are extensively developed along the Atlantic coasts of Europe and reported for the Mediterranean Sea and the Italian coasts, where large reefs have been recorded in several localities. Fragmentary information is available on their health status, Sabellaria reefs thus being listed as “Data Deficient” in the Red List of Marine Habitats. To fill this …

Distance decay 2.0. A global synthesis of taxonomic and functional turnover in ecological communities

2022

Caio Graco-Roza was funded by the Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Education Personnel (CAPES), the Carlos Chagas Filho Research Support Foundation (FAPERJ) and the Ella and Georg Erhnrooth Foundation; Jan Altman by research grants INTER-EXCELLENCE LTAUSA19137 provided by Czech Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports, 20-05840Y of the Czech Science Foundation, and long-term research development project no. RVO 67985939 of the Czech Academy of Sciences; Otso Ovaskainen was funded by Academy of Finland (grant no. 309581), Jane and Aatos Erkko Foundation, Research Council of Norway through its Centres of Excellence Funding Scheme (223257), and the European Research Council (ERC) unde…

High‐resolution 3D forest structure explains ecomorphological trait variation in assemblages of saproxylic beetles

2022

1. Climate, topography and the 3D structure of forests are major drivers affecting local species communities. However, little is known about how the specific functional traits of saproxylic (wood-living) beetles, involved in the recycling of wood, might be affected by those environmental characteristics. 2. Here, we combine ecological and morphological traits available for saproxylic beetles and airborne laser scanning (ALS) data in Bayesian trait-based joint species distribution models to study how traits drive the distributions of more than 230 species in temperate forests of Europe. 3. We found that elevation (as a proxy for temperature and precipitation) and the proportion of conifers p…

Growth and limb bone histology of aetosaurs and phytosaurs from the Late Triassic Krasiejów locality (sw Poland) reveals strong environmental influen…

2022

Abstract The growth pattern of the Polish phytosaur Parasuchus cf. arenaceus and the aetosaur Stagonolepis olenkae (both Krasiejów; Norian) was studied. Results were compared to published data of other members of these two groups and to a new sample of the German (Heslach; Norian) phytosaur Nicrosaurus sp. All three herein studied taxa display lamellar-zonal bone consisting predominately of parallel-fibred tissue and on average a low to moderate vascular density. Towards the outer cortex the thickness of annuli increases in most samples and becomes distinctly wider than the zones. Therefore, most of the appositional growth in adults was achieved during phases of prolonged slow growth. All b…

Enzymatic systems involved in peri-receptor events of olfaction in mammalian: evolutionary perspectives

2021

International audience; The olfactory epithelium is continuously exposed to exogenous chemicals, including compounds bearing odor activity. Organisms have developed multiple mechanisms for the protection of this epithelium, among which anti-microbial proteins, enzymes fighting the oxidative stress and xenobiotic metabolizing enzymes. Our approach consists in characterizing by immunohistochemistry and mass spectroscopy analysis the proteome of the nasal mucus in different mammals (currently including Harbour porpoise, Homo sapiens, Mus musculus, Oryctolagus cuniculus, Rattus norvegicus). These analyses reveal core some enzyme families in the different species investigated, including glutathi…

No uniform associations between parasite prevalence and environmental nutrients

2014

The resource quality of the host has been shown to affect parasite transmission success, prevalence, and virulence. Seasonal availability of environmental nutrients alters density and stoichiometric quality (carbon–nutrient ratios) of both producers and consumers, suggesting that nutrient availability may drive fluctuations in parasite prevalence patterns observed in nature. We examined the interactions between the population dynamics of a keystone herbivore, Daphnia, and its parasites, and their associations with water nutrient concentrations, resource quantity and quality, and other environmental variables (temperature, pH, oxygen concentration) in a small lake, using general linear model…

Nowa gospodarka ery informacji

2016

Rewolucyjny rozwój internetu znacząco wpłynął nie tylko na społeczeństwo i kulturę, ale także na gospodarkę. Największe sieciowe korporacje nie pozostały bierne wobec pojawiających się zmian i zaczęły doskonale wykorzystywać ludzkie przywiązanie do sieci. Komercyjny pęd doprowadził wręcz do uprzedmiotowienia człowieka i mierzenia jego wartości w kategoriach ekonomicznych. Kapitalizm odbił swe piętno na funkcjonowaniu sieci, ale sieć, rządząca się swoimi prawami, także zaczęła wpływać na formę tego systemu i ją uaktualniać. Staliśmy się świadkami ewolucji kapitalistycznego rynku i dezaktualizacji niektórych pojęć.

Gypsum karst systems of southern-central Sicily (southern Italy) as powerful markers in geomorphological studies

2011

Item Response Trees: a recommended method for analyzing categorical data in behavioral studies

2015

Behavioral data are notable for presenting challenges to their statistical analysis, often due to the difficulties in measuring behavior on a quantitative scale. Instead, a range of qualitative alternative responses is recorded. These can often be understood as the outcome of a sequence of binary decisions. For example, faced by a predator, an individual may decide to flee or stay. If it stays, it may decide to freeze or display a threat and if it displays a threat, it may choose from several alternative forms of display. Here we argue that instead of being analyzed using traditional nonparametric statistics or a series of separate analyses split by response categories, this kind of data ca…