Control of "blue carbon" storage by mangrove ageing: Evidence from a 66-year chronosequence in French Guiana.

The role of mangroves in the blue carbon stock is critical and requires special focus. Mangroves are carbon-rich forests that are not in steady-state equilibrium at the decadal time scale. Over the last decades, the structure and zonation of mangroves have been largely disturbed by coastal changes and land use conversions.

Two disjunct Pleistocene populations and anisotropic postglacial expansion shaped the current genetic structure of the relict plant Amborella trichopoda.

Past climate fluctuations shaped the population dynamics of organisms in space and time, and have impacted their present intra-specific genetic structure. Demo-genetic modelling allows inferring the way past demographic and migration dynamics have determined this structure. Amborella trichopoda is an emblematic relict plant endemic to New Caledonia, widely distributed in the understory of non-ultramafic rainforests.

Multiple innovations underpinned branching form diversification in mosses.

Broad-scale evolutionary comparisons have shown that branching forms arose by convergence in vascular plants and bryophytes, but the trajectory of branching form diversification in bryophytes is unclear. Mosses are the most species-rich bryophyte lineage and two sub-groups are circumscribed by alternative reproductive organ placements. In one, reproductive organs form apically, terminating growth of the primary shoot (gametophore) axis.

Functional Rarity: The Ecology of Outliers.

Rarity has been a central topic for conservation and evolutionary biologists aiming to determine the species characteristics that cause extinction risk. More recently, beyond the rarity of species, the rarity of functions or functional traits, called functional rarity, has gained momentum in helping to understand the impact of biodiversity decline on ecosystem functioning. However, a conceptual framework for defining and quantifying functional rarity is still lacking.

Surveying shrimp aquaculture pond activity using multitemporal VHSR satellite images - case study from the Perancak estuary, Bali, Indonesia.

From the 1980's, Indonesian shrimp production has continuously increased through a large expansion of cultured areas and an intensification of the production. As consequences of diseases and environmental degradations linked to this development, there are currently 250,000ha of abandoned ponds in Indonesia. To implement effective procedure to undertake appropriate aquaculture ecosystem assessment and monitoring, an integrated indicator based on four criteria using very high spatial optical satellite images, has been developed to discriminate active from abandoned ponds.

The database of the PREDICTS (Projecting Responses of Ecological Diversity In Changing Terrestrial Systems) project.

The PREDICTS project-Projecting Responses of Ecological Diversity In Changing Terrestrial Systems (www.predicts.org.

India Biodiversity Portal: An integrated, interactive and participatory biodiversity informatics platform.

Background: This paper describes a growing biodiversity platform, launched in 2008, which organizes knowledge on the biodiversity of India. The main objective and originality of the India Biodiversity Portal (IBP) is to aggregate curated biodiversity data of different kinds (e.g.

What it takes to invade grassland ecosystems: traits, introduction history and filtering processes.

Whether the success of alien species can be explained by their functional or phylogenetic characteristics remains unresolved because of data limitations, scale issues and weak quantifications of success. Using permanent grasslands across France (50 000 vegetation plots, 2000 species, 130 aliens) and building on the Rabinowitz's classification to quantify spread, we showed that phylogenetic and functional similarities to natives were the most important correlates of invasion success compared to intrinsic functional characteristics and introduction history. Results contrasted between spatial scales and components of invasion success.

Alignments? X-ray Diversions, Haptics, Credibility--With a 'Bone-Setting' Clinic in Hyderabad City.

In this article, I engage with the diversions of technologies conventionally used for diagnostic scanning among practitioners who perform fracture-reduction and related manual interventions around bodily pain, ostensibly outside the mainstream orthopedic sector, in the city of Hyderabad, south central India. I attend to the performative dimensions of a technology-practice assemblage, and show how enactments of fracture reduction as viable and credible, targeted at establishment orthopedic surgeons, have been enabled through a distributive agency, afforded by scanning technologies. The use of X-rays and other medical scanning technologies by nonbiomedical practitioners have not displaced haptic and other technics of embodied knowledge, but they have been mobilized in order to create wider recognition of the practitioners' skills.

Beyond ectomycorrhizal bipartite networks: projected networks demonstrate contrasted patterns between early- and late-successional plants in Corsica.

The ectomycorrhizal (ECM) symbiosis connects mutualistic plants and fungal species into bipartite networks. While links between one focal ECM plant and its fungal symbionts have been widely documented, systemic views of ECM networks are lacking, in particular, concerning the ability of fungal species to mediate indirect ecological interactions between ECM plant species (projected-ECM networks). We assembled a large dataset of plant-fungi associations at the species level and at the scale of Corsica using molecular data and unambiguously host-assigned records to: (i) examine the correlation between the number of fungal symbionts of a plant species and the average specialization of these fungal species, (ii) explore the structure of the plant-plant projected network and (iii) compare plant association patterns in regard to their position along the ecological succession.

Vegetation ecology meets ecosystem science: Permanent grasslands as a functional biogeography case study.

The effect of biodiversity on ecosystem functioning has been widely acknowledged, and the importance of the functional roles of species, as well as their diversity, in the control of ecosystem processes has been emphasised recently. However, bridging biodiversity and ecosystem science to address issues at a biogeographic scale is still in its infancy. Bridging this gap is the primary goal of the emerging field of functional biogeography.

Characterizing tropical tree species growth strategies: learning from inter-individual variability and scale invariance.

