Relationships between advance regeneration of four tree species (red maple (Acer rubrum L.), white oak (Quercus alba L.), chestnut oak (Q. montana Willd.) and northern red oak (Q. rubra L.)) and biotic (non-tree vegetation and canopy composition) and abiotic (soil series and topographic variables) factors were investigated in 52, mature mixed-oak stands in the central Appalachians. Aggregate he...

Species distributions are limited by a complex array of abiotic and biotic factors. In general, abiotic (climatic) factors are thought to explain species' broad geographic distributions, while biotic factors regulate species' abundance patterns at local scales. We used species distribution models to test the hypothesis that a biotic interaction with a tree, the Colombian oak (Quercus humboldtii...

Detailed understanding of a species' natural history and environmental needs across spatial scales is a primary requisite for effective conservation planning, particularly for species with complex life cycles in which different life stages occupy different niches and respond to the environment at different scales. However, niche models applied to conservation often neglect early life stages and...

[1] Increasingly available high-resolution topographic data from remote sensing motivates the search for topographic features that predict abiotic controls on the distribution and performance of biota. We investigated the extent to which periphyton distribution and stream ecosystem metabolism in a steep upland river drainage network could be predicted from physical conditions that varied with l...

Metacaspases, a class of cysteine-dependent proteases like caspases in animals, are important regulators of programmed cell death (PCD) during development and stress responses in plants. The present study was focused on comprehensive analyses of expression patterns of the rice metacaspase (OsMC) genes in response to abiotic and biotic stresses and stress-related hormones. Results indicate that ...