Analysis of an invasive species' niche shift between native and introduced ranges, along with potential distribution maps, can provide valuable information about its invasive potential. The tawny crazy ant, Nylanderia fulva, is a rapidly emerging and economically important invasive species in the southern United States. It is originally from east-central South America and has also invaded Colom...

The main goal of this study was to predict, through the use of GIS tool as ecological niche modelling, potentially suitable ecological niche and defining the conditions of such niche for the representatives of the cosmopolitan genus Sirthenea. Among all known genera of the subfamily Peiratinae, only Sirthenea occurs on almost all continents and zoogeographical regions. Our research was based on...

Identification of loci or genes under natural selection is important for both understanding the genetic basis of local adaptation and practical applications, and genome scans provide a powerful means for such identification purposes. In this study, genome-wide simple sequence repeats markers (SSRs) were used to scan for molecular footprints of divergent selection in Eucalyptus grandis, a hardwo...

Hand, foot, and mouth disease (HFMD) causes characteristic blisters and sores mainly in infants and children, and has been monitored in South Korea through sentinel surveillance since 2009. We described the patterns of HFMD occurrence and analyzed the effect of climatic factors on national HFMD incidence. Weekly clinically diagnosed HFMD case rates (per 1,000 outpatients) in sentinel sites and ...

The role of global climate change in the decline of biodiversity and the emergence of infectious diseases remains controversial, and the effect of climatic variability, in particular, has largely been ignored. For instance, it was recently revealed that the proposed link between climate change and widespread amphibian declines, putatively caused by the chytrid fungus Batrachochytrium dendrobati...

Variability is an inherent characteristic of neritic fisheries. This is usually associated with both heavy fishing and changes in environmental conditions. Consideration needs to be given to the biological, physical and human components of the management system. This includes controlling the type, size and amount of fish harvested; trying to respond in a timely manner to events in the fishery i...

Using an exhaustive data compilation, Iberian vascular plant species richness in 50×50 UTM grid cells was regressed against 24 explanatory variables (spatial, geographical, topographical, geological, climatic, land use and environmental diversity variables) using Generalized Linear Models and partial regression analysis in order to ascertain the relative contribution of primary, heterogeneous a...

BACKGROUND The transmission of hemorrhagic fever with renal syndrome (HFRS) is influenced by population dynamics of its main host, rodents. It is therefore important to better understand rodents' characteristic in epidemic areas. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS We examined the potential impact of food available and climatic variability on HFRS rodent host and developed forecasting models. Mont...

Understanding how environmental variables influence the distribution and density of organisms over relatively long temporal scales is a central question in ecology given increased climatic variability (e.g., precipitation, ENSO events). The primary goal of our study was to evaluate long-term (15y time span) patterns of climate, as well as environmental parameters in two Neotropical streams in l...

Land plants are sessile organisms that cannot escape the adverse climatic conditions of a given environment. Hence, adaptation is one of the solutions to surviving in a challenging environment. This study was aimed at detecting adaptive loci in barley landraces that are affected by selection. To that end, a diverse population of barley landraces was analyzed using the genotyping by sequencing a...