Culturing, isolation, purification, and identification of cyanobacteria collected from wheat field soil, in five stations around the industrial areas in Yazd province (Iran) were conducted in this study. Identification of taxa was based on morphology and molecular methods. Cluster analysis and principal component analyses performed using SPSS software and rate of resemblance among the taxa were...

Thirty-seven isolates of Fusarium graminearum species complexobtained from wheat heads with Fusarium head blight symptoms were selected and used for phylogenetic studies. They were collected from different localities of Moghan plain (Ardebil province, Iran). Partial sequences of translation elongation factor 1-alpha (TEF), putative reductase (RED) and UTP-ammonia ligase (URA) genes were amplifi...

Analysing extinction within a phylogenetic framework may seem counterintuitive because extinction is a priori a non-heritable trait. However, extinction risk is correlated with other traits, such as body size, that show a strong phylogenetic signal. Further, there has been much effort in identifying key traits important for diversifi cation, and recent evidence has demonstrated that the process...

Coalescent-based species delimitation methods combine population genetic and phylogenetic theory to provide an objective means for delineating evolutionarily significant units of diversity. The generalised mixed Yule coalescent (GMYC) and the Poisson tree process (PTP) are methods that use ultrametric (GMYC or PTP) or non-ultrametric (PTP) gene trees as input, intended for use mostly with singl...

Although it is generally recognized that global biodiversity is declining, few studies have examined long-term changes in multiple biodiversity dimensions simultaneously. In this study, we quantified and compared temporal changes in the abundance, taxonomic diversity, functional diversity, and phylogenetic diversity of bird assemblages, using roadside monitoring data of the North American Breed...

For centuries ecologists have studied how the diversity and functional traits of plant and animal communities vary across biomes. In contrast, we have only just begun exploring similar questions for soil microbial communities despite soil microbes being the dominant engines of biogeochemical cycles and a major pool of living biomass in terrestrial ecosystems. We used metagenomic sequencing to c...

The niche theory predicts that environmental heterogeneity and species diversity are positively correlated in tropical forests, whereas the neutral theory suggests that stochastic processes are more important in determining species diversity. This study sought to investigate the effects of soil nutrient (nitrogen and phosphorus) heterogeneity on tree species diversity in the Xishuangbanna tropi...

Yams (Dioscorea spp.) consist of approximately 600 species. Presently, these species are threatened by genetic erosion due to many factors such as pest attacks and farming practices. In parallel, complex taxonomic boundaries in this genus makes it more challenging to properly address the genetic diversity of yam and manage its germplasm. As a first step toward evaluating and preserving the gene...

Functional and phylogenetic diversity are increasingly quantified in various fields of ecology and conservation biology. The need to maintain diversity turnover among sites, so-called beta-diversity, has also been raised in theoretical and applied ecology. In this study, we propose the first comprehensive framework for the large-scale mapping of taxonomic, phylogenetic and functional diversity ...