BACKGROUND Covering the eye of all snakes is a transparent integumental structure known as the spectacle. In order to determine variations in spectacle thickness among species, the spectacles of 217 alcohol-preserved museum specimens of 44 species belonging to 14 different families underwent optical coherence tomography (OCT) to measure spectacular thickness. Multivariable analyses were made to...

Although rare species are often the focus of conservation measures, more common species may experience similar decline and suffer from the same threatening processes. We tested this hypothesis by examining, through an information-theoretic approach, the importance of ecological processes at multiple scales in the great crested newt Triturus cristatus, regionally endangered and protected in Euro...

The generation of plant diversity involves complex interactions between geography, environment and organismal traits. Many macroevolutionary processes and emergent patterns have been identified in different plant groups through the study of spatial data, but rarely in the context of a large radiation of tropical herbaceous angiosperms. A powerful system for testing interrelated biogeographical ...

There is high uncertainty surrounding the magnitude of current and future biodiversity loss that is occurring due to human disturbances. Here, we present a global meta-analysis of experimental and observational studies that report 327 measures of change in species richness between disturbed and undisturbed habitats across both terrestrial and aquatic biomes. On average, human-mediated disturban...

Atmospheric nitrogen (N) deposition has had detrimental effects on species composition in a range of sensitive habitats, although N deposition can also increase agricultural productivity and carbon storage, and favours a few species considered of importance for conservation. Conservation targets are multiple, and increasingly incorporate services derived from nature as well as concepts of intri...

We used carbon stable isotope and stomach content analyses to test whether snub-nosed garfish, Arrhamphus sclerolepis (Hemiramphidae), in the extensive artificial urban waterways of southeast Queensland, Australia, rely on autotrophic sources different to those in natural wetlands. Carbon isotope values of A. sclerolepis were similar to those in previous investigations, with enriched values in ...

Accurately describing animal space use is vital to understanding how wildlife use habitat. Improvements in GPS technology continue to facilitate collection of telemetry data at high spatial and temporal resolutions. Application of the recently introduced dynamic Brownian bridge movement model (dBBMM) to such data is promising as the method explicitly incorporates the behavioural heterogeneity o...

Most moving animals segregate their locomotion trajectories in short burst like rotations and prolonged translations, to enhance distance information from optic flow, as only translational, but not rotational optic flow holds distance information. Underwater, optic flow is a valuable source of information as it is in the terrestrial habitat, however, so far, it has gained only little attention....

Conversion of farmland land-use matrices to surface mining is an increasing threat to the habitat quality of forest remnants and their constituent biota, with consequences for ecosystem functionality. We evaluated the effects of matrix type on bird community composition and the abundance and evenness within avian functional groups in south-west Ghana. We hypothesized that surface mining near re...

Flooding exposes terrestrial organisms to severe hypoxia. Among the best-studied insects that are frequently exposed to ßooding are tiger beetle (Coleoptera: Cicindelidae) larvae. In previous studieswitha limitednumberof species, a correlationwas foundbetweenhabitat andhypoxia tolerance. In the current study, we examined hypoxia tolerance among third instars of six Cicindela species that vary i...