BACKGROUND AND AIMS Germination is very important for plant establishment in arid regions. The strategies taken by halophytes during the seed germination stage to adapt to saline environments in an arid zone were investigated in Suaeda physophora (euhalophyte), Haloxylon ammodendron (xero-halophyte) and Haloxylon persicum (xerophyte). METHODS Seeds of S. physophora, H. ammodendron and H. pers...

The growth and tissue water, K(+), Na(+), Cl(-), proline and glycinebetaine contents of the shoots and roots of two Chenopodiaceae, Atriplex spongiosa and Suaeda monoica have been measured over a range of external NaCl salinities. Both species showed some fresh weight response to low salinity mainly due to increased succulence. S. monoica showed both a greater increase in succulence (at low sal...

Suaeda iranshahrii Akhani & Freitag, previous specimens cited as S. maritima,is described as a new species of sect. Brezia endemic to the coasts of the Persian Gulf; it is subdivided into the type variety distributed along the Persian side and var. arabica Freitag from the Arabian shore. The new species is named in honour of Dr. Musa Iranshahr, the eminent Iranian botanist to whom this Festschr...

With this study, 28 pools of snails of the genus Helix, respectively Helix aspersa (n=24) and Helix vermiculata (n=4) were analysed. They were taken from snail farming and stores. The snails were from Sardinia, other regions of Italy, and from abroad. All the samples were examined as pool looking for these microbiological target: Salmonella spp., Listeria monocytogenes, Escherichia coli O157, C...

The current article focuses on the morphological and molecular characterization of often inconspicuous genus Amicula. This recently erected from brackish marine sediments was monotypic but here we describe two new tropical species: Amicula micronesica sp. nov. vermiculata Once considered an incertae sedis regarding its higher rank taxonomy, position among family Diploneidaceae is proposed by ph...

Coastal line is now polluted by many kinds of sewage including heavy metals discharged by intensive human activities. Cadmium is a nonessential heavy metal for organisms and can cause many kinds of adverse effect on the organisms. Suaeda salsa, a pioneer halophyte in intertidal zone of the Bohai coast, was proved to have cadmium-tolerant capacity. Given that, S. salsa was suggested as a potenti...