Genotypic fitness landscapes are constructed by assessing the fitness of all possible combinations of a given number of mutations. In the last years, several experimental fitness landscapes have been completely resolved. As fitness landscapes are high-dimensional, simple measures of their structure are used as statistics in empirical applications. Epistasis is one of the most relevant features ...

To mitigate the negative effects of modern cities on health, scientists are focusing on the diverse benefits of natural environments; a conceptual approach to use gardens for promoting human health is being attempted. In this study, the effects of the visual landscape of a traditional garden on psychological and physiological activities were investigated. Eighteen male and female adults partici...

Landscapes exhibiting multiple secondary structures arise in natural RNA molecules that modulate gene expression, protein synthesis, and viral infection [corrected]. We report herein that high-throughput chemical experiments can isolate an RNA's multiple alternative secondary structures as they are stabilized by systematic mutagenesis (mutate-and-map, M2) and that a computational algorithm, REE...

LANDSCAPES IN THE PHYSICAL AND NATURAL SCIENCES The idea of an abstract landscape has been widely used in the physical and natural sciences to characterize the dynamics of systems. It was originally developed to study potential energy in physical systems and had its first rigorous development in the context of Hamiltonian systems.6 Biologists have independently developed landscapes to character...

Conservation efforts to protect forested landscapes are challenged by climate projections that suggest substantial restructuring of vegetation and disturbance regimes in the future. In this regard, paleoecological records that describe ecosystem responses to past variations in climate, fire, and human activity offer critical information for assessing present landscape conditions and future land...

Conservation biological control in agroecosystems requires a landscape management perspective, because most arthropod species experience their habitat at spatial scales beyond the plot level, and there is spillover of natural enemies across the crop–noncrop interface. The species pool in the surrounding landscape and the distance of crop from natural habitat are important for the conservation o...

1. Soil Formation is a Global Natural Process 2. Factors of Soil Formation 3. Stages of Soil Formation 4. Processes of Soil Formation 5. Genesis of Soils under Different Ecologic Conditions 5.1. Genesis of Soils under Conditions of Cryogenesis 5.2. Genesis of Soils of Forest Landscapes in a Zone of Moderate Climate 5.3. Genesis of Soils in Landscapes of Steppes and Prairies 5.4. Genesis of Soil...