Cuatro Cienegas basin (CCB) is a biodiversity reservoir within the Chihuahuan desert that includes several water systems subject to marked seasonality. While several studies have focused on biodiversity inventories, this is the first study that describes seasonal changes in diversity within the basin. We sampled Pseudomonas populations from a seasonally variable water system at four different s...

Basin morphometry is a means of numerically analysing or mathematically quantifying different aspects of a drainage basin. In the present study, morphometric analysis of the Baitarani basin has been carried out using earth observation data and geographical information system (GIS) techniques. The morphometric parameters considered for analyses include the linear, areal and relief aspects of the...

The Mediterranean Sea is a marine biodiversity hot spot. Here we combined an extensive literature analysis with expert opinions to update publicly available estimates of major taxa in this marine ecosystem and to revise and update several species lists. We also assessed overall spatial and temporal patterns of species diversity and identified major changes and threats. Our results listed approx...

The campaign of opposition to MX missile deployment in the Great Basin of Nevada and Utah stands as a unique case of grassroots mobilization, because it took place in a region whose inhabitants both supported a strong U.S. military defense posture and considered the decision-making processes of foreign policy and national security remote to their overall concerns. This study holds that the two ...

Accelerated degradation of the wetlands and fragmentation of surrounding vegetation in the Andean-Orinoco Piedmont are the main threats to diversity and ecological integrity of these ecosystems; however, information on this topic is of limited availability. In this region, we evaluated the value of 37 lentic wetlands as reservoirs of woody and aquatic plants and analyzed diversity and changes i...

The Mar Piccolo basin is an internal sea basin located along the Ionian coast (Southern Italy), and it is surrounded primarily by fractured carbonate karstic environment. Because of the karstic features, the main continental water inflow is from groundwater discharge. The Mar Piccolo basin represents a peculiar and sensitive environment and a social emergency because of sea water and sediment p...

The Laurentian Great Lakes Basin provides an ecological system to evaluate the potential effect of climate change on dynamics of fish populations and the management of their fisheries. This review describes the physical and biological mechanisms by which fish populations will be affected by changes in timing and duration of ice cover, precipitation events and temperature regimes associated with...

This thesis is composed of three Chapters. Chapter 1 is a preface that outlines the degree program and components of my thesis. Chapter 2 is the main body of the thesis; it is an investigation into pore pressures in the Auger basin and how they are related to fluid venting at the seafloor. I map the distribution of subsurface pressures in thick interconnected sand bodies that are present across...

Ecological succession is one of the most important concepts in ecology. However for microbial community succession, there is a lack of a solid theoretical framework regarding succession in microorganisms. This is in part due to microbial community complexity and plasticity but also because little is known about temporal patterns of microbial community shifts in different kinds of ecosystems, in...

The northern piedmont of the western Kunlun mountains (Xinjiang, China) is marked at its easternmost extremity, south of the Hotan-Qira oases, by a set of normal faults trending N50E for nearly 70 km. Conspicuous on Landsat and SPOT images, these faults follow the southeastern border of a deep flexural basin and may be related to the subsidence of the Tarim platform loaded by the western Kunlun...