This paper presents a geomorphological map of the Hérens valley in the Western Swiss Alps. With an area of 270 km and altitudes ranging from 470 to 4357 m a.s.l., this valley is one of the main secondary catchments of the Upper Rhône valley. The high differences in altitudes, combined with a varied geology, create an important geomorphic diversity. The main processes active in mountain areas, t...

As troves of microbiome sequencing data provide improved resolution of patterns of microbial diversity, new approaches are needed to understand what controls these patterns. Many microbial ecologists are using cultivated model microbial communities to address this challenge. These systems provide opportunities to identify drivers of microbiome assembly, but key challenges and limitations need t...

Phenotypic variation has been manipulated by humans during crop domestication, which occurred primarily between 3000 and 10000 years ago in the various centers of origin around the world. The process of domestication has profound consequences on crops, where the domesticate has moderately reduced genetic diversity relative to the wild ancestor across the genome, and severely reduced diversity f...

In this paper, an OFDM-CDM (orthogonal frequency division multiplexing code division multiplexing) system with adaptive symbol mapping is presented. This combination enables a robust transmission with flexible error protection and data rate adaptation for parallel data streams by exploiting additional diversity due to CDM. Performance results are presented for fading channels where OFDMCDM with...

Contents 1. Introduction – biodiversity in agricultural ecosystems 2. Planned diversity and the functioning of agricultural systems 2.1. Intraspecific diversity 2.2. Species diversity 2.3. Habitat and landscape diversity 3. Unplanned diversity and the functioning of agricultural systems. 3.1. Pollination services 3.2. Soil processes 3.3. Natural pest control 4. Conclusions Bibliography Biograph...

The capsule polysaccharide locus (cps) is the site of the capsule biosynthesis gene cluster in encapsulated Streptococcus pneumoniae. A set of pneumococcal samples and non-pneumococcal streptococci from Denmark, the Gambia, the Netherlands, Thailand, the UK and the USA were sequenced at the cps locus to elucidate serologically mistyped or non-typable isolates. We identified a novel serotype 33B...

The evolution of multicellularity was one of the key innovations in the history of life on Earth. Virtually all morphological and ecological diversity in macro-organisms builds upon the evolutionary potential associated with multicellularity. We examined the potential for ecological diversity to rapidly arise following transitions to multicellularity. Replicate microcosms containing the yeast S...

Ecological theory and nature conservation have traditionally relied solely on observed local diversity. In this review, we recommend including those species that are absent from an ecosystem but which belong to its species pool; that is, all species in the region that can potentially inhabit those particular ecological conditions. We call the set of absent species 'dark diversity'. Relating loc...

The implementation of diversity in testbeds is essential to understanding and improving the security and resilience of Industrial Control Systems (ICS). Employing a wide spectrum of equipment, diverse networks, and business processes, as deployed in real-life infrastructures, is particularly difficult in experimental conditions. However, this level of diversity is key from a security perspectiv...