Land cover types of Hustai National Park (HNP) in Mongolia, a hotspot area with rare species, were classified and their temporal changes were evaluated using Landsat MSS TM/ETM data between 1994 and 2000. Maximum-likelihood classification analysis showed an overall accuracy of 88.0% and 85.0% for the 1994 and 2000 images, respectively. Kappa coefficients associated with the classification were ...

As a primary limiting factor in arid and semiarid regions, precipitation strongly influences soil microbial properties. However, the patterns and mechanisms of soil microbial responses to precipitation have not been well documented. In this study, changes in soil microorganisms along an experimental precipitation gradient with seven levels of precipitation manipulation (i.e., ambient precipitat...

Since a long time, Leishmania major and L. infantum foci in Algeria were geographically separated by the mountains of the Tell Atlas which represent a natural barrier. Recently, a new focus of cutaneous leishmaniasis (CL) has emerged in the village of El M'hir, located on the north side of the chain of the Tell Atlas, in the basin of the Soummam. During the period 2004-2010, 152 CL cases have b...

Chaetosiphella stipae stipae is a xerothermophilous aphid, associated with Palaearctic temperate steppe zones or dry mountain valleys, where there are grasses from the genus Stipa. Its geographical distribution shows several populations that are spread from Spain, across Europe and Asia Minor, to Mongolia and China. Geographical variation in chaetotaxy and other morphological features were the ...

The Neolithic transition was a dynamic time in European prehistory of cultural, social, and technological change. Although this period has been well explored in central Europe using ancient nuclear DNA [1, 2], its genetic impact on northern and eastern parts of this continent has not been as extensively studied. To broaden our understanding of the Neolithic transition across Europe, we analyzed...

OBJECTIVE In order to improve fermentation quality of natural grasses, their silage preparation and fermentation quality in meadow steppe (MS) and typical steppe (TS) were studied. METHODS The small-scale silages and round bale silages of mixed natural grasses in both steppes were prepared using the commercial lactic acid bacteria (LAB) inoculants Chikuso-1 (CH, Lactobacillus plantarum) and c...