The five Mediterranean regions of the world comprise almost 50,000 plant species (ca 20% of the known vascular plants) despite accounting for less than 5% of the world's land surface. The ecology and evolutionary history of two of these regions, the Cape Floristic Region and the Mediterranean Basin, have been extensively investigated, but there have been few studies aimed at understanding the h...

BACKGROUND Mediterranean lifestyle has long been hailed as protective against certain risk behaviours and diseases. Mediterranean drinking patterns of moderate alcohol consumption as part of daily life have often been assumed to protect young people from harmful alcohol consumption, in contrast to Northern European drinking patterns. Nightlife environments are strong related to alcohol and drug...

The Mediterranean Sea is a highly diverse, highly studied, and highly impacted biogeographic region, yet no phylogenetic reconstruction of fish diversity in this area has been published to date. Here, we infer the timing and geographic origins of Mediterranean teleost species diversity using nucleotide sequences collected from GenBank. We assembled a DNA supermatrix composed of four mitochondri...

Speckled shrimp (Metapenaeus monoceros), is a commercially important prawn in the embayments and estuaries of the Mediterranean Sea. It is originally a Lessepsian species which had migrated from the Red Sea into the Mediterranean Sea through the Suez Canal. This study was carried out in the North-eastern Mediterranean Sea between November 2009 and October 2010 with monthly sampling of speckled ...

speckled shrimp (metapenaeus monoceros), is a commercially important prawn in the embayments and estuaries of the mediterranean sea. it is originally a lessepsian species which had migrated from the red sea into the mediterranean sea through the suez canal. this study was carried out in the north-eastern mediterranean sea between november 2009 and october 2010 with monthly sampling of speckled ...

The term ‘Mediterranean diet’ reflects the dietary patterns characteristic of several countries in the Mediterranean Basin during the early 1960s. The association between greater longevity and reduced mortality and morbidity for coronary heart disease, certain cancers and other nutrition-related diseases, and the common dietary food patterns in these countries, have substantiated this concept. ...

Three species of Synaphris occurring in the East Mediterranean - Synaphris orientalis Marusik & Lehtinen, 2003, Synaphris lehtineni Marusik, Gnelitsa & Kovblyuk, 2005 and Synaphris letourneuxi (Simon, 1884) - are surveyed; and a new species - Synaphris wunderlichisp. n. - is described from southern Israel on the basis of males. The new species differs from other East- Mediterranean congeners by...

BACKGROUND Hypertension can be prevented by adopting healthy dietary patterns. Our aim was to assess the 4-year effect on blood pressure (BP) control of a randomized feeding trial promoting the traditional Mediterranean dietary pattern. METHODS The PREDIMED primary prevention trial is a randomized, single-blinded, controlled trial conducted in Spanish primary healthcare centers. We recruited ...

INTRODUCTION Dietary intake of specific nutrients or food groups during pregnancy could play a role in the risk of asthma and atopy in offspring, but specific dietary patterns have not been implicated. The authors evaluated the impact of maternal (during pregnancy) and child adherence to a Mediterranean diet on asthma and atopy in childhood. METHODS Women presenting for antenatal care at all ...