We hypothesise that the body shapes of three mudskipper species (Boleophthalmus dussumieri, Periophthalmus waltoni, and Scartelaos tenuis) are ecomorphological adaptations to different epi- and infaunal habitats. We investigated: (i) the association between burrow density and selected ecological variables; (ii) the phylogenetic relationships among these species, based on two mtDNA and one nDNA markers; (iii) their geometric morphometrics and ancestral shape reconstructions, based on two-dimensional landmark configurations; and (iv) their body surface-to-volume ratios (SAV), based on...

Aim: To evaluate how environment and evolutionary history interact to influence global patterns of mammal trait diversity (a combination of 14 morphological and life-history traits). Location: The global terrestrial environment. Taxon: Terrestrial mammals. Methods: We calculated patterns of spatial turnover for mammalian traits and phylogenetic lineages using the mean nearest taxon distance. We then used a variance partitioning approach to establish the relative contribution of trait conservatism, ecological adaptation and clade specific ecological preferences on...

To improve the phytogeographic characterization of peninsular Italy, we analysed and compared the spatial distribution of woody flora at species and genus levels along an approximate 160 km west–east transect within the central peninsula. Sampling sites were selected using a subjective stratified sampling design. A total of 1710 occurrence data, 138 species, and 74 genera from 153 floristic relevés was used. The congruence in species and genera patterns, supported by Mantel and Procrustes tests, confirmed...

Biodiversity includes multiscalar and multitemporal structures and processes, with different levels of functional organization, from genetic to ecosystemic levels. One of the mostly used methods to infer bio- diversity is based on taxonomic approaches and community ecology theories. However, gathering extensive data in the field is difficult due to logistic problems, especially when aiming at modelling biodiversity changes in space and time, which assumes statistically sound sampling schemes. In this context, airborne or satellite remote...

Creative industries constantly strive for fame and popularity. Though highly desirable, popularity is not the only achievement artistic creations might ever acquire. Leaving a longstanding mark in the global production and influencing future works is an even more important achievement, usually acknowledged by experts and scholars. ‘Significant’ or ‘influential’ works are not always well known to the public or have sometimes been long forgotten by the vast majority. In this paper, we focus on the...

Explaining how and why reproductive isolation evolves and determining which forms of reproductive isolation have the largest impact on the process of population divergence are major goals in the study of speciation. By studying recent adaptive radiations in incompletely isolated taxa, it is possible to identify barriers involved at early divergence before other confounding barriers emerge after speciation is complete. Sibling species of the Anopheles gambiae complex offer opportunities to provide insights into speciation mechanisms....

1. In this study, we compare two community modelling approaches to determine their ability to predict the taxonomic, functional and phylogenetic properties of plant assemblages along a broad elevation gradient and at a fine resolution. The first method is the standard stacking individual species distribution modelling (SSDM) approach, which applies a simple environmental filter to predict species assemblages. The second method couples the SSDM and macroecological modelling (MEM - SSDM-MEM) approaches to impose a limit...

Short-term physiological plasticity allows plants to thrive in highly variable environments such as the Mediterranean ecosystems. In such context, plants that maximize physiological performance under favorable conditions, such as Cistus spp., are generally reported to have a great cost in terms of plasticity (i.e. a high short-term physiological plasticity) due to the severe reduction of physiological performance when stress factors occur. However, Cistus spp. also show a noticeable resilience ability in response to stress factors....

During vertebrate neural development, positional information is largely specified by extracellular morphogens. Their distribution, however, is very dynamic due to the multiple roles played by the same signals in the developing and adult neural tissue. This suggests that neural progenitors are able to modify their competence to respond to morphogen signalling and autonomously maintain positional identities after their initial specification. In this work, we take advantage of in vitro culture systems of mouse neural stem/progenitor...