Seasonal drought is a common phenomenon in many forests predominated by monsoon climate. The impact of seasonal drought, however, may vary with elevations, and tree species of forests hence may differ in their response to elevations. In this study, we monitored the seasonal variation of seedling species composition, and their relative growth rate (RGR) along an elevational transect in tropical ...

Eleven sequential size-based hydroacoustic surveys conducted with a 200 kHz split-beam transducer during the summers of 2011 and 2012 were used to quantify seasonal declines in fish abundance in a boreal reservoir in Manitoba, Canada. Fish densities were sufficiently low to enable single target resolution and tracking. Target strengths converted to log2-based size-classes indicated that smaller...

Lake Pavin is a deep meromictic lake. Its water column is divided into two parts: the mixolimnion, which is subjected to mixing during seasonal overturns; and the monimolimnion which remains unmixed. Using high precision and high frequency temperature and conductivity profiles along with continuous temperature measurements, this study reveals the presence of a sublacustrine, intermittent cold s...

BACKGROUND There is growing evidence that living conditions at birth play a role in medical conditions later in life. Population-based studies from the Northern Hemisphere have shown that persons born in the spring or summer are at greater risk of committing suicide. A statistical correlation with light availability at birth has been observed in past research, but the cause remains unknown. Gre...

BACKGROUND Light therapy is a known treatment for patients with seasonal affective disorder. However, the efficacy of light therapy in treating patients with non-seasonal depression remains inconclusive. AIMS To provide the current state of evidence for efficacy of light therapy in non-seasonal depressive disorders. METHOD Systematic review of randomised controlled trials (RCTs) was conduct...

In spite of the efforts of the World Health Organization (WHO), influenza continues to be a major public health problem, both because of its impact on the health of subjects at risk, such as the elderly, and because of the economic burden that it places on society. Adjuvants are agents which, when incorporated into vaccines, enhance the immunogenicity of their antigens. The need for ever more i...

Seasonal Allergies in a Changing Climate Several intertwined factors influence how a plant grows and how much pollen it produces. Projected rises in two of these—regional temperatures and atmospheric CO 2 levels—could mean an increase in the number of people affected by seasonal allergies.

While negative effects of human disturbance on animals living above the ground have been widely reported, few studies have considered effects on animals occupying cavities or burrows underground. It is generally assumed that, in the absence of direct visual contact, such species are less vulnerable to disturbance. Seabird colonies can support large populations of burrow- and cavity-nesting spec...

The study was undertaken to investigate the year-to-year and seasonal variations in stunting among preschool children living at subsistence level in rural Ethiopia. Five thousand five hundred and eight anthropometric measurements were taken in 678 children (324 boys and 354 girls). The study classified 11.4% and 54.4% of the measurements as wasted and stunted respectively. Stunting occurred mor...

1 Auer et al recently showed a striking, near sinusoidal annual variation in the number of active magnetic resonance imaging lesions in 53 multiple sclerosis (MS) patients. Their results provide solid support for past, less-well documented claims of seasonal fluctuation in MS disease activity. Furthermore, the seasonal fluctuation in lesion activity may provide an important clue for identifying...