Origin and genetic variability of populations of the invasive plant L. in the Giant (Krkonoše) Mountains.

Monk's rhubarb, L. (), is a perennial plant native to the mountains of Central and Southern Europe. Currently, the distribution of has been partly affected by its utilization as a vegetable and a medicinal herb.

Timing and synchrony of birth in Eurasian lynx across Europe.

The ecology and evolution of reproductive timing and synchrony have been a topic of great interest in evolutionary ecology for decades. Originally motivated by questions related to behavioral and reproductive adaptation to environmental conditions, the topic has acquired new relevance in the face of climate change. However, there has been relatively little research on reproductive phenology in mammalian carnivores.

Longitudinal pattern of resource utilization by aquatic consumers along a disturbed subtropical urban river: Estimating the relative contribution of resources with stable isotope analysis.

The utilization of food resources by aquatic consumers reflects the structure and functioning of river food webs. In lotic water systems, where food availability and predator-prey relationships vary with gradient changes in physical conditions, understanding diet assimilation by local communities is important for ecosystem conservation. In the subtropical Liuxi River, southern China, the relative contribution of basal resources to the diet assimilation of functional feeding groups (FFGs) was determined by stable carbon (C) and nitrogen (N) isotope analyses.

Probabilistic Evaluation of Drought in CMIP6 Simulations.

As droughts have widespread social and ecological impacts, it is critical to develop long-term adaptation and mitigation strategies to reduce drought vulnerability. Climate models are important in quantifying drought changes. Here, we assess the ability of 285 CMIP6 historical simulations, from 17 models, to reproduce drought duration and severity in three observational data sets using the Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI).

Diel timing of nest predation changes across breeding season in a subtropical shorebird.

Predation is the most common cause of nest failure in birds. While nest predation is relatively well studied in general, our knowledge is unevenly distributed across the globe and taxa, with, for example, limited information on shorebirds breeding in subtropics. Importantly, we know fairly little about the timing of predation within a day.

Reproductive compatibility among populations and host-associated lineages of the common bed bug ( L.).

As populations differentiate across geographic or host-association barriers, interpopulation fertility is often a measure of the extent of incipient speciation. The bed bug, L., was recently found to form two host-associated lineages within Europe: one found with humans (human-associated, HA) and the other found with bats (bat-associated, BA).

Evidence of ecological niche shift in (L.) in Britain: Hybridization as a possible cause of rapid niche expansion.

Biological invasions threaten global biodiversity and natural resources. Anticipating future invasions is central to strategies for combating the spread of invasive species. Ecological niche models are thus increasingly used to predict potential distribution of invasive species.

Measuring avian specialization.

Measuring the extent to which a species is specialized is a major challenge in ecology, with important repercussions for fundamental research as well as for applied ecology and conservation. Here, we develop a multidimensional index of specialization based on five sets of ecological characteristics of breeding bird species. We used two recent databases of species traits of European birds based on foraging ecology, habitat, and breeding characteristics.

Contagious fear: Escape behavior increases with flock size in European gregarious birds.

Flight initiation distance (FID), the distance at which individuals take flight when approached by a potential (human) predator, is a tool for understanding predator-prey interactions. Among the factors affecting FID, tests of effects of group size (i.e.

Crop-to-wild hybridization in cherries-Empirical evidence from .

Crop cultivation can lead to genetic swamping of indigenous species and thus pose a serious threat for biodiversity. The rare Eurasian tetraploid shrub (ground cherry) is suspected of hybridizing with cultivated allochthonous tetraploid and autochthonous diploid . Three taxa (447 individuals of , 43 of and 73 of ) and their hybrids (198 individuals) were evaluated using analysis of absolute genome size/ploidy level and multivariate morphometrics.