Background: To promote the successful and sustainable inclusion of people with disabilities in different activities such as work, more precise job matching efforts may be of value, especially because people with disabilities are employed at a lower rate than people without disabilities. Requirement profiles as well as profile comparisons have not yet been recorded for horticultural work processes.
Objective: The aim of this study was to document precisely the work process of the cuttings production of the flower tradescantia and to compare the capabilities of people with disabilities with the requirements for this work process for the purpose of verifying that the tool employed was usable.
Background: During the manufacture of sucrose from sugar beet, different microorganisms originating from the plant material as well as from the soil enter the process. Due to the formation of polysaccharide-based slimes, these contaminants may induce several adverse effects such as filtration problems during juice purification. Certain microorganisms also metabolize sucrose, leading to product losses with financial consequences.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of ampicillin, an organic acid-based feed additive and a synbiotic preparation on the prevalence of antibiotic-resistant E. coli in the ceca of broilers. A total of 2000 broiler chickens (Ross 708) were randomly assigned to 5 groups with 8 replicates.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFCryptic species are morphologically very similar to each other. To what extent stasis or convergence causes crypsis and whether ecology influences the evolution of crypsis has remained unclear. The Tetramorium caespitum complex is one of the most intricate examples of cryptic species in ants.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSpecies identification-of importance for most biological disciplines-is not always straightforward as cryptic species hamper traditional identification. Fibre-optic near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) is a rapid and inexpensive method of use in various applications, including the identification of species. Despite its efficiency, NIRS has never been tested on a group of more than two cryptic species, and a working routine is still missing.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFA major issue for water resource management is the assessment of environmental degradation of lotic ecosystems. The overall aim of this study is to develop a multi-metric fish index for the cyprinid streams of the Caspian Sea Basin (MMICS) in Iran. As species diversity and composition as well as population structure in the studied streams are different to other regions, there is a substantial need to develop a new fish index.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFCurrent science evaluation still relies on citation performance, despite criticisms of purely bibliometric research assessments. Biological taxonomy suffers from a drain of knowledge and manpower, with poor citation performance commonly held as one reason for this impediment. But is there really such a citation impediment in taxonomy? We compared the citation numbers of 306 taxonomic and 2291 non-taxonomic research articles (2009-2012) on mosses, orchids, ciliates, ants, and snakes, using Web of Science (WoS) and correcting for journal visibility.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFToday, the comparative analysis of DNA molecules mainly uses information inferred from nucleotide substitutions. Insertion/deletion (INDEL) mutations, in contrast, are largely considered uninformative and discarded, due to our lacking knowledge on their evolution. However, including rather than discarding INDELs would be relevant to any research area in ecology and evolution that uses molecular data.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPlant root systems have a key role in ecology and agronomy. In spite of fast increase in root studies, still there is no classification that allows distinguishing among distinctive characteristics within the diversity of rooting strategies. Our hypothesis is that a multivariate approach for "plant functional type" identification in ecology can be applied to the classification of root systems.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMitopus morio is a widespread harvestman species occurring in most of Europe and in moderate and cold-moderate zones of Asia and North America. The species is characterized by extreme variability in body size and leg length. As leg length is correlated with habitat temperature, M.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFWolbachia are wide-spread, endogenous α-Proteobacteria of arthropods and filarial nematodes. 15-75% of all insect species are infected with these endosymbionts that alter their host's reproduction to facilitate their spread. In recent years, many insect species infected with multiple Wolbachia strains have been identified.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFProc Natl Acad Sci U S A
January 2008
Mutualism, whereby species interact to their mutual benefit, is extraordinary in a competitive world. To recognize general patterns of origin and maintenance from the plethora of mutualistic associations proves a persisting challenge. The simplest situation is believed to be that of a single mutualist specific to a single host, vertically transmitted from one host generation to the next.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAn ant supercolony is a very large entity with very many queens. Although normal colonies of small extent and few queens remain distinct, a supercolony is integrated harmoniously over a large area [1, 2]. The lack of aggression is advantageous: Aggression is costly, involving direct and indirect losses and recognition errors [3, 4].
View Article and Find Full Text PDFDiversity of ants of the Tetramorium caespitum/impurum complex was investigated in a multidisciplinary study. Focusing on morphologically hardly distinguishable Western Palearctic samples, we demonstrate the genetic and phenotypic diversity, demarcate phylogenetic entities, and discuss the clades in terms of biogeography. Sequences of 1113bp of the mitochondrial COI gene revealed 13 lineages.
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