From a plant's perspective, the difference between a seed predator and a seed disperser should be straightforward: attract animals that will disperse seeds and defend seeds from potential predators. Unlike pulp-eating frugivores, seed predators regularly encounter diverse plant protective mechanisms. The purpose of this paper is to examine feeding constraints, morphological adaptations, and the...

Alien predators are widely considered to be more harmful to prey populations than native predators. To evaluate this expectation, we conducted a meta-analysis of the responses of vertebrate prey in 45 replicated and 35 unreplicated field experiments in which the population densities of mammalian and avian predators had been manipulated. Our results showed that predator origin (native versus ali...

Who would be at your ideal conference? I’d love to be marooned on a desert island (with whiteboards, or at least a smooth sandy beach to scribble on) with Michael Lynch, Ralph Greenspan, Norbert Perrimon, John Mattick, Michael Wade, Thomas Whitham, Sara Via and Allen Moore. Perrimon, Mattick and Greenspan each have their own unique perspectives on how complex gene networks might work, while Whi...

this paper reviews the research on taxonomy of the trombidioidea in iran, with an updated checklist of 32 species (+5 undetermined species) belonging to five families and 22 genera. among them, 27 species (+1 undetermined species) are reported based on larvae only, three undetermined species based on adults only, and six species based on both larval and post-larval stages. also, 14 species (+3 ...

INTRODUCTION A cleft lip with or without a cleft palate is one of the major congenital anomalies observed in newborns. This study explored the risk factors for oral clefts in Gorgan, Northern Iran. MATERIALS AND METHODS This hospital-based case-control study was performed in three hospitals in Gorgan, Northern Iran between April 2006 and December 2009. The case group contained 33 newborns wit...

in this paper, we introduce fractional order of a planar fractional prey-predator system with a nonmonotonic functional response and anti-predator behaviour such that the adult preys can attack vulnerable predators. we analyze the existence and stability of all possibleequilibria. numerical simulations reveal that anti-predator behaviour notonly makes the coexistence of the prey and predator po...