This study was carried out at the forest nursery of Department of Forestry, Faculty of Agriculture and Regional Research Station, Wadura SKUAST-K, Sopore, Kashmir during 2006 and 2007 to examine the role of live biofertilizers in litter decomposition and nutrient release in Salix fragilis under natural Salix stands. The experiment was laid in completely randomised design with three replications...

1. Host-plant genetic variation affects the diversity and composition of associated above and belowground communities. Most evidence supporting this view is derived from studies 3 within a single common garden, thereby constraining the range of biotic and abiotic environmental conditions that might directly or indirectly (via phenotypic plasticity) affect communities. If natural variability in ...

To our knowledge, every free-text Computer Assisted Assessment (CAA) system automatically scores the students and gives feedback to them according to their responses, but, none of them include yet personalization options. The free-text CAA system Atenea [1] had simple adaptation possibilities by keeping static student profiles [2]. In this paper, we present a new adaptive version called Willow....

Changes in the hydrology of sediments in tidal marshes or landfills may affect the uptake of metals in the vegetation. Leaf and stem samples of Salix cinerea (grey sallow) were collected during four consecutive growing seasons at six contaminated plots on a polluted dredged sediment landfill and one plot on an uncontaminated reference site. The first three contaminated plots were already emerge...

Stable flies are an important pest of humans and livestock. Despite being blood feeders, they also visit flowers to eat nectar. Stable flies with pollen adhering to their exoskeletons were collected at the University of Florida Horse Teaching Unit and taken to the Paleobotany and Palynology Laboratory at the Florida Museum of Natural History for processing and identification. The pollen on all ...

A statistical interpolation method is proposed which allows calculation of the leaf area index LAI(t), the downward cumulative leaf area index L(z, t) and the canopy leaf area density u(z, t) as the functions of height and time for any day of the growth period. The method is based on three functions: probability density of stem height, interrelationship between stem height and stem foliage area...

BACKGROUND We still have limited knowledge about the underlying genetic mechanisms that enable migrating species of birds to navigate the globe. Here we make an attempt to get insight into the genetic architecture controlling this complex innate behaviour. We contrast the gene expression profiles of two closely related songbird subspecies with divergent migratory phenotypes. In addition to comp...

To investigate the dynamics and relative drivers of cellulose degradation during litter decomposition, a field experiment was conducted in three individual ecosystems (i.e., forest floor, stream, and riparian zone) of an alpine forest meta-ecosystem on the eastern Tibetan Plateau. Four litter species (i.e., willow: Salix paraplesia, azalea: Rhododendron lapponicum, cypress: Sabina saltuaria, an...

Geo-location data from social media offers us information, in new ways, to understand people's attitudes and interests through their activity choices. In this paper, we explore the idea of inferring individual life-style patterns from activity-location choices revealed in social media. We present a model to understand life-style patterns using the contextual information (e. g. location categori...