Sediments are widely accepted as a threat to coral reefs but our understanding of their ecological impacts is limited. Evidence has suggested that benthic sediments bound within the epilithic algal matrix (EAM) suppress reef fish herbivory, a key ecological process maintaining reef resilience. An experimental combination of caging and sediment addition treatments were used to investigate the ef...

Although species and their interactions in unison represent biodiversity and all the ecological and evolutionary processes associated with life, biotic interactions have, contrary to species, rarely been integrated into the concepts of spatial β-diversity. Here, we examine β-diversity of ecological networks by using pollination networks sampled across the Canary Islands. We show that adjacent a...

Fire is a dominant disturbance within many forested ecosystems worldwide. Understanding the complex feedbacks among vegetation as a fuel for fire, the effects of fuels on fire behavior, and the impact of fire behavior on future vegetation are critical for sustaining biodiversity in fire-dependent forests. Nonetheless, understanding in fire ecology has been limited in part by the difficulties in...

Recently tillage manufacturers have been promoting vertical tillage systems claiming that their use can overcome production limitations associated with no-till while maintaining sufficient residue cover to provide erosion protection. Vertical tillage refers to systems where soil disturbance is confined to soil movement mostly in the upward direction and/or confined to a slot or strip where the ...

A leading idea about how disturbances and other environmental fluctuations affect species diversity is the intermediate disturbance hypothesis (IDH). The IDH states that diversity of competing species is, or should be expected to be, maximized at intermediate frequencies and/or intensities of disturbance or environmental change. I argue that the IDH has been refuted on both empirical and theore...

Macroinvertebrate metrics are helpful tools for the assessment of water quality and overall aquatic ecosystem health. However, their degree sensitivity most reliable bioassessment program development very poorly studied in Togo. This study aimed to test calculated at family genus levels. A total 21 parameters macroinvertebrates' data were collected during three periods 20 sampling sites within ...

Forests host important plant biodiversity. Nevertheless, due to climate change and human disturbances, the floristic quality of forest ecosystems is degraded. Greek peri-urban forests biodiversity threatened by anthropogenic activities such as fragmentation, pollution, garbage, etc. Measurement status assessment can be used estimate degree degradation caused disturbances. In this study, we comp...

Human management activities have altered the frequency and intensity of ecosystem disturbance often with enormous impacts on landscape structure and composition. One additional and under-appreciated way in which humans have altered disturbance regimes is through the introduction of invasive non-native species, themselves capable of modifying existing disturbance regimes or introducing entirely ...

In the last week of November 2012, we announced that a strong electrotelluric disturbance, which we judged to be a Seismic Electric Signal (SES) activity, was recorded at station Assiros located in Northern Greece. This disturbance was actually followed by an Mw5.8 earthquake on 8 January 2013 in North-Eastern Aegean Sea. Here we show that, by analyzing this SES activity and employing the natur...