Anthrax, an acute disease of homeotherms caused by soil-borne Bacillus anthracis is implicated in dramatic declines wildlife mainly sub-Saharan Africa. Anthrax outbreaks are often localized space and time. Therefore, understanding predictors the spatial temporal occurrence anthrax areas useful supporting early warning improved response targeting measures to reduce impact epizootic risk on popul...

Tree stumps of arborescent lycopods were discovered in situ at the contact of the Herrin (No. 6) Coal and the Energy Shale Members, near the Walshville paleochannel, the major river channel running through and draining the Herrin coal swamp. The stumps are associated with, and in one case attached to, fallen trunks identified as a Lepidodendron similar to L. aculeatum. The stumps and trunks occ...

Risk analysis can be used as a scientific tool for addressing the health of ecosystems. Here we describe a protocol for characterizing risks in the ecosystems of several polluted soil scenarios in the Madrid Community (Central Spain). Our starting hypothesis was that to recover the health of degraded ecosystems that could affect public health, an ecotoxicological diagnosis of each site is requi...

Data collected during our on-going studies on the phytodiversity in the Upper Bari Doab Region of Punjab, show an inverse relationship between the level of phytodiversity and incidence of the congress grass-Parthenium hysterophorus. The open vegetation at Khiala Khurd (31 degrees -33' N-74 degrees .18' E), a site typical of the whole region, has a Shannon-Weaver index value of 2.544, which is f...

Recent published data show that transformation and sorption are key processes involved in the subsurface transport of TNT. The state-of-the-art understanding of TNT soil transformation and sorption phenomena is summarized below: There is unequivocal evidence of reductive transformation of TNT in soils. However, soil properties affecting TNT transformation are only partially understood. Edaphic ...

A bimodal distribution of tropical tree cover at intermediate precipitation levels has been presented as evidence of fire-induced bistability. Here we subdivide satellite vegetation data into those from human-unaffected areas and those from regions close to human-cultivated zones. Bimodality is found to be almost absent in the unaffected regions, whereas it is significantly enhanced close to cu...

This study was conducted to determine the effects of soil and climatic conditions on glycyrrhizic acid contents in various Iranian populations of Glycyrrhiza glabra in two root diameters. Twelve populations in arid, semi-arid and Mediterranean climates of different parts of Iran were collected and the content of glycyrrhizic acid was determined using HPLC. The results showed that contents of gl...

Pseudometallophytes are excellent models to study microevolution and local adaptation to soil pollution, as they can grow both on metalliferous and contrasting non-metalliferous soils. Although, there has been accumulating evidence for the effects of edaphic conditions and geographical isolation on the genetic structure of pesudometallophytes, it is still a difficult problem in evolutionary bio...