A major goal of ecology and evolutionary biology is to explain patterns of species richness among clades. Differences in rates of net diversification (speciation minus extinction over time) may often explain these patterns, but the factors that drive variation in diversification rates remain uncertain. Three important candidates are climatic niche position (e.g., whether clades are primarily te...

We integrate climatic niche models and dated phylogenies to characterize the evolution of climatic niches in Oenothera sections Anogra and Kleinia (Onagraceae), and from that we make inferences on diversification in relation to climate. The evolution of climatic tolerances in Anogra + Kleinia has been heterogeneous, across phylogenetic groups and across different dimensions of climate. All the ...

Climatic conditions shift gradually over millennia, altering the rates at which carbon (C) is fixed from the atmosphere and stored in the soil. However, legacy impacts of past climates on current soil C stocks are poorly understood. We used data from more than 5000 terrestrial sites from three global and regional data sets to identify the relative importance of current and past (Last Glacial Ma...

Identification of the precise nature and attributes of the time series of climatological data is very important and is usually the first step for water resources planning and management. Such exercise is very important for hydro-climatic extremes. In many instances, a climatic time series is generally not statistically independent but is comprised of patterns of persistence, cycles, trends or s...

Recent efforts to project vegetation responses to climatic warming have emphasized the tight linkages between climate and vegetation distribution. Here we provide several examples indicating that the direct effects of climatic warming on boreal vegetation can be qualitatively different than the indirect effects mediated by climatic responses of herbivores. These herbivore-mediated vegetation re...

purpose: to separate and characterize orbital fat-derived stem cells (ofscs) and compare its cellular and molecular properties with those of bone marrow-derived mesenchymal stem cells (mscs) and adipose-derived stem cells (ascs). methods: stem cells from orbital fat, abdominal fat and bone marrow aspirates have been isolated. we assessed stem cell specific cell surface markers using cytometry, ...

Peatland testate amoebae are sensitive indicators of local hydrology and have been used as proxies for surface moisture conditions in fossil studies. However, few regional calibration datasets exist in North America, and knowledge of testate amoeba ecology and distribution patterns are limited. The objectives of this study were to (1) investigate the relationship between testate amoebae, enviro...