The unexpected high species richness of deep-sea sediments gives rise to the questions, which processes produce and maintain diversity in the deep sea, and at what spatial scales do these processes operate? The idea of a small-scale habitat structure at the deep-sea floor provides the background for this study. At small scales biogenic structures create a heterogeneous environment that influenc...

This thesis was an interdisciplinary investigation with the goal of balancing the conservation of wildlife habitat with road access for subsistence hunting in Yakutat, Alaska. The problem posed by land managers and subsistence moose hunters revolved around the use of offhighway vehicles (OHVs; e.g. “four-wheelers”) for subsistence moose hunting and the potential disturbance OHVs have on moose. ...

The fragmentation of natural habitats is a major threat for biodiversity. However, the impact and spatial scale of natural isolation mechanisms leading to species loss, compared to anthropogenic fragmentation, are not clear, mainly due to differences between fragments and islands, such as matrix permeability. We studied a 500 km2 Mediterranean region in France, including urban habitat fragments...

BACKGROUND As one of the highest forest ecosystems in the world, Polylepis forests are recognized both as center of endemism and diversity along the Andes and as an ecosystem under serious threat from habitat loss, fragmentation, and climate change due to human activities. Effective conservation efforts are limited, in part, by our poor understanding of the ecology and habitat needs of the ecos...

To determine the potential habitat of two rangeland species of Salsola rigidaand Agropyron trichophorum in Qasr-e-Shirin, Iran, Geographic Information Systems(GIS) and Remote Sensing (RS) techniques were used. At first, several maps (vegetationcover and land uses maps and thematic maps of various organizations) were collected orprepared. For digitizing geology, vegetation and conventional state...