BACKGROUND Scorpions' stings and their own mortalities place them among the most important health and medical problems. The dreadful features and especially their poisonous stings are considered a major cause of human stress and abhorrence/phobia. The current study aimed to study the scorpion fauna of Ilam Province, south western Iran in order to manage scorpionism related problems. METHODS I...

Understanding the true metabolizable energy (TME) of foods is critical to estimating the energetic carrying capacity of landscapes for migrating and wintering waterfowl.We estimated gross energy, nutrient composition, and TMEN (TME corrected for zero nitrogen balance) for 7 foods that are commonly found in the diet of American black duck (Anas rubripes) and other waterfowl wintering along the A...

A survey on mite fauna of bird nests was carried out in Tehran, Golestan and Sistan & Baluchestan provinces in 2008. A total of 18 nests belonging to six bird species, namely Rock Dove Columba livia, House Sparrow Passer domesticus, Eastern Olivaceous Warbler Hippolais (Iduna) pallida, White-eared Bulbul Pycnonotus leucotis, Common Magpie Pica pica and Crested Lark Galerida cristata were collec...

Background. Applying quantitative morphological approaches in systematics research is a promising way to discover cryptic biological diversity. Information obtained through twenty-first century science poses new challenges to taxonomy by offering the possibility of increased objectivity in independent and automated hypothesis formation. In recent years a number of promising new algorithmic appr...

Specialist species are more vulnerable to environmental change than generalist species. For species with ontogenetic niche shifts, specialization may occur at a particular life stage making those stages more susceptible to environmental change. In the salt marshes in the northeast U.S., accelerated sea level rise is shifting vegetation patterns from flood-intolerant species such as Spartina pat...

-The catches of bark beetles (Coleoptera: Scolytidae) were compared between attractive traps releasing semiochemicals and passive traps (cylindrical sticky screens hung, at 10 heights of 0.7-11.5 m, on poles). A central attractive-trap pole was surrounded by three passive-trap poles spaced 50 or 100 m away at the apices of an equilateral triangle. The catches of Tomicus piniperda and other scol...