Search results for "systematic"
showing 10 items of 7608 documents
New taxa of Orthoptera (Insecta Tettigoniidae Phaneropterinae) from Madagascar.
2017
The author reports the results of a study on Orthoptera collected in Madagascar and preserved in two European Natural History museums. He describes Symmetroraggea depravata n. sp., Parapyrrhicia longipodex n. sp., Madagascarantia bartolozzii n. gen. n. sp., Mimoscudderia spinicercata n. sp. In addition, he lists new records or unknown taxonomical characters of Xenodus nobilis Carl, 1914 and Parapyrrhicia virilis Carl, 1914.
New Reptile Hosts for Helminth Parasites in a Mediterranean Region
2020
ABSTRACT Parasitic helminths are an almost universal feature of vertebrate animals, but reptiles are among the hosts with the most depauperate parasite communities. Biological traits of reptiles ar...
Nest Insulating Capacity during Incubation and after Fledging are Related
2016
Most birds build nests to hold eggs and nestlings. An important property of nests is their ability to keep eggs and nestlings at an optimum temperature. This is usually measured as the insulating capacity (IC); nests with a higher IC will keep their content warm for longer. The usual protocol to estimate IC involves collecting nests after fledging of the young. However, nest properties change throughout the nesting period, potentially affecting IC. Therefore, a relevant question is whether the nest IC, measured after fledging, actually reflects its IC during incubation and early nestling development, when it is most crucial. In April 2015, we collected 18 Great Tit ( Parus major) nests 3-4…
The role of partial incubation and egg repositioning within the clutch in hatching asynchrony and subsequent effects on breeding success
2019
The main mechanism to achieve hatching asynchrony (HA) for incubating birds is to start heating the eggs before clutch completion. This might be achieved through partial incubation and/or early incubation. Even in the absence of incubation behaviour during the laying phase, clutches still experience a certain degree of asynchrony. Recent studies have shown that eggs located in the centre of the nest receive more heat than peripheral ones during incubation. As eggs receiving more heat would develop faster, we hypothesized that HA should be shorter in nests where eggs were moved homogeneously along the centre–periphery space during incubation than in those nests where eggs repeatedly remained…
New polymorphic microsatellite loci in the house sparrow, Passer domesticus.
2009
3 pages; International audience; We developed 13 new polymorphic microsatellite loci in the house sparrow (Passer domesticus), which exhibited from 2 to 15 alleles. Observed and expected heterozygosities ranged from 0.17 to 0.77 and from 0.35 to 0.85, respectively. We detected no linkage disequilibrium between loci. Allele frequencies supported Hardy–Weinberg equilibrium for 8 loci out of 13 after Bonferroni correction. Combined with loci previously isolated in the house sparrow, these new microsatellite markers provide valuable tools to study population genetics of this species.
First evidence of underwater sounds emitted by the living fossils Lepidurus lubbocki and Triops cancriformis (Branchiopoda: Notostraca)
2021
Sound is the most effective means of communication in marine and freshwater ecosystems. However, no data about acoustic emissions from non-malacostracan crustaceans are currently available, so their ability to produce sounds is unknown. For the first time, this study investigated the sound produced by 2 tadpole shrimp species,Triops cancriformisandLepidurus lubbocki.L. lubbockiindividuals were collected from a natural temporary pond in Sicily (Italy), whereasT. cancriformisindividuals were obtained from eggs contained in sediment from a rock pool in Sardinia (Italy). In the laboratory, experimental tanks with the animals (one species at a time) were acoustically monitored. Both species prod…
Use of Inverse Spatial Conservation Prioritization to Avoid Biological Diversity Loss Outside Protected Areas
2013
Globally expanding human land use sets constantly increasing pressure for maintenance of biological diversity and functioning ecosystems. To fight the decline of biological diversity, conservation science has broken ground with methods such as the operational model of systematic conservation planning (SCP), which focuses on design and on-the-ground implementation of conservation areas. The most commonly used method in SCP is reserve selection that focuses on the spatial design of reserve networks and their expansion. We expanded these methods by introducing another form of spatial allocation of conservation effort relevant for land-use zoning at the landscape scale that avoids negative ecol…
A multi-proxy long-term ecological investigation into the development of a late Holocene calcareous spring-fed fen ecosystem (Raganu Mire) and boreal…
2021
Abstract The calcareous substrate of spring-fed fens makes them unique islands of biodiversity, hosting endangered, vulnerable, and protected vascular plants. Hence, spring-fed fens ecosystems require special conservation attention because many of them are destroyed (e.g. drained, forested) and it is extremely difficult or even impossible to restore the unique hydrogeological and geochemical conditions enabling their function. The long-term perspective of paleoecological studies allows indication of former wetland ecosystem states and provides understanding of their development over millennia. To examine the late Holocene dynamics of a calcareous spring-fed fen (Raganu Mire) ecosystem on th…
The mechanistic basis of changes in community assembly in relation to anthropogenic disturbance and productivity
2016
Anthropogenic disturbance often causes changes in communities. However, the mechanistic basis of these changes remains elusive. As all patterns in community ecology can be understood as a result of four processes (speciation, selection, drift, and dispersal), the effect of disturbance should depend on how disturbance disrupt these processes. We studied the effects of disturbance and productivity on species richness, community composition, and community dispersion (i.e., variation in community composition) in the vegetation of 120 boreal peatlands using null-model approach to determine whether community assembly processes differ between pristine and disturbed sites. Sites represented three p…
Reference growth charts for Posidonia oceanica seagrass: An effective tool for assessing growth performance by age and depth
2016
Abstract Growth performance of rhizomes has become among the most used descriptors for monitoring Posidonia oceanica seagrass dynamics and population status. However, ability to detect any change of growth in space or in time is often confounded by natural age-induced decline. To overcome this problem, we have produced reference growth charts, which in other areas are universally recognized as a very powerful tool for comparing growth of living beings during their ontogeny. Reference growth charts involving different P. oceanica growth performance measures (speed of growth and primary production of rhizomes) have been built using proper statistical frameworks (GLMM, Segmented and Quantile R…