1. Kelly PJ, Beati L, Matthewman LA, Mason PR, Dasch GA, Raoult D. A new pathogenic spotted fever group rickettsia from Africa. J Trop Med Hyg. 1994;97:129–37. 2. Raoult D, Fournier PE, Fenollar F, Jensenius M, Prioe T, de Pina JJ, et al. Rickettsia africae, a tick-borne pathogen in travelers to sub-Saharan Africa. N Engl J Med. 2001;344:1504–10. DOI: 10.1056/ NEJM200105173442003 3. Ndip LM, Bo...

Invasive alien species can have a detrimental economic impact on human enterprises such as agriculture, grazing, forestry and tourist activities. Forest invasive species have been identified as one the major threats to ecosystems and biodiversity, as well as human well-being. In this Hot Issue I have tried to collect information from research groups working on different aspects of forest invasi...

The Crow (Corvus Corax) is the largest passerine bird in Europe much of northern Asia and America, India, Palestine, Egypt, Canary Islands, Australia, Tasmania, China, Madagascar, tropical southern Africa Hawaiian Islands [1].

Ecosystems that provide environmental opportunities but are poor in species and functional richness generally support speciation as well as invasion processes. These processes are expected not to be equally effective along elevational gradients due to specific ecological, spatial, and anthropogenic filters, thus controlling the dispersal and establishment of species. Here, we investigate specia...

Epilepsy.-Of all the mentally retarded children which are commonly seen by the neurologist, epileptics are probably the cominonest. I do not want to say much about them, 'but to point out that, as we see tlhem in early life, they do not make up an entity, bult ar-e merely a mlixed group of a whole number of conditions exhibiting a commoni symptom. Some will turn out normal in the enid, others w...

950 Emerging Infectious Diseases • www.cdc.gov/eid • Vol. 13, No. 6, June 2007 To our knowledge, detection of Bartonella spp. DNA in sea turtle blood represents the fi rst molecular evidence of Bartonella infection in nonmammalian vertebrates. B. henselae infection, now reported in porpoises and sea turtles, may represent an emerging infection of marine animals. According to previous studies, i...

Many studies have addressed evolution and phylogeography of plant taxa in oceanic islands, but have primarily focused on endemics because of the assumption that in widespread taxa the absence of morphological differentiation between island and mainland populations is due to recent colonization. In this paper, we studied the phylogeography of Scrophularia arguta, a widespread annual species, in ...

The quality of the Map Libraries is obvious and the expert’s access to the cartographic funds (metadata and images) is a constant aim of the scientific task. However, it is sometimes arduous due to the dispersion of maps in the various museums, libraries and collections. Historians and documentary experts need to access remotely to every existing information, that can be compiled in a single pl...

We report the first cases of human infection by Rickettsia felis in the Canary Islands. Antibodies against R. felis were found in 5 adsorbed serum samples from 44 patients with clinically suspected rickettsiosis by Western blot serology. Fleas from 1 patient's dog were positive for R. felis by polymerase chain reaction.

Endemics and alien organisms can be considered two faces of the same coin, since management of both groups of taxa have strongly interrelated conservation implications. Islands are rich in endemic species and are also very vulnerable to biological invasions. We analysed the biogeography and taxonomy of endemic and alien terrestrial species in the Canary Islands including fungi, lichens, bryophy...