Human social strategies have evolved as an adaption to behave in complex societies. In such societies, humans intensively tend to cooperate with their closer friends, because they have to distribute their limited resources through cooperation (e.g., time, food, etc.). It also makes the situation difficult to have uniform social relationships (social grooming) with all friends. Thus, the social ...

investigating species diversity and richness is essential for defining conservation priorities. in addition, determining landscape parameters influencing species diversity and richness is important for selecting and designing parks and protected areas. kohgiluyeh & boyer ahmad province is a mountainous region, comprises hills, mounds, forests and plains. this vast province has high species dive...

the effect of soil and phanerogam characteristics on bryophytes composition, richness, abundance and functional groups were investigated in order to understand the factors responsible for bryophytes distribution patterns. three different sand dunes were selected: untouched, artificial sod-covered and planted by ammophila. along 10 transects perpendicular to the shore, a total of 142 permanent r...

Little is known about how exotics influence the ecophysiology of co-occurring native plants or how invader impact on plant physiology may be mediated by community diversity or resource levels. We measured the effect of the widespread invasive forb spotted knapweed (Centaurea maculosa) on leaf traits (leaf dry matter content, specific leaf area, leaf nitrogen percentage, leaf C:N ratios, and del...

Soil fauna is essential for ecosystem dynamics as it is involved in biogeochemical processes, promotes nutrient availability, and affects the animal communities associated with plants. In this study, we examine the possible relationship between the soil microarthropod community on foliage production and quality of the shrub Pittocaulon praecox. We also examine the arthropods associated to its f...

Taking the position that writing can be an important skill to foster knowledge building pedagogy, this article explores vocabulary as a supportive tool for this purpose. Having this in mind, a compilation of conceptually loaded vocabularies pertaining to seven discourse communities was developed, two of which were given to a group of L2 writers to investigate the implications of phraseology for...

Archaea are the least understood members of the microbial community in Antarctic mineral soils. Although their occurrence in Antarctic coastal soils has been previously documented, little is known about their distribution in soils across the McMurdo Dry Valleys, Victoria Land. In this study, terminal-restriction fragment length polymorphism (t-RFLP) analysis and 454 pyrosequencing were coupled ...