Like ecological communities, which vary in species composition, eukaryote genomes differ in the amount and diversity of transposable elements (TEs) that they harbor. Given that TEs have a considerable impact on the biology of their host species, we need to better understand whether their dynamics reflects some form of organization or is primarily driven by stochastic processes. Here, we borrow ...

The ecological niche is the set of environments in which a population of a species can persist without introduction of individuals from other locations. A good mathematical or computational representation of the niche is a prerequisite to addressing many questions in ecology, biogeography, evolutionary biology and conservation. A particularly challenging question for ecological niche modelling ...

Niche construction theory (NCT) explicitly recognizes environmental modification by organisms (“niche construction”) and their legacy over time (“ecological inheritance”) to be evolutionary processes in their own right. Here we illustrate how niche construction theory provides useful conceptual tools and theoretical insights for integrating ecosystem ecology and evolutionary theory. We begin by...

Interspecific competition is a dominant force in animal communities that induces niche shifts in ecological and evolutionary time. If competition occurs, niche expansion can be expected when the competitor disappears because resources previously inaccessible due to competitive constraints can then be exploited (i.e., ecological release). Here, we aimed to determine the potential effects of inte...

this study aims at comparing the performance of logistic regression, maximum entropy, and multilayer perceptron techniques in preparing the predictive habitat distribution map of amygdalus scoparia in rangelands of qom province. for this purpose, vegetation sampling was done using random systematic methods after identifying pure habitats of this species. for soil sampling, eight profiles were e...

The Stenocereus griseus species complex (SGSC) has long been considered taxonomically challenging because the number of taxa belonging to the complex and their geographical boundaries remain poorly understood. Bayesian clustering and genetic distance-based methods were used based on nine microsatellite loci in 377 individuals of three main putative species of the complex. The resulting genetic ...