Water availability, which enables plant growth and animal activity, regulates dryland ecosystem function. In hyper-arid ecosystems, rain cannot support vascular growth. Therefore, vegetation is restricted to the lower topography, where runoff accumulates. Typically, food resources originating from areas of dense are dispersed across desert floor, enabling life in lacking However, certain region...

INTRODUCTION Large dead wood or coarse woody debris (CWD) with a diameter >10 cm is an important resource for many arthropods and other animals that use it for food, oviposition sites, protection from environmental extremes, and foraging habitat (Elton 1966, Grove 2002b, Harmon and others 1986). Over 400 species of insects are known to use woody debris as a food resource in the Southeastern Uni...

We have screened more than 110 representatives of the different taxa of terrestrial arthropods for methane production in order to obtain additional information about the origins of biogenic methane. Methanogenic bacteria occur in the hindguts of nearly all tropical representatives of millipedes (Diplopoda), cockroaches (Blattaria), termites (Isoptera), and scarab beetles (Scarabaeidae), while s...

Cyanogenic glucosides are phytoanticipins known to be present in more than 2500 plant species. They are regarded as having an important role in plant defense against herbivores due to bitter taste and release of toxic hydrogen cyanide upon tissue disruption, but recent investigations demonstrate additional roles as storage compounds of reduced nitrogen and sugar that may be mobilized when deman...

Expansion and intensification of agroecosystems is one the major causes habitat loss in savanna biome South Africa. As such, this study sought to determine influence commercial subtropical fruit plantations (banana macadamia) on species richness, abundance, composition surface-active arthropods compared biome. Given that pesticides herbicides are applied from spring early autumn banana macadami...

Evolutionary adaptations in plant, microorganism and arthropod interactions are primarily studied in systems involving only two of these groups: plants and microbes, plants and arthropods, or arthropods and microbes (Biere and Tack, 2013). Beside this, it was stated recently that there is emerging evidence that three-way interactions between plants, arthropods andmicroorganisms can play a major...