Biodiversity plays a crucial role in stability and productivity of natural ecosystem. The main goal of this research was to classify ecological groups in steppe rangeland and investigate their relationships with plant diversity indices. Therefore, fifty different Land Unit Tracts (LUT) were identified in Khod-Neuk basin, Yazd province, Iran, in 2010. Vegetation and soil samples were taken in th...

This study evaluated changes in the community of rotifers and microcrustaceans associated with the construction of a large and dendritic reservoir in Iguaçu River (Brazil), as the last reservoir of a sequence of five cascading systems. Differences were clear between pre-filling and post-filling phases for organisms and some of environmental variables. In the pre-filling phase, the community was...

In the present study, some ecological factors were studied for Amphipoda at different depths. The Shannon, Margalef, and Hill indices were used to determine the  species diversity, richness and evenness, respectively. In addition, the association and niche overlap values were estimated. Indices of species richness and diversity were highest at 50 and 100m depths, respectively.  The ordination o...

Oswald J. Schmitz School of Forestry and Environmental Studies and Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Yale University, 370 Prospect Street, New Haven, CT 06511, USA E-mail: [email protected] Abstract Predators can have strong indirect effects on plants by altering the way herbivores impact plants. Yet, many current evaluations of plant species diversity and ecosystem function...

Litter decomposition is a fundamental path for nutrient cycling in natural ecosystem. However, it remains unclear how species diversity, including richness and evenness, affects the dynamics context of grassland degradation. Using litter bag technique, we investigated litter-mixing effects two coexisting dominant ( Leymus chinensis Lc Phragmites australis Pa), as monocultures mixtures with even...

In the present study, some ecological factors were studied for Amphipoda at different depths. The Shannon, Margalef, and Hill indices were used to determine the  species diversity, richness and evenness, respectively. In addition, the association and niche overlap values were estimated. Indices of species richness and diversity were highest at 50 and 100m depths, respectively.  The or...

We examined whether the intense root competition in a rough fescue grassland plant community in central Alberta, Canada, was important in structuring plant species diversity or community composition. We measured competition intensity across gradients of species richness, evenness, and community composition, using pairs of naturally occurring plants of 12 species. One plant in each pair was isol...

The analysis of phylogenetic relationships among co-occurring tree species offers insights into the ecological organization of forest communities from an evolutionary perspective and, when employed regionally across thousands of plots, can assist in forest health assessment. Phylogenetic clustering of species, when species are more closely related than expected by chance, suggests a process of ...