Attempting to take advantage of recent displays of preferences for goods with superior levels of environmental performance, many governments and independent organizations have implemented a variety of programs designed to disseminate information on the environmental performance of companies or products. The most popular type of program is known as an eco-labeling or environmental certification ...

Understanding the factors determining genetic diversity and structure in peripheral populations is a long-standing goal of evolutionary biogeography, yet little empirical information is available for tropical species. In this study, we combine information from nuclear microsatellite markers and niche modelling to analyse the factors structuring genetic variation across the southernmost populati...

Prokaryotic communities forming symbiotic relationships with the vent shrimp, Rimicaris exoculata, are well studied components of hydrothermal ecosystems at the Mid-Atlantic Ridge (MAR). Despite the tight link between host and symbiont, the observed lack of spatial genetic structure seen in R. exoculata contrasts with the geographic differentiation detected in specific bacterial ectosymbionts. ...

Understanding adaptive genetic variation and its relation to environmental factors are important for understanding how plants adapt to climate change and for managing genetic resources. Genome scans for the loci exhibiting either notably high or low levels of population differentiation (outlier loci) provide one means of identifying genomic regions possibly associated with convergent or diverge...

Determining whether comparable processes drive genetic divergence among marine species is relevant to molecular ecologists and managers alike. Sympatric species with similar life histories might be expected to show comparable patterns of genetic differentiation and a consistent influence of environmental factors in shaping divergence. We used microsatellite loci to quantify genetic differentiat...

Catastrophic events offer unique opportunities to study rapid population response to stress in natural settings. In concert with genetic variation, epigenetic mechanisms may allow populations to persist through severe environmental challenges. In 2010, the Deepwater Horizon oil spill devastated large portions of the coastline along the Gulf of Mexico. However, the foundational salt marsh grass,...

background: this cross sectional comparative study was performed to compare the mean fluorescence intensity of cluster of differentiation 45 between healthy individuals and patients with acute lymphoblastic leukemia. patients and methods: thirty three healthy individuals (mean age 11 years) and 41 patients with b cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (mean age 7 years) were enrolled in the study in...

Understanding developmental biology requires knowledge of both the environmental factors regulating stem cell differentiation, which are increasingly being defined, and their spatial organization within a structurally heterogeneous niche, which is still largely unknown. Here we introduce spatially organized stem cell developmental models to interrogate the role of space in fate specification. S...

Pinus canariensis is endemic to the western Canary Islands (NW coast of Africa), where it forms forest spanning an altitude from 500 to 2500 m. There are dramatic changes in environmental conditions (temperature, moisture and solar radiation) over short distances due to this elevation gradient in the Canary Island pine forest. Those differences in environmental conditions may lead to asynchrono...

In this paper we develop an artificial world model to investigate how environmental conditions affect opportunities for learning. We model grouping entities that learn what to eat in a 2D environment. We study diet development and focus on the social consequences of individual learning in relation to different environmental conditions. We find that homogeneous and patchy environments have oppos...