BACKGROUND This study investigates orbitally-forced range dynamics at a regional scale by exploring the evolutionary history of Nymania capensis (Meliaceae) across the deeply incised landscapes of the subescarpment coastal lowlands of South Africa; a region that is home to three biodiversity hotspots (Succulent Karoo, Fynbos, and Maputaland-Pondoland-Albany hotspots). METHODS A range of metho...

Climate change often induces shifts in plant functional traits. However, knowledge related to sensitivity of different functional traits and sensitive indicator representing plant growth under hydrothermal change remains unclear. Inner Mongolia grassland is predicted to be one of the terrestrial ecosystems which are most vulnerable to climate change. In this study, we analyzed the response of f...

The rangelands, as one of the largest dynamic biomes in the world, have very capabilities. Regulation of greenhouse gases in the Earth's atmosphere, particularly carbon dioxide as the main these gases, is one of these cases. The attention to rangeland, as cheep and reachable resources to sequestrate the carbon dioxide, increases after the Industrial Revolution. Rangelands comprise the large par...

The search for consistent patterns of organisation in parasite communities remains a central theme in parasite community ecology. However, to date, much evidence comes from studies without replication in both space and time; when replicate communities are examined, repeatable patterns are rarely observed. Here we determine, using nested subset analyses, whether the infracommunities of ectoparas...

A major goal of community ecology is to identify and explain non-random patterns of species composition. To date, the search for nested patterns in parasite component communities of the same fish host species has not been attempted, despite the fact that this higher hierarchical level is more relevant to nestedness analyses. The aims of this study are first, to determine the structure of compon...

We used mitochondrial DNA sequence variation of Sebastes from the southeastern Pacific and three localities in the South Atlantic to address long-standing systematic and evolutionary issues regarding the number of species in the Southern Hemisphere. Sequences of the hypervariable mitochondrial control region were obtained from 10 specimens of S. capensis from South Africa (n = 5) and from Trist...

Shade avoidance syndrome is a known adaptive response for Impatiens capensis growing in dense intraspecific competition. However, I. capensis also grow with dominant interspecific competitors in marshes. Here, we compare the I. capensis shade-avoidance phenotypes produced in the absence and presence of heterospecific competitors, as well as selection on those traits. Two treatments were establi...

We studied the osmoregulatory responses of the granivore Zonotrichia capensis, acclimated to highand lowprotein diets as well as two levels of water intake. We tested whether Z. capensis has the ability to modify the proportion of nitrogenous waste in the excreta when protein intake and water intake varies. After 21 days of acclimation, plasma osmolality was not significantly affected by dietar...