The economic importance and uses of the large number of plant species of India make it essential for their biodiversity to be conserved. In order to undertake the steps for biodiversity conservation such as identiication of species and monitoring of climatic conditions, it is essential to eeciently manage the vast amount of biodiversity related data. This data includes taxonomic data, geographi...

MOTIVATION Rich collections of biodiversity information such as spatial distributions, species descriptions and trait data are now synthesized in publicly available online sources such as GBIF. Also phylogenetic knowledge now provides a sound understanding of the origin of organisms and their place in the tree of life. We demonstrate with PhyloJIVE that any phylogenetic tree can be linked to on...

This review focuses on forests in the humid tropics and on two of their potentially most important benefits. These include hydrological benefits, such as erosion control and regulation of stream flows, and non-timber forest products, such as rubber, rattan, fruits, and nuts. The first benefit is motivational. Host countries capture only a small proportion of the global benefits, which stem fr...

Although phylogenetic approaches are useful for providing insights into the processes underlying biodiversity patterns, the studies of microbial phylogenetic relatedness are rare, especially for elevational gradients. Using high-throughput pyrosequencing, we examined the biodiversity patterns for biofilm bacterial communities that were scraped from stream stones along an elevational gradient fr...

The females, males, pupae, and larvae of two new species of Simulium are described and illustrated from a small stream 3950 m above sea level in the Lake Otún area of the Colombian Andes Mountains. Simulium (Pternaspatha) quimbayium n. sp. represents a 630-km northeastern extension of the distributional range of previously known members of the subgenus Pternaspatha, and Simulium (Psilopelmia) m...

Iron encrustations on filamentous algae colonized by Gallionella-related bacteria in a metal-polluted freshwater stream J. F. Mori, T. R. Neu, S. Lu, M. Händel, K. U. Totsche, and K. Küsel Institute of Ecology, Aquatic Geomicrobiology, Friedrich Schiller University Jena, Dornburger Strasse 159, 07743 Jena, Germany Department of River Ecology, Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research – UFZ, B...

Biological invasion is a widespread, but poorly understood phenomenon. Elton’s hypothesis, supported by theory, experiment, and anecdotal evidence, suggests that an important determinant of invasion success is resident biodiversity, arguing that high diversity increases the competitive environment of communities and makes them more difficult to invade. Observational studies of plant invasions, ...

Provision of free, universal access to biodiversity information is a practical imperative for the international conservation community — this goal should be accomplished by promotion of the Public Domain and by development of a sustainable Biodiversity Information Commons adapting emergent legal and technical mechanisms to provide a free, secure and persistent environment for access to and use ...