The epidemic of mass mortality of oak trees by Japanese oak wilt has affected secondary deciduous broadleaved forests that have been used as coppices in Japan. The dieback of oak trees formed gaps in the crown that would be expected to enhance the regeneration of shade-intolerant pioneer species. However, foraging by sika deer Cervus nippon has also affected forest vegetation, and the compound ...

Palatable foods in the environment can unintentionally trigger reactions to obtain them, which may interfere with dieting attempts. We tested a strategy to facilitate dieting behavior that makes use of behavioral stop signals that should instantly inhibit chronic dieters' responses toward palatable foods. Participants performed a go/no-go task in which go cues and no-go cues (i.e., the behavior...

Overeating is believed to result when the appetitive motivation to consume palatable food exceeds an individual's capacity for inhibitory control of eating. This hypothesis was supported in recent studies involving predominantly normal weight women, but has not been tested in obese populations. The current study tested the interaction between food reward sensitivity and inhibitory control in pr...

Ecological stability in plant communities is shaped by bottom-up processes like environmental resource fluctuations and top-down controls such as herbivory, each of which have demonstrated direct effects but may also act indirectly altering community dynamics. These indirect effects, called biotic mechanisms, been studied across gradients, few studies assessed the importance on mechanisms conju...

Bush encroachment is an increase in woody plant density typically resulting in impenetrable thickets, suppressing palatable grasses and herbs. Moreover, bush encroachment is a globally observed phenomenon. Besides, increasing the density of unpalatable shrubs and trees has reduced the carrying capacity and threatens the sustainability of grazing animal production, especially in arid and semi-ar...

Facilitation by nurse plants increases understorey diversity and supports ecological communities. In turn, biodiversity shapes networks enhances ecosystem functioning. However, whether how facilitation increased jointly influence community structure functioning remains unclear. We performed a field experiment disentangling the relative contribution of increasing plant in driving pollination int...

Obese people prefer and overconsume high-fat foods. At the same time they often attempt to lose weight. In two studies we investigated relations between palatable high-fat food words and disinhibition related concepts (study 1) and palatable high-fat food words and restraint related concepts (study 2) within the semantic priming paradigm. In study 1, 24 overweight/obese and 19 healthy weight wo...

The ability to sense time and anticipate events is a critical skill in nature. Most efforts to understand the neural and molecular mechanisms of anticipatory behavior in rodents rely on daily restricted food access, which induces a robust increase of locomotor activity in anticipation of daily meal time. Interestingly, rats also show increased activity in anticipation of a daily palatable meal ...