Aquatic hyphomycetes play a key role in decomposition of submerged organic matter and stream ecosystem functioning. We examined the phylogenetic relationships among various genera of aquatic hyphomycetes belonging to the Leotiomycetes (Ascomycota) using sequences of internal transcribed spacer (ITS) and large subunit (LSU) regions of rDNA generated from 42 pure cultures including 19 ex-types. T...

Microplastics pollution is predicted to increase in the coming decades, raising concerns about its effects on living organisms. Although of microplastics individual organisms have been extensively studied, communities, biological diversity, and ecosystems remain underexplored. This paper reviews published literature concerning how affect ecosystem processes. abundance some taxa but decrease oth...

Assessing priorities is the most important action in conservation programs. Rudimentary, mapping of diversity, and distribution patterns have been used to set priorities on diverse scales. The distribution patterns of plant taxa, largely reflect an actual ecological niche. Convolvulaceae s.str exhibits cosmopolitan dispersal of diverse life forms and includes 50–60 genera comprising 1600–1700 s...

BACKGROUND Today's species names are entry points into a web of publicly available knowledge and are integral parts of legislation concerning biological conservation and consumer safety. Species information usually is fragmented, can be misleading due to the existence of different names and might even be biased because of an identical name that is used for a different species. Safely navigating...

Abstract Sound generating human activities so-called “anthropogenic sound” have increased ambient sound levels considerably in aquatic habitats that are markedly diverse in time and space. Sound generating human activities is now recognized as a potential driver of environmental changes in marine habitats. Iran has 750 km coastline along the Caspian Sea located in the north and around 2250 km ...

BACKGROUND Ichthyosaurs are Mesozoic reptiles considered as active swimmers highly adapted to a fully open-marine life. They display a wide range of morphologies illustrating diverse ecological grades. Data concerning their bone microanatomical and histological features are rather limited and suggest that ichthyosaurs display a spongious, "osteoporotic-like" bone inner structure, like extant ce...

this research summarizes the data on benthic macro invertebrates collected from 25 points in the urmia lake wetlands during november 2008 to february 2009. the purpose of the study was to assess the effects of elevated salinity and nutrient (nitrogen and phosphorus) levels on macro invertebrate abundance and composition. a total of 32 taxa were collected, and the common taxa, including chirono...

Methods: We used early land survey records (1846–1949) of public lands to reconstruct pre-settlement forest composition. The data consist of ranked tree species enumerations at points or for segments along surveyed lines, with enumerations of forest cover types and notes concerning disturbances. An original procedure was developed to weigh and combine these differing data types (line versus poi...

We summarize information concerning Recent and Pleistocene-Holocene Uruguayan sand dollars (Mellitidae), as well as Miocene taxa (Monophorasteridae). Recent and Pleistocene-Holocene species (Encope emarginata, Mellita quinquiesperforata, and Leodia sexisperforata) are at their southernmost limits of distribution, with only E. emarginata recorded further south than Uruguay. Lower temperatures to...

Four paddy fields in Guilan province in the north of Iran seasonally were sampled from April 2008 to January 2009. Twenty-two morphospecies belonging to three families of the heterocystous blue-green algae were identified. Fourteen species and one variety of these taxa are new record for Iran. Among the families Nostocaceae with six genera and 16 species showed the highest species richness.