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Soil pH is one of the most influential factors for the composition of bacterial and fungal communities, but the influence of soil pH on the distribution and composition of soil archaeal communities has yet to be systematically addressed. The primary aim of this study was to determine how total archaeal abundance (qPCR based estimates of 16S rRNA gene copy numbers) is related to soil pH across a pH

Cinnamoyl-CoA reductase (CCR), an enzyme central to the lignin biosynthetic pathway, represents a promising biotechnological target to reduce lignin levels and to improve the commercial viability of lignocellulosic biomass. However, silencing of the CCR gene results in considerable flux changes of the general and monolignol-specific lignin pathways, ultimately leading to the accumulation of variou

Although hypothesized for many years, the involvement of ectomycorrhizal fungi in decomposition of soil organic matter remains controversial and has not yet been fully acknowledged as an important factor in the regulation of soil carbon (C) storage. Here, we review recent findings, which support the view that some ectomycorrhizal fungi have the capacity to oxidize organic matter, either by brown-r

Disentangling the relative importance and potential interactions of selection and genetic drift in driving phenotypic divergence of species is a classical research topic in population genetics and evolutionary biology. Here, we evaluate the role of stochastic and selective forces on population divergence of a colour polymorphism in seven damselfly species of the genus Ischnura, with a particular f

Summary *Here, species composition and biomass production of actively growing ectomycorrhizal (EM) mycelia were studied over the rotation period of managed Norway spruce (Picea abies) stands in south-western Sweden. *The EM mycelia were collected using ingrowth mesh bags incubated in the forest soil during one growing season. Fungal biomass was estimated by ergosterol analysis and the EM species w

Animals with color vision use color information in intra- and interspecific communication, which in turn may drive the evolution of conspicuous colored body traits via natural and sexual selection. A recent study found that the transparent wings of small flies and wasps in lower-reflectance light environments display vivid and stable structural color patterns, called "wing interference patterns" (

A detailed understanding of the influence of temperature on soil microbial activity is critical to predict future atmospheric CO2 concentrations and feedbacks to anthropogenic warming. We investigated soils exposed to 3-4 years of continuous 5 degrees C-warming in a field experiment in a temperate forest. We found that an index for the temperature adaptation of the microbial community, T-min for b

Soil nitrogen (N) availability constrains future predictions of ecosystem primary productivity and carbon storage. The progressive N limitation (PNL) hypothesis predicts that forest net primary productivity (NPP) will decline with age, and that the response of NPP to elevated CO2 will attenuate through time due to negative feedbacks of NPP on the soil N cycle. A central assumption of the PNL hypot

Our knowledge about how the environment influences sexual selection regimes and how ecology and sexual selection interact is still limited. We performed an integrative study of wing pigmentation in calopterygid damselflies, combining phylogenetic comparative analyses, field observations and experiments. We investigated the evolutionary consequences of wing pigmentation for sexual dimorphism, speci

Introduction Many studies deal with taxonomic diversity (TD) or estimation of functional traits of ectomycorrhizal communities. However, to our knowledge, none of them has ever tried to calculate the functional diversity (FD) of those communities, which is of critical importance for the diversity and reliability of nutrient supply to the tree. Objectives Here, we propose to evaluate the functional

The theme of the Internet and the public sphere now has a permanent place on research agendas and in intellectual inquiry; it is entering the mainstream of Political communication studies. The first part of this presentation briefly pulls together key elements in the public sphere perspective, underscoring three main analytic dimensions: the structural, the representational, and the interactional.

Coexistence between great tits Parus major and blue tits Cyanistes caeruleus, but also other hole-nesting taxa, constitutes a classic example of species co-occurrence resulting in potential interference and exploitation competition for food and for breeding and roosting sites. However, the spatial and temporal variations in coexistence and its consequences for competition remain poorly understood.

Here, we explore the interdisciplinary merits of the ecosystem services concept by recruiting the notion of economics imperialism. We identify four different ways in which interdisciplinary concepts can fail as interdisciplinary concepts, three of which are associated with imperialism. First, interdisciplinary concepts can fail to be integrative, typically by being overtly flexible or vague. The r