The causes of variation in animal species richness at large spatial scales are intensively debated. Here, we examine whether the diversity of food plants, contemporary climate and energy, or habitat heterogeneity determine species richness patterns of avian frugivores across sub-Saharan Africa. Path models indicate that species richness of Ficus (their fruits being one of the major food resourc...

Methanolic extracts from 15 medicinal plants representing 11 families, used traditionally for malaria treatment in Kenya were screened for their in vivo antimalarial activity in mice against a chloroquine (CQ)-tolerant Plasmodium berghei NK65, either alone or in combination with CQ. The plant parts used ranged from leaves (L), stem bark (SB), root bark (RB), seeds (S) and whole plant (W). When ...

Obligate mutualistic nursery pollination systems between insects and plants have led to substantial codiversification involving at least some parallel cladogenesis, as documented in Yucca, Ficus and Phyllanthaceae. In such systems, pollinators are generally species specific thus limiting hybridization and introgression among interfertile host species. Nevertheless, in the three systems, cases o...

Opuntia ficus indica is one of the most economically important species in the Cactaceae family. Increased interest in this crop stems from its potential contribution to agricultural diversification, application in the exploitation of marginal lands, and utility as additional income sources for farmers. In Tunisia, O. ficus indica has been affected by drastic genetic erosion resulting from bioti...

This study aimed to produce and characterize an oil in water (O/W) nanoemulsion containing Opuntia ficus-indica (L.) Mill hydroglycolic extract, as well as evaluate its preliminary and accelerated thermal stability and moisturizing efficacy. The formulations containing 0.5% of xanthan gum (FX) and 0.5% of xanthan gum and 1% of Opuntia ficus-indica MILL extract (FXE) were white, homogeneus and f...

Presently, climate change has increased the frequency of extreme meteorological events such as tropical cyclones. In the western Pacific basin, these cyclones are called typhoons, and in this area, around Taiwan Island, their frequency has almost doubled since 2000. When approaching landmasses, typhoons have devastating effects on coastal vegetation. The increased frequency of these events has ...

This research proposes and tests an approach to engineering distributed le systems that are aimed at wide-scale, Internet-based use. The premise is that replication is essential to deliver performance and availability, yet the traditional conservative replica consistency algorithms do not scale to this environment. Our Ficus replicated le system uses a single-copy availability, optimistic updat...

The epiphytic growth habit in many Ficus species during their juvenile stages has commonly been hypothesized to be an adaptation for avoiding deep shade in the forest understory, but this has never been tested experimentally. We examined growth and ecophysiology in seedlings of three hemiepiphytic (Hs) and three non-hemiepiphytic (NHs) Ficus species grown under different irradiance levels. Both...

Kislev et al. (Reports, 2 June 2006, p. 1372) described Neolithic parthenocarpic fig fruits and proposed that they derive from trees propagated only by cuttings and thus represent the first domesticated plant of the Neolithic Revolution. Because parthenocarpic fig trees naturally produce both seeded and seedless fruits and are capable of spontaneous reproduction, we argue that the finds do not ...