OBJECTIVES To evaluate the monthly variation in the airborne (1→3)-β-D-glucan level throughout one year and its relationship with climatic factors (temperature, relative humidity, wind speed, hours of daylight, cloud cover, and pollen counts). METHODS A total of 106 samples were collected using a two-stage cyclone sampler at five outdoor sampling locations (on top of 5 university buildings). ...

background: heat stress evaluation and timely notification, especially using meteorological data is an important issue attracted attention in recent years. therefore, this study aimed at answering the following research questions: 1) can enthalpy as a common environmental parameter reported by meteorological agencies be applied accurately for evaluation of thermal condition of outdoor settings,...

In order to predict the fate of biodiversity in a rapidly changing world, we must first understand how species adapt to new environmental conditions. The long-term evolutionary dynamics of species' physiological tolerances to differing climatic regimes remain obscure. Here, we unite palaeontological and neontological data to analyse whether species' environmental tolerances remain stable across...

Technologies of precision agriculture, digital soil maps, and meteorological stations provide a minimum data set to guide precision farming operations. However, determining optimal nutrient requirements for potato (Solanum tuberosum L.) crops at subfield scale remains a challenge given specific climatic, edaphic, and managerial conditions. Multilevel modeling can generalize yield response to fe...

UNLABELLED House-dust mites (HDMs) are an important source of allergens that are reputed to act as a trigger for atopic disease. Climatic conditions in parts of South Africa are not suitable for their proliferation, and there is doubt whether they occur on the Highveld. We studied whether HDMs occur in homes in Bloemfontein, Free State. METHODS Ten houses were sampled over a 1-year period. Du...

Recent computer models of landform evolution have focused on surface processes of river networks and hillslopes (e.g., Ahnert, 1976; Kirkby, 1986; Willgoose et al., 1991a, b; Koltermann and Gorelick, 1992; Howard, 1994; Howard et al., 1994; Smith et al., 1997). Most of these models are based on complicated differential equations that are difficult to solve. Chase (1992) developed a cellular aut...

We tested for the occurrence of Bergmann's rule, the pattern of increasing body size with latitude, and Rapoport's rule, the positive relationship between geographical range size and latitude, in 34 lineages of Liolaemus lizards that occupy arid regions of the Andean foothills. We tested the climatic-variability hypothesis (CVH) by examining the relationship between thermal tolerance breadth an...

The evidence that climate warming is changing the distribution of Ixodes ticks and the pathogens they transmit is reviewed and evaluated. The primary approaches are either phenomenological, which typically assume that climate alone limits current and future distributions, or mechanistic, asking which tick-demographic parameters are affected by specific abiotic conditions. Both approaches have p...

A reverence for ancestors that has pre-occupied humans since time immemorial persists to the present. Reconstructing ancestry is the focus of many biological studies but failure to distinguish between present-day descendants and long-dead ancestors has led to incorrect interpretation of phylogenetic trees. This has resulted in erroneous reconstruction of traits such as morphology and ancestral ...