Understanding how tropical tree species differ in their growth strategies is critical to predict forest dynamics and assess species coexistence. Although tree growth is highly variable in tropical forests, species maximum growth is often considered as a major axis synthesizing species strategies, with fast-growing pioneer and slow-growing shade tolerant species as emblematic representatives. We used a hierarchical linear mixed model and 21-years long tree diameter increment series in a monsoon forest of the Western Ghats, India, to characterize species growth strategies and question whether maximum growth summarizes these strategies.

Compromised: making institutions and indigenous medicine in Mysore State, circa 1908-1940.

This is a study of the emergence of new institutional arenas for ayurveda and yunani medicine, collectivized at the time as 'indigenous medicine,' in a semi-autonomous State (Mysore) in late colonial India. The study argues that the characteristic dimensions of this process were compromise and misalignment between ideals of governance and modes of pedagogy and practice. Running counter to a narrative that the Princely States such as Mysore were instrumental for the 'preservation' of ayurveda, this study analyzes the process of negotiation and struggle between a variety of actors engaged with shaping the direction of institutionalized 'indigenous medicine'.

Honey pollen: using melissopalynology to understand foraging preferences of bees in tropical South India.

The aim of the study was to use melissopalynology to delineate the foraging preferences of bees in tropical environs. This was done by comparing pollen spectra obtained from the same hives every three months for three years at four sampling locations (in two sites) within a confined landscape mosaic. If melissopalynology is highly replicable, the spatial variation of the pollen spectrum from the honey samples would be much more than the temporal (inter-annual) variations.

A chikungunya outbreak in the metropolis of Chennai, India, 2006.

In 2006, several southern states in India reported outbreaks of chikungunya. In the metropolis of Chennai, the first laboratory-confirmed chikungunya cases had an onset of symptoms at the end of May 2006. The authors reviewed surveillance data in which a suspected case of chikungunya was defined as a patient presenting with fever and arthralgia at a medical camp in Chennai on and after June 20, 2006.

Erratum to: Elephants also like coffee: Trends and drivers of human-elephant conflicts in coffee agroforestry landscapes of Kodagu, Western Ghats, India.

Kodagu district produces 2% of the world's coffee, in complex, multistoried agroforestry systems. The forests of the district harbour a large population of the Asian elephant (Elephas maximus). The combined effects of high elephant density and major landscape changes due to the expansion of coffee cultivation are the cause of human-elephant conflicts (HEC).

Elephants also like coffee: trends and drivers of human-elephant conflicts in coffee agroforestry landscapes of Kodagu, Western Ghats, India.

Kodagu district produces 2% of the world's coffee, in complex, multistoried agroforestry systems. The forests of the district harbour a large population of the Asian elephant (Elephas maximus). The combined effects of high elephant density and major landscape changes due to the expansion of coffee cultivation are the cause of human-elephant conflicts (HEC).

Estimating the burden of disease and the economic cost attributable to chikungunya, Andhra Pradesh, India, 2005-2006.

To estimate the burden and cost of chikungunya in India, we searched for cases of fever and joint pain in the village of Mallela, Andhra Pradesh, and collected information on the demography, signs, symptoms, healthcare utilization and expenditure associated with the disease. We estimated the burden of the disease using disability-adjusted life years (DALYs). We estimated direct and indirect costs and made projections for the district and state using surveillance data corrected for under-reporting.

Beta diversity in spatially implicit neutral models: a new way to assess species migration.

The spatially implicit neutral model (SINM) of S. P. Hubbell predicts species' abundance distributions at two levels: local communities where extinction balances immigration, characterized by the immigration number I, and the metacommunity, a source pool of migrants where speciation balances extinction.

Estimating parameters of neutral communities: from one single large to several small samples.

The neutral theory of S. P. Hubbell postulates a two-scale hierarchical framework consisting of a metacommunity following the speciation-drift equilibrium characterized by the "biodiversity number" theta, and local communities following the migration-drift equilibrium characterized by the "migration rate" m (or the "fundamental dispersal number" I).

Precipitation signal in pollen rain from tropical forests, South India.

We have analyzed the pollen content of 51 surface soil samples collected in tropical evergreen and deciduous forests from the Western Ghats of South India sampled along a west to east gradient of decreasing rainfall (between 11 degrees 30-13 degrees 20'N and 75 degrees 30-76 degrees 30'E). Values of mean annual precipitation (Pann, mm/yr) have been calculated at each of the 51 sampling sites from a great number of meteorological stations in South India, using a method of data interpolation based on artificial neural network. Interpolated values at the pollen sites of Pann range from 1200 to 5555mm/yr, while mean temperature of the coldest month (MTCO) remains >15 degrees C and humidity factor (AET/PET, the actual evapotranspiration to potential evapotranspiration ratio) remains also included between 65 and 72%.

Modern pollen rain from the Biligirirangan-Melagiri hills of southern Eastern Ghats, India.

A total of 39 soil surface samples collected between 11 degrees 30'N 76 degrees 45'E and 12 degrees 45'N 78 degrees 15'E from the mainly deciduous forests in the Biligirirangan-Melagiri hills of the southern Eastern Ghats were analysed for their pollen content. The samples are distributed among four different deciduous and evergreen vegetation types between 210 and 1700m altitudes and fall within three distinct rainfall regimes. The aims of this paper are to provide new data on the modern pollen rain from the Southern Eastern Ghats, a region characterized by a unique and complex climate and vegetation, and to interpret these data using multivariate statistics and the diagram of pollen percentages.