the zarivar lake a freshwater lake in west of kurdistan province is home for large number of native plant and animal species therefore water quality and health of the lake are vital for conservation of these species. the present study aimed at evaluation of the zarivar lake using nsf- wqi as an indicator of water quality. wqi is a suitable tool to examine and classify spatial and temporal varia...

Semi-natural dry grassland sites are of great importance for nature conservation because they support high species diversity and the abundance of "Red-List" species. Grazing has proved to be a successful management tool in terms of maintenance and restoration of biodiversity. For a deeper understanding of the effects of different grazers on species biodiversity in dry grasslands, it is necessar...

The array of biomolecules generated by a functioning ecosystem represents both a potential resource for sustainable harvest and a potential indicator of ecosystem health and function. The cupped leaves of the carnivorous pitcher plant, Sarracenia purpurea, harbor a dynamic food web of aquatic invertebrates in a fully functional miniature ecosystem. The energetic base of this food web consists o...

Understory plant communities play critical ecological roles in forest ecosystems. Both above- and below-ground ecosystem properties and processes influence these communities but relatively little is known about such effects at fine (i.e., one to several meters within-stand) scales, particularly for forests in which the canopy is dominated by a single species. An improved understanding of these ...

Coastal sandy ecosystems are increasingly being threatened by human pressure, causing loss of biodiversity, habitat degradation and landscape modifications. However, there are still very few detailed studies focussing on compositional changes in coastal dune plant communities over time. In this work, we investigated how coastal dune European Union (EU) habitats (from pioneer annual beach commun...

We asked whether wolf re-colonization would facilitate increased growth and reproduction of three browse-sensitive plant species. We hypothesized plant size and the proportion of reproductive individuals would be lowest in areas with no wolves, intermediate where wolves had been present for 4–6 years, and highest where wolves had been present for 12–13 years. Two plant species exhibited signifi...

147 Individual plant respon~es to herbivory were initially investigated to establish prudent guidelines for livestock grazing on pastures and rangelands. A great deal has been learned concerning the effects of defoliation on the morphology, physiology and productivity of important forage and browse species. However, our perception and understanding of individual plant responses to herbivory hav...

environmental stresses are one of the most important factors of agricultural products reduction in the world. the influence of different concentrations of nickel nitrate (0, 100, 200 and 500 μm in hoagland’s solution) on dry matter, catalase enzyme, flavonoids, hydrogen peroxide, peroxidase enzyme, mda and accumulation of ni were studied in coriander ( coriandrum sativum ) plants. treatment wit...

Wetland indicator status (WIS) describes the habitat affinity of plant species and is used in wetland delineations and resource inventories. Understanding how species-level functional traits vary across WIS categories may improve designations, elucidate mechanisms of adaptation, and explain habitat optima and niche. We investigated differences in species-level traits of riparian flora across WI...

Hyperspectral images represent an important source of information to assess ecosystem biodiversity. In particular, plant species richness is a primary indicator of biodiversity. This paper uses spectral variance to predict vegetation richness, known as Spectral Variation Hypothesis. Hierarchical agglomerative clustering is our primary tool to retrieve clusters whose Shannon entropy should refle...