We examined the importance of pollen limitation to variation in acorn production of three species of California oaks (Quercus lobata, Q. douglasii, and Q. agrifolia) by testing for relationships between phenology and acorn production. Within years, trees flowering closer to the mean flowering date of the population produced significantly more acorns in two of the species. Assuming that more pol...

We examined the relationship between acorn mass and number in valley oaks (Quercus lobata) over 4 years in central coastal California. Despite considerable variation in acorn size among both trees and years, trees produced acorns of the same size relative to other trees in different years. Across years, the relationship between acorn mass and acorn crop size was generally positive, even after c...

This study was conducted to determine the effect of oak acorn (Quercus castaneifolia) on performance, small intestine morphology, ileal digestibility of nutrient, carcass and some blood parameters in broiler chicks. A total of fifty hundred four one-d old male chickens (Ross308 strain) with seven treatments and four replicates in each treatment were used. Experimental diets were: control (corn-...

Species distributions are limited by a complex array of abiotic and biotic factors. In general, abiotic (climatic) factors are thought to explain species' broad geographic distributions, while biotic factors regulate species' abundance patterns at local scales. We used species distribution models to test the hypothesis that a biotic interaction with a tree, the Colombian oak (Quercus humboldtii...

different layers of acorn (quercus infectoria), hull, seed coat and seed kernel were analyzed for determination of chemical composition. the results of the preliminary analysis showed that acorn contained more than 65% carbohydrates, 8% lipid and 10% tannin among other constituents. the fatty acid composition of the seed oil was determined using thin layer chromatography and comparing with ...

The relative contribution of nitrogen (N) reserves from seeds or uptake by the roots to the growth and N content of young seedlings has received little attention. In this study, we investigated the contribution of N from the acorn or uptake by the roots to the N content of holm oak (Quercus ilex L.) seedlings and determined if remobilization of acorn N was affected by nutrient availability in t...

Background: Foraging movements of animals shape their efficiency in finding food and their exposure to the environment while doing so. Our goal was to test the optimal foraging theory prediction that territorial acorn woodpeckers (Melanerpes formicivorus) should forage closer to their ‘central place’ in years of high resource availability and further afield when resources are less available. We...

We used 21 years of acorn data from visual surveys of oak (Quercus spp.) trees (n 1⁄4 20,113) conducted in western North Carolina, USA, to develop predictive equations for hard-mast indices (HMIs) based on the proportion of trees bearing acorns (PBA). We calculated PBA using visual estimates of the percentage of oak crown with acorns (PCA), assigning acorn presence if PCA 33.5%. The proportion ...

After 38 years of longevity (1970 to 2008), including huge growth over its last decade, in 2008 and 2009 the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) was rocked by an embezzlement scandal and two controversies and declined precipitously. By the spring of 2010, all city and statewide ACORN operations had either disaffiliated from the national organization or collapsed altoge...

ACORN (Agent-based Community Oriented Retrieval Network) is a multi-agent system which uses agents to provide information across inter-net/intranet networks. In this report, we adapt the ACORN architecture for its performance evaluation on single and multiple servers, running on single and multiple machines. In order to evaluate the performance of ACORN, we introduce a novel concept of multiple...