Since the days of Theophrastus (ca 373-287 BC), botanists have been classifying forest trees into different categories, based on a variety of criteria. Grouping species into different types is important for addressing both applied and theoretical questions, from selecting species for reforestation programs to understanding the maintenance of high species and functional diversity in tropical for...

Bats are unusual among mammals in showing great ecological diversity even among closely related species and are thus well suited for studies of adaptation to the ecological background. Here we investigate whether behavioral flexibility and simpleand complex-rule learning performance can be predicted by foraging ecology. We predict faster learning and higher flexibility in animals hunting in mor...

In the present study, some ecological factors were studied for Amphipoda at different depths. The Shannon, Margalef, and Hill indices were used to determine the  species diversity, richness and evenness, respectively. In addition, the association and niche overlap values were estimated. Indices of species richness and diversity were highest at 50 and 100m depths, respectively.  The ordination o...

tem for habitat mapping of coral reefs and seagrass beds by integrating satellite images and acousticand ecological sea-truth information. In the field of harmful algal blooms (HAB), our taxonomic and biological knowledge on the HAB species has been much expanded through the program, as exemplified by the identification of the causative species of paralytic (PSPs)and amnesic (ASPs) shellfish po...

Aim Comparative studies have revealed strong links between ecological factors and the number of parasite species harboured by different hosts, but studies of different taxonomic host groups have produced inconsistent results. As a step towards understanding the general patterns of parasite species richness, we present results from a new comprehensive data base of over 7000 host–parasite combina...

The wide ecological area consists of a rangeland with special vegetation and one of the key factors in rangeland management is to select Management Indicator Species (MIS). Management indicator species based on a new method such as Analytical Network Process-Decision Making Trial and Evaluation (ANP-DEMATEL) is one of the most important stages in the successful Range management as choosing a su...

Invasive alien species are one of most severe threats to biodiversity and natural resources. These biological invasions have been studied from the niche conservatism and niche shifts perspective. Niche differentiation may result from changes in fundamental niche or realized niche or both; in biological invasions, niche differences between native and non-native ranges can appear through niche ex...

Ecological constraints on independent breeding are recognised as major drivers of cooperative breeding across diverse lineages. How the prevalence and degree of cooperative breeding relates to ecological variation remains unresolved. Using a large data set of cooperative nesting in Polistes wasps we demonstrate that different aspects of cooperative breeding are likely to be driven by different ...

DNA extraction methods for genotyping non-invasive samples have led to great advances in molecular research for ecological studies, and have been particularly useful for analyzing threatened species. However, scarce amounts of fragmented DNA and the presence of Taq polymerase inhibitors in non-invasive samples are potential problems for subsequent PCR amplifications. In this study we describe a...