Search results for "taxonomic"
showing 10 items of 148 documents
Species–area relationships in continuous vegetation: Evidence from Palaearctic grasslands
2019
Aim Species-area relationships (SARs) are fundamental scaling laws in ecology although their shape is still disputed. At larger areas, power laws best represent SARs. Yet, it remains unclear whether SARs follow other shapes at finer spatial grains in continuous vegetation. We asked which function describes SARs best at small grains and explored how sampling methodology or the environment influence SAR shape. Location Palaearctic grasslands and other non-forested habitats. Taxa Vascular plants, bryophytes and lichens. Methods We used the GrassPlot database, containing standardized vegetation-plot data from vascular plants, bryophytes and lichens spanning a wide range of grassland types throu…
Invasive Alien Species and Their Effects on Marine Animal Forests
2020
Nonindigenous species are increasingly transported around the world through multiple pathways by a diversity of vectors. Invasive species are a subset of those that are introduced into the receptor community, where they establish and increase their population to a size where they impact the native system. Marine invasive species can therefore interact with and modify native animal forests and/or create novel ones resulting in simple-to-complex changes in material cycling, energy flow, ecosystem structure, and function. Despite the ever increasing number of studies dealing with marine invasive species, mostly biological invasions are mentioned generically as one of a number of threats of dir…
Genetic and morphological differentiation ofDikerogammarusinvaders and their invasion history in Central Europe
2002
SUMMARY 1. Biological invasions often involve close taxonomic relatives either as native/invader pairs or as invader/invader pairs. Precise identification and differentiation of species is therefore of paramount importance to reconstruct the invasion history. Genetic studies are indispensable in the case of morphologically conservative taxonomic groups. 2. We analysed the Pontocaspian freshwater amphipods Dikerogammarus that have successfully invaded the benthos of large Central European rivers. Taxonomic uncertainties were clarified by phylogenetic analyses of mitochondrial 16S and COI genes. The three-way partitioning of allozyme genotypes in a syntopic population further corroborated the…
EnvDB, a database for describing the environmental distribution of prokaryotic taxa.
2009
Summary EnvDB is a database that classifies the environmental samples and their associated 16S rDNA sequences currently stored in GenBank. The samples were cat- egorized in a three-level, hierarchical classification of media: the five upper levels (terrestrial, aquatic, thermal, host-associated and other) are further decomposed in 20 intermediate (such as marine, marine sediments, freshwater, soil, gut, etc.) and 47 lower levels (for instance, soil is further decomposed in forest, agricultural, wetlands, grasslands, tropical, arid, etc.). Each sample was also characterized with nine environmental features: polluted, diseased (for clinical samples), acidic, alkaline, hot environment, cold en…
Spatial and temporal variability of diatom and macroinvertebrate communities: How representative are ecological classifications within a river system?
2012
Evaluation of river condition is complicated by dynamic relationships between river assemblages and their environment. We assessed variation of ecological status classifications of stream diatom and macroinvertebrate communities within a boreal river system. We specifically examined whether results of ecological classifications are concordant across taxonomic groups and among main channel and headwater side tributaries of this river system. We further assessed whether ecological classifications are stable from year to year and whether classifications show predictable relationships to major stressor gradients. The estimated ecological condition varied considerably among and between reaches o…
Rare and threatened pondweed communities in anthropogenic water bodies of Opole Silesia (SW Poland)
2011
The paper presents results of geobotanic studies conducted in anthropogenic water bodies like excavation ponds, fish culture ponds, other ponds, dam reservoirs, ditches, channels and recreational pools incl. watering places in Opole Silesia and surroundings in the years 2002-2005. The research focused on occurrence of threatened and rare pondweed communities. As the result of the investigations of several dozen of water bodies, 28 localities of rare pondweed communities were documented by 75 phytosociological relevés. Associations of <em>Potametum trichoidis</em> J. et R Tx. in R. Tx. 1965, <em>Potametum praelongi</em> Sauer 1937, <em>P. alpini</em> Br.-B…
Strawberries and Cream: The Relationship Between Food Rejection and Thematic Knowledge of Food in Young Children
2021
Establishing healthy dietary habits in childhood is crucial in preventing long-term repercussions, as a lack of dietary variety in childhood leads to enduring impacts on both physical and cognitive health. Poor conceptual knowledge about food has recently been shown to be a driving factor of food rejection. The majority of studies that have investigated the development of food knowledge along with food rejection have mainly focused on one subtype of conceptual knowledge about food, namely taxonomic categories (e.g., vegetables or meat). However, taxonomic categorization is not the only way to understand the food domain. We also heavily rely on other conceptual structures, namely thematic as…
Metabarcoding Analysis of Fungal Diversity in the Phyllosphere and Carposphere of Olive (Olea europaea)
2015
The fungal diversity associated with leaves, flowers and fruits of olive (Olea europaea) was investigated in different phenological stages (May, June, October and December) using an implemented metabarcoding approach. It consisted of the 454 pyrosequencing of the fungal ITS2 region and the subsequent phylogenetic analysis of relevant genera along with validated reference sequences. Most sequences were identified up to the species level or were associated with a restricted number of related taxa enabling supported speculations regarding their biological role. Analyses revealed a rich fungal community with 195 different OTUs. Ascomycota was the dominating phyla representing 93.6% of the total…
Plant-herbivorous beetle networks : molecular characterization of trophic ecology within a threatened steppic environment
2015
DNA barcoding facilitates many evolutionary and ecological studies, including the examination of the dietary diversity of herbivores. In this study, we present a survey of ecological associations between herbivorous beetles and host plants from seriously threatened European steppic grasslands. We determined host plants for the majority (65%) of steppic leaf beetles (55 species) and weevils (59) known from central Europe using two barcodes (trnL and rbcL) and two sequencing strategies (Sanger for mono/oligophagous species and Illumina for polyphagous taxa). To better understand the ecological associations between steppic beetles and their host plants, we tested the hypothesis that leaf beetl…
Data from: Ecological niche features override biological traits and taxonomic relatedness as predictors of occupancy and abundance in lake littoral m…
2018
The degree to which species ecological and biological traits determine their distribution and abundance has intrigued ecologists for a long time, and it has seen a revival in recent years. This topic is important because it provides information about the determinants of species rarity and their conservation implications. We examined the effects of niche breadth, niche position, biological traits and taxonomic relatedness on the interspecific occupancy-abundance relationship, as well as on occupancy and abundance, in lake littoral macroinvertebrates. We sampled 48 lakes in a boreal lake district, found altogether 155 species, and calculated regional occupancy (as the proportion of sites occu…