In Australia, peritonitis is an important cause of technique failure and infectious deaths amongst peritoneal dialysis (PD) patients. The temperature and humidity differences in individual climatic regions may influence the development of PD peritonitis by changing patient behaviour and hygiene, distribution of normal skin flora, organism virulence, and the chance of contamination. Previous stu...

PREMISE OF THE STUDY For many plant species, historical climatic conditions may have left lasting imprints that are detectable in contemporary populations. Additionally, if these historical conditions also prevented gene flow among populations, these populations may be differentiated with respect to one another and their contemporary environmental conditions. For the fern, Vittaria appalachiana...

In the light of the predicted changes in climate as a consequence of global warming, it is a major concern how animal species will respond to altered meteorological and oceanographic conditions. Seabirds constitute a diverse group of marine top predators which have relatively low fecundity and high annual survival rates. In order to predict effects of climate change, it is a necessary precondit...

Many biodiversity hotspots are located in montane regions, especially in the tropics. A possible explanation for this pattern is that the narrow thermal tolerances of tropical species and greater climatic stratification of tropical mountains create more opportunities for climate-associated parapatric or allopatric speciation in the tropics relative to the temperate zone. However, it is unclear ...

Variation in climatic conditions over space and time is thought to be an important driver of speciation. However, the role of climate has not been explored in the theoretical literature on speciation, and the theory underlying empirical studies of climate and speciation has come largely from informal, verbal models. In this study, we develop a quantitative model to test a relatively new but the...