human activities often adversely affect natural landscapes and ecosystems. natural landscapes consist of habitats, and habitat loss and fragmentation are major threats to biodiversity. environmental impact assessment (eia)as a systematic and well documented procedure to identify, describe and assess the direct and indirect effects of a developmental project in different environments does not co...

Accurate estimation of leaf stomatal conductance (gs) is important in predicting carbon andwater cycles of terrestrial ecosystem. To estimate gs on field-grown soybean and maize underwater-stressed condition accurately, a modified optimal stomatal conductance (OSCM) modelwas established based on the relationship between marginal water cost of carbon gain and soilwater content by introducing a w...

Tidal flow causes high temporal variability in environmental properties that impact ecosystem dynamics. Microbes such as phytoplankton are especially susceptible to tidal advection and mixing, and understanding their role in estuarine food webs and biogeochemical cycles requires information on their biomass and taxonomic composition over short time scales (e.g. tidal cycles). We conducted a sur...

Slow changes in underlying state variables can lead to "tipping points," rapid transitions between alternative states ("regime shifts") in a wide range of complex systems. Tipping points and regime shifts routinely are documented retrospectively in long time series of observational data. Experimental induction of tipping points and regime shifts is rare, but could lead to new methods for detect...

the value of wetlands is receiving increasing attention and the cost–benefit analyses (cba) is essential to evaluate the long-term effects of wetland rehabilitation projects. in order to guarantee the water quality of the south-to-north water diversion project of china (east route), the government of shandong province started a huge lakeshore wetland rehabilitation project in 2008. the cba appr...

*Correspondence: Robinson W. Fulweiler, Department of Earth and Environment, Boston University, 685 Commonwealth Avenue Rm. 130, Boston, MA 02215, USA e-mail: [email protected] Human activities have dramatically altered reactive nitrogen (N) availability in coastal ecosystems globally. Here we used a gradient of N loading found in a shallow temperate estuary (Waquoit Bay, Massachusetts, USA) to examin...

aims: a very common species of leeches has been named as hirudo medicinalis. regarding to the application of leeches in medicine and their fast extinction, this study was performed in aquatic habitats of kashan aimed to determine the distribution of leeches and to provide information about their regional and habitat characteristics. materials & methods: this descriptive study was conducted duri...

Grassland introduction into intensively managed agricultural landscapes may enhance soil organic matter (SOM) content and ecosystem services. However, the magnitude of this effect depends on grassland management practices, and their influence on the soil system. The aim of this paper is to highlight these impacts and their consequences for SOM dynamics and element cycling. We focused in particu...

We describe the identification and characterization of novel homing endonucleases using genome database mining to identify putative target sites, followed by high throughput activity screening in a bacterial selection system. We characterized the substrate specificity and kinetics of these endonucleases by monitoring DNA cleavage events with deep sequencing. The endonuclease specificities revea...