Body size latitudinal clines have been widley explained by the Bergmann’s rule in homeothermic vertebrates. However, there is no general consensus in poikilotherms organisms in particular in insects that represent the large majority of wildlife. Among them, bees are a highly diverse pollinators group with high economic and ecological value. Nevertheless, no comprehensive studies of species assemblages at a phylogenetically larger scale have been carried out even if they could identify the traits and the...

Forest ecosystems are an integral component of the global carbon cycle as they take up and release large amounts of C in short time (C flux) or accumulate it over longer time (C stock). However, there remains uncertainty about whether and in which direction C fluxes and in particular C stocks may differ between forests of high vs. low species richness. Based on a comprehensive dataset derived from field-based measurements, we tested the effect of...

Objective: The aim of this study was to expand the spectrum of epilepsy syndromes related to STX1B, encoding the presynaptic protein syntaxin-1B, and establish genotype-phenotype correlations by identifying further disease-related variants. Methods: We used next generation sequencing in the framework of research projects and diagnostic testing. Clinical data and EEGs were reviewed, including already published cases. To estimate the pathogenicity of the variants, we used established and newly developed in silico prediction tools. Results: We...

Kelbra Reservoir is a shallow lowland reservoir (approx. 35 Mio. m³ volume; max. depth 5,5 m, mean depth 3.5 m; surface area 600 ha), which was constructed 1962-1966 for flood protection for the downstream reaches of the river “Helme” and came into operation 1969. It is also used for irrigation and recreational purposes. Until the beginning of the 1990s, the production of carp was also initiated and played an important role (Ziemann 1986). Immediately after...

The classic methodology of inferring a phylogenetic tree from sequence data is composed of two steps. First, a multiple sequence alignment (MSA) is computed. Then, a tree is reconstructed assuming the MSA is correct. Yet, inferred MSAs were shown to be inaccurate and alignment errors reduce tree inference accuracy. It was previously proposed that filtering unreliable alignment regions can increase the accuracy of tree inference. However, it was also demonstrated that the benefit of this...

Lake Geiseltal is the largest lake of Saxony-Anhalt and the largest artificial lake of Germany (max. depth 78 m; mean depth 22.8 m; volume 423 Mio. m³; surface area 1853 ha) and can be classified as oligotrophic. It was created by the excavation of lignite in several former surface mines starting at industrial scale in 1906 (formerly only small-scale mining dated back to 1698; Knochenhauer 1996). Mining stopped 1993 after 1.4*109 tons of lignite and...

Landscape corridors mitigate the negative effects of habitat fragmentation by increasing dispersal. Corridors also increase biodiversity in connected habitat fragments, suggestive of metacommunity dynamics. What is unknown in this case is the mechanisms through which metacommunity dynamics act. Working in a large-scale fragmentation experiment, we tested the effect of corridors on the movement of prey species and subsequent effects on predator nutrition (which we call trophic subsidies). We enriched plants of central patches with 15N,...

Recombination between loci underlying mate choice and ecological traits is a major evolutionary force acting against speciation with gene flow. The evolution of linkage disequilibrium between such loci is therefore a fundamental step in the origin of species. Here, we show that this process can take place in the absence of physical linkage in hamlets—a group of closely related reef fishes from the wider Caribbean that differ essentially in colour pattern and are reproductively isolated...

The idea that noncrop habitat enhances pest control and represents a win–win opportunity to conserve biodiversity and bolster yields has emerged as an agroecological paradigm. However, while noncrop habitat in landscapes surrounding farms sometimes benefits pest predators, natural enemy responses remain heterogeneous across studies and effects on pests are inconclusive. The observed heterogeneity in species responses to noncrop habitat may be biological in origin or could result from variation in how habitat and biocontrol are...