Frequencies of plants with extrafloral nectaries were determined for two elevations in Jamaica. Extrafloral nectaries were found on 0.28 of the plants at sea level (Happy Grove, Portland) and 0.00 of the plants at 1310 m (Whitfield Hall, St. Thomas). Ant abundance, as indicated by discovery of and recruitment to baits, was greater at the lower elevation site. However, despite the apparent absen...

Knowledge of reproductive biology of plants is crucial to understand their natural mode of propagation, which may aid in conservation and crop improvement. The reproductive details are also crucial for beginning the cultivation of a potential crop on a commercial scale. Fruits of sea buckthorn, Hippophae rhamnoides, are used in a variety of medicinal and nutritional products. So far, fruits are...

We determined the mechanisms underlying host selection by adults of the seabuckthorn carpenterworm, Holcocerus hippophaecolus Hua, Chou, Fang et Chen. Four sea buckthorn (Hippophae rhamnoides L.) subspecies (varieties) with different degrees of resistance to H. hippophaecolus were chosen for artificial insect infection in cages. The results showed that olfactory and visual cues are very importa...

The development of isotopic baselines for comparison with paleodietary data is crucial, but often overlooked. We review the factors affecting the carbon (δ(13)C) and nitrogen (δ(15)N) isotopic compositions of plants, with a special focus on the carbon and nitrogen isotopic compositions of twelve different species of cultivated plants (n = 91) and 139 wild plant species collected in northern Per...

Some species are more equal than others. Robert T. Paine (American ecologist, 1933-2016) discovered that if you remove starfish - what he called a "keystone species" - from a tide pool, the complex ecosystem collapses. Without the predator starfish, mussels choke out other animals and plants. This phenomenon is general. Sea otters eat the sea urchins that eat the kelp that provides food and hab...

Generating power is of great importance in today’s world. Due to the pending exhaustion of fossil fuels and to their environmental impact it is crucial to develop clean renewable energy sources. Ocean energy is one of the candidates being a huge, yet unexploited renewable energy source on our planet. Preliminary surveys show that marine power has a potential to supply a significant part of the ...

Given the reduced freshwater supplies across the world, seawater desalination is one of the appropriate methods available for producing freshwater. Selecting an optimal location is crucial in the installation of these plants owing to the environmental problems they cause. The present study was conducted to identify optimal locations for installing desalination Plants in the coastal areas of sou...

Returning to the sea, just like invasion of land, has occurred in many groups of animals and plants. For flowering plants, traits adapted to the terrestrial environments have to change or adopt a new function to allow the plants to survive and prosper in the sea where water motion tends to rotate and move seeds. In this investigation, how seeds of the seagrass Thalassia hemprichii (Hydrocharita...

carbon and sulfur isotopic data are helpful in understanding environmental conditions under which soils are formed. soils from 18 sampling sites along a climotoposequence from higher laleh zar mountains (4,351 m above sea level with xeric-mesic soil moisture-temperature regimes) to shahdad depression (250 m above sea level with arid-hyperthermic soil moisture-temperature regimes) in kerman prov...