BACKGROUND A critical analysis was made of cucurbit descriptions in Dioscorides' De Materia Medica, Columella's De Re Rustica and Pliny's Historia Naturalis, works on medicine, agriculture and natural science of the 1st century ce, as well as the Mishna and Tosefta, compilations of rabbinic law derived from the same time period together with cucurbit images dating from antiquity including paint...

This is the first comprehensive study to evaluate the relationships between the western palearctic harvestman families Dicranolasmatidae, Trogulidae and Nemastomatidae with focus on the phylogeny and systematics of Trogulidae, using combined sequence data of the nuclear 28S rRNA and the mitochondrial cytochrome b gene. Bayesian analysis and Maximum parsimony do not reliably resolve Dicranolasma...

This study deals with the vascular plant diversity of sweetgum (Liquidambar orientalis L.) forest which is one important natural areas Burdur province. The research area located in Bucak district province, placed C3 square according to Davis’ grid system. In study, 123 genera belonging 61 families, 134 species and subspecies taxa these were determined. majority are phytogeographically Mediterra...

BACKGROUND AND AIMS The Mediterranean Basin is one of the most important regions for the Earth's plant biodiversity; however, the scarcity of studies on fine scale patterns of genetic variation in this region is striking. Here, an assessment is made of the spatial genetic structure of all known locations of the three Sardinian endemic species of Aquilegia in order to determine the relative role...

One of the basic tools to quantify biodiversity is based on the use of surrogate species. Such groups of species are easily assessed and may reflect the diversity of other important and less easily detectable taxa (cross-taxon surrogacy). Among these key groups of species, the vascular plant flora has great potential in determining diversity of other groups, since in terrestrial ecosystems it c...

The siphonous algae of the Caulerpa genus harbor internal microbial communities hypothesized to play important roles in development, defense and metabolic activities of the host. Here, we characterize the endophytic bacterial community of four Caulerpa taxa in the Mediterranean Sea, through 16S rRNA amplicon sequencing. Results reveal a striking alpha diversity of the bacterial communities, sim...

Due to the significant lack of information on the community structure of deep-sea nanoflagellates and other nanofauna components as a potentially important component of deepsea matter fluxes, the aim of the present study was to check whether there is a specific deep-sea nanofauna (<20 μm) community. Studies were carried out in the deep oligotrophic basins of the Eastern Mediterranean Sea around...