College students with stronger and weaker backgrounds in biology were asked to infer whether one taxon (e.g., a certain reptile) uses the same enzyme to help regulate cell function as comparison taxon A (e.g., a certain amphibian) or comparison taxon B (e.g., a certain mammal). Color pictures of the named taxa were provided. Inferences were made in one of three conditions: Two conditions gave s...

Having shown taxometrically that there exists a hypohedonic schizotypal taxon in a college population, J. J. Blanchard, S. W. Gangestad, S. A. Brown, and W. P. Horan (2000) suggested that P. E. Meehl erred in revising his 1962 theory by postulating a normal-range individual differences variable of hedonic capacity that potentiates schizotypy into schizophrenia. The aversive drift and secondary ...

Priorities for conservation investment at a global scale that are based on a single taxon have been criticized because geographic richness patterns vary taxonomically. However, these concerns focused only on biodiversity patterns and did not consider the importance of socioeconomic factors, which must also be included if conservation funding is to be allocated efficiently. In this article, we c...

Three computer-based experiments which tested human participants in a non-immersive virtual watermaze task sought to determine factors which dictate whether the presence of a visual platform disrupts locale learning and taxon learning. In Experiment 1, the visible platform disrupted locale but not taxon learning based on viewpoint-independent and viewpoint-dependent information, respectively. I...

A new taxon with Dyrithium-like characteristics was collected from Lake Fuxian in China. The taxon is typical of the Amphisphaeriaceae in that it has relatively large, ostiolate, immersed ascomata, unitunicate asci with a J+ subapical ring, and brown ascospores. It is similar to Dyrithium in that it has muriform ascospores, but considerable confusion surrounds this genus. In Dyrithium asci are ...

A new taxon of swift-like birds is described from the Middle Eocene of Messel (Germany). It is tentatively assigned to the extinct family Jungornithidae and exhibits a completely unexpected feathering, which contrasts sharply with that of recent swifts. The short and rounded wings clearly show that it was not adapted to gliding, but might have caught its prey by sallying flights from a perch. T...

Biodiversity losses over the next century are predicted to result in alterations of ecosystem functions that are on par with other major drivers of global change. Given the seriousness of this issue, there is a need to effectively monitor global biodiversity. Because performing biodiversity censuses of all taxonomic groups is prohibitively costly, indicator groups have been studied to estimate ...