Quantifying differences in species composition among communities provides important information related to the distribution, conservation and management of biodiversity, especially when two components are recognized: dissimilarity due to turnover, and dissimilarity due to richness differences. The ecoregions in central Mexico, within the Mexican Transition Zone, have outstanding environmental h...

Even if the establishment of nature reserves is to date a reality and the increase of protected areas is going to grow year after year, monitoring programs aiming to assess the effectiveness of the established protected areas for biodiversity conservation are still needed. That is the case for the Natura 2000 network in Europe, for which monitoring methods and programs are not yet well-establis...

Herbivores can profoundly influence plant species assembly, including plant invasion, and resulting community composition. Population increases of native herbivores, e.g. white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus), combined with burgeoning plant invasions raise concerns for native plant diversity and forest regeneration. While individual researchers typically test for the impact of deer on plan...

The spatial patterns of biodiversity and their underlying mechanisms have been an active area of research for a long time. In this study, a total of 63 samples (20m × 30m) were systematically established along elevation gradients on Mount Tai and Mount Lao, China. We explored altitudinal patterns of plant diversity in the two mountain systems. In order to understand the mechanisms driving curre...

Because the quantity, quality, and heterogeneity of resources should affect the diversity of consumers, plant productivity, plant composition, and plant diversity may influence the diversity of trophic levels higher up the food chain (‘‘bottom-up’’ control of diversity). Increasing plant productivity may increase herbivore diversity by: increasing the abundance of rare resources (‘‘resource rar...

A much clearer picture of the progress towards an integrated high speed multi-service network is now emerging. Such networks were anticipated over twenty years ago, at a time when packet switching was just another way to transmit data. Now the technology is so mature that media barons are organising their investments in order to take advantage of the proot. Many of the technical problems are no...

Habitat fragmentation and invasive species often contribute to the decline of native taxa. Since the penetration of non-native species into natural habitat may be facilitated by habitat fragmentation, it is important to examine how these two factors interact. Previous research documented that, in contrast to most other arthropod taxa, spiders increased in density and morphospecies richness with...

Many regulatory authorities set water quality objectives or thresholds based on nutrient concentrations to safeguard aquatic ecosystem health. But do these criteria adequately assess the biological and ecological status? Our research has been focussing on the performance of constructed wetlands for water quality improvement and ecosystem health. In this paper we present data on macroinvertebrat...

Human social strategies have evolved as an adaption to behave in complex societies. In such societies, humans intensively tend to cooperate with their closer friends, because they have to distribute their limited resources through cooperation (e.g., time, food, etc.). It also makes the situation difficult to have uniform social relationships (social grooming) with all friends. Thus, the social ...

Understanding determinants of local species diversity remains central to developing plans to preserve biodiversity. In the continental United States, climate, grazing by large mammals, fire, and topography are important ecosystem drivers that structure North American tallgrass prairie, with major impacts on plant community composition and vegetation structure. Frequency of fire and grazing by b...