This study investigates the impact of abnormally moist soil conditions across the southern Great Plains upon the overland reintensification of North Atlantic Tropical Cyclone Erin (2007). This is tested by analyzing the contributions of three soil moisture–related signals—a seasonal signal, an along-track rainfall signal, and an early postlandfall rainfall signal—to the intensity of the vortex....

In general, tropical birds have a "slow pace of life," lower rates of whole-animal metabolism and higher survival rates, than temperate species. A fundamental challenge facing physiological ecologists is the understanding of how variation in life-history at the whole-organism level might be linked to cellular function. Because tropical birds have lower rates of whole-animal metabolism, we hypot...

To operate in the extreme cold, ion channels from psychrophiles must have evolved structural changes to compensate for their thermal environment. A reasonable assumption would be that the underlying adaptations lie within the encoding genes. Here, we show that delayed rectifier K(+) channel genes from an Antarctic and a tropical octopus encode channels that differ at only four positions and dis...

Recent exploration of Miocene-age deposits at Nosy Makamby, a small island ~50 km southwest of Mahajanga city in northwestern Madagascar, has led to the recovery of a large sample [82] of isolated barracuda teeth (Sphyraena sp.). in a tropical marine fauna that also includes diverse marine invertebrates, chondrichthyans, bony fishes, turtles, crocodylians, and sirenians. Characteristically for ...

Leaf longevity (LL) varies more than 20-fold in tropical evergreen forests, but it remains unclear how to capture these variations using predictive models. Current theories of LL that are based on carbon optimisation principles are challenging to quantitatively assess because of uncertainty across species in the 'ageing rate:' the rate at which leaf photosynthetic capacity declines with age. He...

Central to tropical cyclogenesis is the changing behavior of moist convection as the cyclone evolves. Based on a cumulus ensemble model run in weak temperature gradient mode, we suggest that the mid-level vortex created by early-stage convection stabilizes the environment in way that favors further development. In particular, modeled convection occurring in the more stable environment produces ...

Despite decades of theoretical research and observational studies, a good understanding of Tropical Cyclone Genesis (TCG) remains elusive. One recent theory proposes TCG is contingent upon a necessary condition in the lower tropospheric levels whereby a closed circulation exists in a Lagrangian framework forming a protective region for genesis. This thesis work contends that while lower-troposp...

1 Department of Preventive Medicine, School of Public Health, Wannan Medical University, Wuhu 241001, China; E-Mail: [email protected] 2 Laboratory for Environment and Health, School of Earth and Environment, Anhui University of Science and Technology, Huainan 231001, China 3 Department of Global Environmental Health Sciences, School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine, Tulane University...

the variation in climatic variables like temperature, humidity and radiations were recognized as the potential hazards in the growth and production of all domestic livestock species. thermal environment is a major factor that can negatively affect both production and reproduction in dairy animals, especially in animals of high genetic merit. among the stressors, heat stress has been of major co...

in the present study, randomly amplified polymorphic dna (rapd) markers were used to analyze the genetic diversity in 20 varieties of philodendron. the polymerase chain reaction was performed with 60 rapd primers, out of which 21 primers showed clear amplification as well as more polymorphism. in total, 354 scorable rapd loci with 348 polymorphic bands (98%) were observed. percentages of polymo...