Riboswitches are RNAs that modulate gene expression by ligand-induced conformational changes. However, the way in which sequence dictates alternative folding pathways of gene regulation remains unclear. In this study, we compute energy landscapes, which describe the accessible secondary structures for a range of sequence lengths, to analyze the transcriptional process as a given sequence elonga...

The notion of fitness landscapes, a map between genotype and fitness, was proposed more than 80 years ago. For most of this time data was only available for a few alleles, and thus we had only a restricted view of the whole fitness landscape. Recently, advances in genetics and molecular biology allow a more detailed view of them. Here we review experimental and theoretical studies of fitness la...

—The North American Breeding Bird Survey (BBS) is an annual transect point-count survey of >500 species and >3,500 survey routes (transects). Observers drive and record birds seen and heard within a radius of 400 m of 50 survey points (“stops”) evenly spaced along a 39.4-km survey route. Thus, the land area along both sides of a route composes a linear or curvilinear landscape. Although BBS dat...

A major conservation challenge in mosaic landscapes is to understand how trait-specific responses to habitat edges affect bird communities, including potential cascading effects on bird functions providing ecosystem services to forests, such as pest control. Here, we examined how bird species richness, abundance and community composition varied from interior forest habitats and their edges into...

introduction this study is dealt with the environmental planning from a bio-cybernetic and hierarchical systems viewpoint within the context of landscape ecology. this viewpoint requires not only knowledge of the science of ecology but also ecological wisdom in order to recognize the place of humankind in nature. the conceptual and practical approach which is provided will help landscape planne...

Classical conservation approaches focus on the man-made degradation of ecosystems and tend to neglect the socialecological values that human land uses have imprinted on many environments. Throughout the world, ingenious land-use practices have generated unique cultural landscapes, but these are under pressure from agricultural intensification, land abandonment, and urbanization. In recent years...