Understanding the mechanisms responsible for phenotypic diversification, and the associated underlying constraints and ecological factors represents a central issue in evolutionary biology. Mammals present a wide variety of sizes and shapes, and are characterized by a high number of morphological convergences that are hypothesized to reflect similar environmental pressures. Extinct South Americ...

The functional reasons for isoprene emission are still a matter of hot debate. It was hypothesized that isoprene biosynthesis evolved as an ancestral mechanism in plants adapted to high water availability, to cope with transient and recurrent oxidative stresses during their water-to-land transition. There is a tight association between isoprene emission and species hygrophily, suggesting that i...

ornamental geophytes (ornamental flower bulbs) are international and national heritage considering their contribution to people's life quality around the world. iranian habitats support about 8000 species of flowering plants (belonging to 167 families and 100 genera) of which almost 1700 are endemic. iran is a rich country in terms of distribution of bulbous plants. more than 200 species of bul...

In this study, we employed institutional theory as a main framework and integrated it with concepts from diffusion of innovation and technology-organization-environment to examine a firm’s intention to adopt software as a service. We operationalized our assessment of a firm’s environmental pressures as mimetic, coercive and normative pressures and examined the moderating role of perceived techn...

this study investigates the effectiveness of the kriging interpolation model and the emission weighted proximity model (ewpm) in assessing relative exposure risk of air pollution using results from the american meteorological society/epa regulatory model (aermod) as benchmarks. we used simulated exposure risk to so2 in the dallas area in texas in this evaluation. results suggest that the relati...

The ability to understand and ultimately predict ecosystem response to multiple pressures is paramount to successfully implement ecosystem-based management. Thresholds shifts and nonlinear patterns in ecosystem responses can be used to determine reference points that identify levels of a pressure that may drastically alter ecosystem status, which can inform management action. However, quantifyi...

The EU Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD) requires that Good Environmental Status (GEnS), is achieved for European seas by 2020. These may deviate from GEnS, its 11 Descriptors, targets and baselines, due to endogenic managed pressures (from activities within an area) and externally due to exogenic unmanaged pressures (e.g. climate change). Conceptual models detail the likely or perceiv...

This article addresses one of the most controversial issues in resource management: how do population and market pressures a€ect resource use? After examining some shortcomings in several major approaches to the issue, the authors use structural equation analysis to decipher the relative and reciprocal in ̄uence of population pressures, markets, and institutional arrangements on forest use in th...