Search results for "tropical climate"

The impact of the 2015/2016 El Niño on global photosynthesis using satellite remote sensing

2018

The El Niño-Southern Oscillation exerts a large influence on global climate regimes and on the global carbon cycle. Although El Niño is known to be associated with a reduction of the global total land carbon sink, results based on prognostic models or measurements disagree over the relative contribution of photosynthesis to the reduced sink. Here, we provide an independent remote sensing-based analysis on the impact of the 2015–2016 El Niño on global photosynthesis using six global satellite-based photosynthesis products and a global solar-induced fluorescence (SIF) dataset. An ensemble of satellite-based photosynthesis products showed a negative anomaly of −0.7 ± 1.2 PgC in 2015, but a sli…

Early warning climate indices for malaria and meningitis in tropical ecological zones

2020

AbstractThis study aims at assessing the impacts of climate indices on the spatiotemporal distribution of malaria and meningitis in Nigeria. The primary focus of the research is to develop an Early Warning System (EWS) for assessing climate variability implications on malaria and meningitis spread in the study area. Both climate and health data were used in the study to determine the relationship between climate variability and the occurrence of malaria and meningitis. The assessment was based on variations in different ecological zones in Nigeria. Two specific sample locations were randomly selected in each ecological zone for the analysis. The climatic data used in this study are dekadal …

Potential of Natural Ventilation and Vegetation for Achieving Low-Energy Tall Buildings in Tropical Climate: An Overview

2019

Climate change and rise in urban temperatures have further increased the cooling load demands for tall buildings located in hot climatic regions. Cooling loads in tall buildings can be reduced by integrating them with natural ventilation (NV) and building integrated vegetation (BIV) techniques. This study explores the potential of NV and BIV for obtaining low-energy buildings by analyzing ten tall buildings as case studies. Buildings are analyzed for NV, BIV, architecture design parameters, and energy savings. The results show that mixed-mode ventilation is the most commonly employed, and circular building plans have the highest potential for energy savings. Furthermore, the combination of …

Specialization and interaction strength in a tropical plant–frugivore network differ among forest strata

2011

The degree of interdependence and potential for shared coevolutionary history of frugivorous animals and fleshy-fruited plants are contentious topics. Recently, network analyses revealed that mutualistic relationships between fleshy-fruited plants and frugivores are mostly built upon generalized associations. However, little is known about the determinants of network structure, especially from tropical forests where plants' dependence on animal seed dispersal is particularly high. Here, we present an in-depth analysis of specialization and interaction strength in a plant-frugivore network from a Kenyan rain forest. We recorded fruit removal from 33 plant species in different forest strata (…

Serotoninergic Modulation of Phototactic Variability Underpins a Bet-Hedging Strategy in Drosophila melanogaster

2021

When organisms’ environmental conditions vary unpredictably in time, it can be advantageous for individuals to hedge their phenotypic bets. It has been shown that a bet-hedging strategy possibly underlies the high inter-individual diversity of phototactic choice in Drosophila melanogaster. This study shows that fruit flies from a population living in a boreal and relatively unpredictable climate have more variable variable phototactic biases than fruit flies from a more stable tropical climate, consistent with bet-hedging theory. We experimentally show that phototactic variability of D. melanogaster is regulated by the neurotransmitter serotonin (5-HT), which acts as a suppressor of the var…

Remote sensing and climate data as a key for understanding fasciolosis transmission in the Andes: review and update of an ongoing interdisciplinary p…

2006

Fasciolosis caused by Fasciola hepatica in various South American countries located on the slopes of the Andes has been recognized as an important public health problem. However, the importance of this zoonotic hepatic parasite was neglected until the last decade. Countries such as Peru and Bolivia are considered to be hyperendemic areas for human and animal fasciolosis, and other countries such as Chile, Ecuador, Colombia and Venezuela are also affected. At the beginning of the 1990s a multidisciplinary project was launched with the aim to shed light on the problems related to this parasitic disease in the Northern Bolivian Altiplano. A few years later, a geographic information system (GIS…

Some notes on the geographical distribution of the human red cell acid phosphatase phenotypes

1972

Basing on the data of 65 populations the geographical variability of the human red cell acid phosphatase phenotypes resp. alleles was studied. We found a marked distribution gradient: The frequency of pB-alleles increases with the increase of the mean annual temperature of the various biotops, whereas the pA-allele frequencies show a clear decrease. For this allele we calculated a significant negative correlation between its frequency and the mean annual temperature: r=-0.71; P<0.001. We suppose that the pB-allele is in some way adaptive under the climatic conditions of tropical biotops. The possible reasons are discussed.

Climatological characteristics of the tropics in China: climate classification schemes between German scientists and Huang Bingwei

2003

Reviewing some important German scientists who have developed climatic regionalization schemes either on a global or Chinese scale, their various definitions of the tropical climate characteristics in China are discussed and compared with Huang Bingwei’s climate classification scheme and the identification of the tropical climate therein. It can be seen that, due to different methodological approaches of the climatic regionalization schemes, the definitions of the tropics vary and hence also their spatial distribution in China. However, it is found that the tropical climate type occupies only a peripheral part of southern China, though it firmly represents a distinctive type of climate that…

Phytoplankton in the Physical Environment

2010

Revision of Afrotropical Dyscritobaeus Perkins, 1910 (Hymenoptera: Scelionidae)

2016

A revision of Afrotropical species of Dyscritobaeus Perkins is presented with re-description of the four known species ( D. bicolor O’Connor et Ashe, D. comitans Perkins, D. parvipennis (Dodd) and D. sulawensis Mineo, O’Connor et Ashe) and description of six new species ( D. antananarivensis Tortorici et Caleca sp. nov., D. flavus Tortorici et Caleca sp. nov. , D. kilimanjarensis Tortorici et Caleca sp. nov. , D. madagascarensis Tortorici et Caleca sp. nov. , D. ndokii Tortorici et Caleca sp. nov. and D. tanzaniensis Tortorici et Caleca sp. nov.). Dyscritobaeus cerosus is considered to be a junior synonym of D. comitans , D. hannibal is considered to be a junior synonym of D. sulawensis and…