introduction agricultural biodiversity has spatial, temporal and scale dimensions especially at agro-ecosystem levels. these agro-ecosystems that are used for agriculture are determined by three sets of factors: the genetic resources (biodiversity), the physical environment and the human management practices. most agricultural areas can be returned to their natural landscape after subsequent ge...

Forests are biologically diverse systems, representing some of the richest biological areas on Earth. They offer a variety of habitats for plants, animals and micro-organisms. However, forest biodiversity is increasingly threatened as a result of deforestation, fragmentation, climate change and other stressors. Biodiversity is the variation of life forms within a given ecosystem, biome, or on t...

In this article, we establish the well-posedness of two boundary value problems for 2k-th order partial differential equations. It is shown that the solvability of these problems depends on the evenness and oddness of the number k.

A common feature of microbial colonization in deserts is biological soil crusts (BSCs), and these comprise a complex community dominated by Cyanobacteria. Rock substrates, particularly sandstone, are also colonized by microbial communities. These are separated by bare sandy soil that also supports microbial colonization. Here we report a high-throughput sequencing study of BSC and cryptoendolit...

In mid to high latitudes glacial and interglacial cycles have repeatedly changed the area available for plant growth. The speed at which plants are able to colonize areas at the onset of an interglacial is hypothesized to limit their distribution ranges even today (migrational lag). If the spread of plants would have been generally slow then plant diversity in previously glaciated areas would b...

The concept of biodiversity can be simply defined as the sum of all biotic variation from the level of genes to ecosystems. Biodiversity at the species level, frequently called “species diversity”, is a core concept of ecological community and conservation research. To date, however, no single number can fully capture such a concept without loss of information, although many attempts have been ...

Most efforts aimed at elucidating the factors responsible for the variation in species richness among different parasite communities have focused on host characteristics such as body mass or diet. Independently of host features, however, the way in which parasites use resources within the host may also affect the species richness of the community. The distribution of parasite individuals or bio...

Wnt signaling plays critical roles during synaptic development and plasticity. However, the mechanisms by which Wnts are released and travel to target cells are unresolved. During synaptic development, the secretion of Drosophila Wnt1, Wingless, requires the function of Evenness Interrupted (Evi)/Wls, a Wingless-binding protein that is secreted along with Wingless at the neuromuscular junction....