Multiscale mapping of species diversity under changed land use using imaging spectroscopy.

Land use changes are one of the most important factors causing environmental transformations and species diversity alterations. The aim of the current study was to develop a geoinformatics-based framework to quantify alpha and beta diversity indices in two sites in Israel with different land uses, i.e.

Morphological variation in the oral disc of the scleractinian coral Favia speciosa (Dana) at Indonesia.

Photographic analysis was used to examine morphological differences in the oral disc of n=1196 living polyps of Favia speciosa Dana (1846) sampled from four sites in the Wakatobi Marine National Park, Indonesia. Although oral disc size attributes differed significantly between the study sites, the geographic difference accounted for only a small fraction of the morphological variation and did not show a clear pattern of correspondence to sedimentation rates. A much higher fraction of the morphological variation was attributed to depth and so to incident light: oral discs grew significantly larger with increasing depth.