The use of archery to hunt appears relatively late in human history. It is poorly understood but the application of poisons to arrows to increase lethality must have occurred shortly after developing bow hunting methods; these early multi-stage transitions represent cognitive shifts in human evolution. This paper is a synthesis of widely-scattered literature in anthropology, entomology, and che...

Soil heterogeneity is an important driver of divergent natural selection in plants. Neotropical forests have the highest tree diversity on earth, and frequently, soil specialist congeners are distributed parapatrically. While the role of edaphic heterogeneity in the origin and maintenance of tropical tree diversity is unknown, it has been posited that natural selection across the patchwork of s...

The Socotra Archipelago (Yemen) is an interesting biodiversity hotspot, with a significant proportion of endemic species that have evolved to survive in arid subtropical environment, inscribed as World Heritage Site by UNESCO. terrestrial ecosystems face several threats, including climate change, overgrazing and soil degradation. Island has four the genus Commiphora (Burseraceae). Little known ...