Research Highlights: Seasonal variation in environmental conditions coinciding with reproductive and energetic demands might result seasonal differences species-specific habitat use. We studied a winter assemblage of insectivorous bats found that species acted as generalists during compared to expectations based on the summer active season. Background Objectives: In temperate regions, fluctuati...

The extent to which response to environmental change is mediated by species-specific ecology is an important aspect of the population histories of tropical taxa. During the Pleistocene glacial cycles and associated sea level fluctuations, the Sunda region in Southeast Asia experienced concurrent changes in landmass area and the ratio of forest to open habitat, providing an ideal setting to test...

molecular genetics selection on individual genes is a promising method to genetically improve economically important traits in livestock. the insulin like growth factor-i (igf-i) gene may play important roles in growth of multiple tissues, including muscle cells, cartilage and bone. the objectives of the present study were the estimate the haplotype frequencies of the igf-i gene polymorphisms i...

One of the clearest predictions from the IPCC is that we can expect much less snow cover due to global warming in the 21st century, especially in the lower alpine areas. In alpine ecosystems, snow accumulation in depressions gives rise to distinct snow-bed vegetation types, assumed to play a key role in ecosystem function. A delayed plant phenology yields high-quality forage in late summer for ...

A major cause of taphonomic loss is bone destruction by scavengers. Having monitored nine sheep bone scatters and two modern sheep carcasses near a farmstead and in a nearby forest clearing, it was hypothesized that the proximity of the settlement influenced multiple non-human bone modificator activities. This observation was tested by an experiment in which the rate of transport was measured i...

The habitat matrix model (HMM) explains convergence among arboreal animals as a result of the correlated evolution of morphology, locomotor mode, and habitat use. Although the HMM has generated important insights into the ecology of arboreal species, these tests have left a gap in the habitat-behavior-morphology story by focusing primarily on locomotor performance in lab and field experiments a...

Understanding animal movement behaviour is key to furthering our knowledge on intra- and inter-specific competition, group cohesion, energy expenditure, habitat use, the spread of zoonotic diseases or species management. We used a radial basis function surface approximation subject to minimum description length constraint to uncover the state-space dynamical systems from time series data. This ...