The genus Macrocarpaea (Griseb.) Gilg (Gentianaceae, Helieae) is among the largest woody genera of tropical gentians, with most of its species occurring in the wet mountainous forests of the Andes. Phylogenetic and dispersal-vicariance analyses (DIVA) of 57 of the 105 currently recognized species in the genus, using two data sets from nuclear DNA (ITS and 5S-NTS sequences) and morphology, show ...

The monitoring of biodiversity has mainly focused on the species level. However, researchers and land managers are making increasing use of complementary assessment tools that address higher levels of biological organization, i.e. communities, habitats and ecosystems. Recently, a variety of frameworks have been proposed for assessing the conservation status of communities or ecosystems. Among t...

Distribution and abundance of plants has been correlated with a variety of complex environmental gradients. Environmental factors affect plants growth and need to be understood by ecosystem managers. This study was carried out to examine the relationships between site factors and different vascular and non-vascular plants in north of Iran. For this purpose, vegetation and soil sampling was perf...

jajrood protected complex (khojir and sorkheh hesar national parks and jajrood protected area) is one of the most important habitats of central alborz wild sheep (ovis gmelini x o. vignei) in iran. since the species mate in fall, then fall home range has critical rule in life cycle of this species. using the ecological niche factor analysis (enfa), effective factors on the presence of species w...

Biological species may remain distinct because of genetic isolation or ecological adaptation, but these two aspects do not always coincide. To establish the nature of the species boundary within a local bacterial population, we characterized a sympatric population of the bacterium Rhizobium leguminosarum by genomic sequencing of 72 isolates. Although all strains have 16S rRNA typical of R. legu...

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 simple- and complex-rule learning performance can be predicted by foraging ecology. We predict faster learning and higher flexibility in animals hunting in m...

Primate ecologists seek to answer fundamental questions about how and why particular ecological factors influence primate individuals, groups, and populations (Isbell 1991; Sterck et al. 1997; van Schaik 1983; Wrangham 1980). While primatologists have used a variety of approaches to address these questions, the study of a particular taxon across a range of ecological conditions provides a parti...