We used local microclimatic conditions and twig sap flow rates to interpret midday stomatal closure in the canopies of two 250-year-old Norway spruce (Picea abies (L.) Karst.) trees at a subalpine site in the Swiss Alps (1,650 m a.s.l.). Both trees showed midday stomatal closure on most clear summer days, despite the permanently wet soil. We used a modified Penman-Monteith formula to simulate p...

Behavioral patterns of motile ectotherms are often constrained by their microclimate conditions. For intertidal ectotherms, thermal and desiccation stresses are primary limiting factors. In this study, we developed and tested a steady-state heat budget model to calculate the duration of time that the salt marsh snail, Littoraria irrorata (Say), would maintain active behaviors (crawling or attac...

Although many species of bats select roost sites in large trees that are in open areas, intraspecific variation in roost-site selection may exist. We collected data on the roosting behaviour of little brown bats in the Cypress Hills, Saskatchewan, to determine the extent of intraspecific variation in roost-site selection. In addition, we examined the thermal microclimate of the tree-roosts sele...

In the modern world, the fine balance and delicate relationship between human society and the environment in which we exist has been affected by the phenomena of urbanisation and urban development. Today, various environmental factors give rise to horizontal dispersion, spread and growth of cities. One of the most important results of this is climatic change which is directly affected by the ur...

To better understand the influence of urban green infrastructure (UGI) on outdoor human thermal comfort, a survey and physical measurements were performed at the campus of the University of Groningen, The Netherlands, in spring and summer 2015. Three hundred eighty-nine respondents were interviewed in five different green spaces. We aimed to analyze people's thermal comfort perception and prefe...

This paper presents some installation and data analysis issues from an ongoing urban air temperature and humidity measurement campaign in Hangzhou and Ningbo, China. The location of the measurement sites, the positioning of the sensors and the harsh conditions in an urban environment can result in missing values and observations that are unrepresentative of the local urban microclimate. Missing...

Neighboring plants can decrease or increase each other's likelihood of damage from herbivores through associational resistance or susceptibility, respectively. Associational effects (AE) can transpire through changes in herbivore or plant traits that affect herbivore movement, densities, and feeding behaviors to ultimately affect plant damage. While much work has focused on understanding the me...

Acidification of the internal poly(lactide-co-glycolide) (PLGA) microenvironment is considered one of the major protein stresses during controlled release from such delivery systems. A model protein, bovine serum albumin (BSA), was incubated at 37 degrees C for 28 days to simulate the environment within the aqueous pores of PLGA during the release phase and to determine how acidic microclimate ...