It is widely accepted that distributions of plants and animals are broadly constrained by their physiological tolerances to climatic factors (Woodward, 1987, 1990). This generalization is held to be true for species at a variety of spatial scales (Whittaker et al., 2001), although there is a wide recognition that the importance of climate is best expressed at large spatial scales (Rahbek & Grav...

Many trait-based plant investigations have neglected the intraspecific trait variations. A lot of ecologists consider that this is unreasonable, because intraspecific variation significantly affects various ecological dynamics. However, it is not feasible to record the traits of each plant individually at every community site. Therefore, the aim of this study was to determine in which circumsta...

Phage are the most abundant biological entities in the biosphere, with an estimated 10 particles on the planet. They also play a major role in carbon cycling; at least 25% of fixed carbon passes through phage. Their roles as predators of bacteria have important implications for possible marine CO2 sequestration. Metagenomic analyses show that the rank-abundance curve for marine phage communitie...

We examined patterns of non-native plant diversity in protected and managed ponderosa pine/Douglas-®r forests of the Colorado Front Range. Cheesman Lake, a protected landscape, and Turkey Creek, a managed landscape, appear to have had similar natural disturbance histories prior to European settlement and ®re protection during the last century. However, Turkey Creek has experienced logging, graz...

Theatrical metaphors abound within the literature on nurse education and perhaps it is no accident that they do so. However much of the nursing literature implies that clinical learning involves the student in developing performance skills, and infers that this type of learning is inferior and superficial. This paper emerges from a discussion between the authors: a nurse educator, and an educat...

Species distribution models (SDMs) are a general suite of models that relate the frequency of species occurrences (presence only or presence/absence) to sets of environmental variables. These relationships can then be used to generate predictions of the geographic areas where the species are expected to occur, making SDMs powerful and widely used tools in conservation biology, biogeography and ...

Many topographic characteristics of the landscape (e.g. relief, slope, aspect, gradient, slope curvature, slope length and contour curvature) play important roles in the distribution of vegetation and biodiversity (e.g. Merriam, 1890, 1894; Whittaker & Niering, 1965, 1968; Vuilleumier, 1970; Brown, 1971, 1978; Hastings et al., 1972; Simpson, 1975; Hanawalt & Whittaker, 1976; Whittaker, 1977; Be...

butterflies of the inani reserve forest were studied between may 2014 and may 2015. one hundred twenty five species of butterflies belonging to 84 genera and six families (hesperiidae, papilionidae, pieridae, lycaenidae, riodinidae and nymphalidae) were recorded during this study. the highest number of species comprised family nymphalidae (38 species, 30.4%) followed by lycaenidae (35 species, ...

soil productivity and plant growth are usually affected by biological activities of earthworms. the objective of this study was a comparative evaluation of earthworm abundances in 20-year-old plantations of alder, oak, maple and cypress with the adjacent natural mixed broad-leaved deciduous forest in the caspian region of iran. in this research one sample plot, each 1 ha; was selected in every ...