Sister species that diverged in allopatry in similar environments are expected to exhibit niche conservatism. Using ecological niche modeling and a multivariate analysis of climate and habitat data, I test the hypothesis that the Bicknell's Thrush (Catharus bicknelli) and Gray-cheeked Thrush (C. mimimus), sister species that breed in the North American boreal forest, show niche conservatism. Th...

We consider various hitting and piercing problems for the family of axis-parallel rectangles induced by a point set. Selection Lemmas on induced objects are classical results in discrete geometry that have been well studied and have applications in many geometric problems like weak epsilon nets and slimming Delaunay triangulations. Selection Lemma type results typically bound the maximum number...

A common subproblem of $DNF$ approximate counting and derandomizing $RL$ is the discrepancy problem for combinatorial rectangles. We explicitly construct a $poly(n)$size sample space that approximates the volume of any combinatorial rectangle in $[n]^n$ to within $o(1)$ error (improving on the constructions of [EGLNV92]). The construction extends the techniques of [LLSZ95] for the analogous hit...

As society strives to transition towards more sustainable development pathways, it is important to properly conceptualize the link between biodiversity (i.e. genes, traits, species and other dimensions) and human well-being (HWB; i.e. health, wealth, security and other dimensions). Here, we explore how published conceptual frameworks consider the extent to which the biodiversity-HWB links are b...

Theoretically, communities at or near their equilibrium species number resist 34 entry of new species. Such ‘biotic resistance’ recently has been questioned because of successful 35 entry of alien species into diverse natural communities. Data on 10,409 naturalizations of 5350 36 plant species over 16 sites dispersed globally show exponential distributions for both species over 37 sites and sit...

The problem of finding an optimal vertex cover in a graph is a classic NP-complete problem, and is a special case of the hitting set question. On the other hand, the hitting set problem, when asked in the context of induced geometric objects, often turns out to be exactly the vertex cover problem on restricted classes of graphs. In this work we explore a particular instance of such a phenomenon...

EDITOR’S NOTE Geopersia is published biannually by the College of Science, University of Tehran, Iran. The College of Science published “Journal of Science”, which covered all fields of basic science, from 1968 to 2010. It was then decided that the College’s journals should be more specialized, and hence publication of Geopersia was launched. Geopersia aims to publish peer-reviewed original...

Mound-building Fmmica ants may be important biotic factors within prairie restorations because mounds found in virgin prairies can exist for decades, with densities up to 1,148 mounds/ha (465 mounds/acre). Research on the effects of Formica ant mounds on a virgin and an adjacent restored prairie (treatments) was established in 2003 near Olathe, Kansas; and it was expected that percent soil mois...

In this contribution, I identify possible biotic elements of reptiles of China using biotic element analysis. I test whether the vicariance model could significantly shape reptilian current distribution patterns. My results show that dispersal is prevailing for reptiles in China. There are four major biotic elements in reptilian distribution, which are East Xizang, YunnanGuizhou Plateau, Taiwan...

Habitat loss is the main driver of the loss of global biodiversity. Knowledge on this subject, however, is highly concentrated on species richness and composition patterns, with little discussion on the consequences of habitat loss for ecological interactions. Therefore, a systemic approach is necessary to maximize the success of conservation efforts by providing more realistic information abou...