Correspondence analysis, when used to understand relationships in a table of counts (for example, abundance data in ecology), has been criticized as being too sensitive to objects (for example, species) that occur with very low frequency or in very few samples. Here I show that this criticism is generally unfounded. This is demonstrated in several data sets by calculating the actual contributio...

The nematode communities of 36 grassland ecosystems in Romania, belonging to different plant associations and soil types, were studied. The abundance of nematodes, the species and trophic types present, as well as their distribution in relation to plant community and soil characteristics are analyzed and discussed. The abundance of nematodes from the 36 grasslands studied ranged between 0.41 × ...

Agricultural practices have strong impacts on soil microbes including both the indices related to biomass and activity as well as those related to community composition. In a grassland restoration project in California, where native perennial bunchgrasses were introduced into non-native annual grassland after a period of intensive tillage, weeding, and herbicide use to reduce the annual seed ba...

A reliable species–area relationship holds true for a number of terrestrial systems. When species–area data are plotted on logarithmic axes, the slope bears strong consistency across taxa. This study examined effects of habitat space on the diversity of coral reef fish species. Because habitat space on coral reefs is 3-dimensional, we developed and employed a methodology that accounts for volum...

Minimum viable site networks are crucial for many threatened species but their design is always a difficult procedure. The present study investigated methods to estimate habitat quality of patches, in an ecological network for five butterfly species (Brenthis ino, Clossiana selene, Lycaena helle, Lycaena hippothoe, Proclossiana eunomia) inhabiting wet meadows. Abundance predictions were perform...

Sapindus mukorossi is widely distributed in tropical and subtropical areas of southern China; the seed kernel oil is potential biodiesel material, and the saponins extracted from fruit pericarp are very valuable efficient natural surfactants. Therefore, S. mukorossi is an ideal tree species for developing forestry bioenergy and multiple other products. In this study, 42 S. mukorossi fruits from...

Signy Island has experienced a dramatic increase in fur seal numbers over recent decades, which has led to the devastation of lowland terrestrial vegetation, with the eradication of moss turfs and carpets being the most prominent feature. Here we demonstrate that fur seals also affect the other major component of this region’s typical cryptogamic vegetation, the lichens, although with a lower d...

Question: How can vegetation gradients be described in riparian zones located in a species-rich mountain range and how do these gradients explain the variation found in the vegetation? Location: Hottentots Holland Mountains, Western Cape, South Africa. Methods: Three gradients (geographic, longitudinal, lateral) were defined to describe the complex vegetation patterns found here. The gradients ...

Aim Land-use history can be an important determinant of ecosystem characteristics, even in landscapes that outwardly appear natural . In New England, like much of the eastern United States, the natural reforestation of agricultural lands over the past 150 years has created a predominantly forested landscape. Understanding the physiographical and historical factors controlling forest structure a...

Biological soil crusts are key mediators of carbon and nitrogen inputs for arid land soils and often represent a dominant portion of the soil surface cover in arid lands. Free-living soil nematode communities reflect their environment and have been used as biological indicators of soil condition. In this study, we test the hypothesis that nematode communities are successionally more mature bene...