biodiversity/biological diversity Species, genetic, and ecosystem diversity in an area, sometimes including associated abiotic components such as landscape features, drainage systems, and climate. diversity indices Measures that describe the different components of biodiversity, such as species richness (alpha diversity), beta and gamma diversity, endemicity, and higher taxon richness. ecosyste...

While urban areas are often considered to be comprised chiefly of artificial surfaces, they can contain a substantial portion of green space and a great diversity of natural habitats. These spaces include public parks, private gardens and street trees, all of which can provide valuable environmental services, such as improved air quality. Trees play a particular role in cities as they are often...

The milpa is a traditional maize-based polyculture in Mexico that is typically practiced as rainfed agriculture. Because milpa cultivation has been practiced over a vast range of environmental and cultural conditions, this agroecosystem is recognized as an important repository of biological and cultural diversity. As for any agroecosystem, the relationship between plant development and the biog...

A numerical method called Multiple Attribute Decision Making (MADM) has been used for rational selection of a cotton harvester out of a finite number of cotton harvesters available the world over. In India, efforts are being made to design and develop a commercial cotton harvester to harvest selected cotton varieties sown by adopting common agronomic practices locally for cotton cultivation. Th...

The effect of seeding depth on emergence of red rice (Oryza sativa) ecotypes from Arkansas (AR), Louisiana (LA), and Mississippi (MS) was determined under dry-seeded rice production in clay and silt loam soils in Arkansas. By 21 d after planting (DAP), all red rice ecotypes had emerged from planting depths of 1.3, 2.5, 5.0, and 7.5 cm in both clay and silt loam soils. In silt loam soil, seedlin...

Tree survival affects forest biodiversity, structure and functioning. However, little is known about feedback effects of biodiversity on its dependence functional traits interannual climatic variability. With an individual-based dataset from a large subtropical experiment, we evaluated how species richness, time-dependent covariates affected annual tree rates age 3–12 (years) after planting 39 ...

currently, a considerable amount of water usage in various sectors of the khorasan razavi province: agriculture and industry etc., is supplied through the restricted underground water resources. however, the current trend of water usage in the various sectors, including agriculture, is a cause for serious concerns regarding the durability of quantity and quality of available water to meet futur...

Let k ≥ 3 be a fixed integer and let Zk(G) be the number of k-colourings of the graph G. For certain values of the average degree, the random variable Zk(G(n,m)) is known to be concentrated in the sense that 1 n (lnZk(G(n,m)) − lnE[Zk(G(n,m))]) converges to 0 in probability [Achlioptas and Coja-Oghlan: Proc. FOCS 2008]. In the present paper we prove a significantly stronger concentration result...

Deforestation leads to the deterioration of soil fertility which occurs rapidly under tropical climates. Forest rehabilitation is one of the approaches to restore soil fertility and increase the productivity of degraded areas. The objective of this study was to evaluate and compare soil biological properties under enrichment planting and secondary forests at Tapah Hill Forest Reserve, Perak aft...

Edamame soybeans are a speciality food item for fresh and processed markets and they are harvested at a physiologically immature (R6) stage. Bean leaf beetle, Cerotoma trifurcata, is a sporadic pest of soybean in Nebraska, however, its pest status and abundance has increased in the recent years due to an increase in soybean acreage. This was a field experiment aimed at determining the populatio...