Is this the first time there has been a fire of this magnitude? If there have been fires like this before, what damage was done to the mountain’s vegetation and how long did it take it to recover? Fires are quite common in the higher areas of Kilimanjaro at the end of the dry seasons […]
Species distribution models (SDM) are computer algorithms that relate species distribution, occurrence or abundance, with information on environmental conditions and spatial characteristics of locations where the species has been, or is suspected to be, found. These models can be used to predict or to have a better understanding of the species distribution, and are widely […]
Author: Teresa E. Gimeno is an Ikerbasque Research Fellow at The Basque Centre for Climate Change One of the expected effects of rising atmospheric CO 2 concentration in the atmosphere is an increase in plant water use efficiency. This is due to the expected enhancement of photosynthesis under future atmospheric CO 2 concentrations, together with […]
Doñana National Park, at the South-western coast of Spain, is known to host several species of wading birds. These piscivorous birds nest in colonies in the neighboring woodlands, formed by cork oaks, close to the marshals where they feed. Ever since the park was opened, the population and nesting of birds, most of them endangered […]
Prolonged exposure to sunlight is not recommended. Even though is really important to synthesize vitamin D which helps us absorbing calcium or phosphate and maintain a mineralized skeleton, the effects of sun´s ultraviolet radiation (mainly UVA and UVB) can be prejudicial in the long term. Main issues may be sunburn (UVB), reduced skin elasticity leading […]
Today is Monday morning and I am going to my laboratory in Niteroi by ferryboat. I took it from the XV Square of Rio de Janeiro. I am looking through the window of the ferryboat and I see one of the most beautiful pictures of the city – the Guanabara Bay (GB). Cariocas (people from […]
Brood parasites are organisms that rely on others to raise their young. The strategy appears among fishes, birds and insects, including some species of ants. Slave-making ants capture brood from other ant species to increase the worker force of their colony through regular, destructive raids that frequently finish with the killing of many workers and […]
Nitrogen (N) is an essential nutrient for plant growth and most plants require 20-50 g of N taken up by their roots to produce 1 kg of dry biomass. Although N is one of the most abundant elements on earth, agricultural soils are deficient in N and thus, to sustain crops productivity soils require their […]
Bottles, bags, toys, clothes, prostheses… plastic is everywhere. Its global production has reached the quantity of 288,000,000 tonnes in 2012 . Day to day and year after year we only manage to get rid of a fraction of it by recycling, reusing or storing it in dumps but, sadly, some of that plastic ends up […]