Explore the vast range of titles available.

Aim: Integration of macroecology and palaeoecology is an important trend in understanding rapidly changing marine ecosystems. However, the spatial mismatch between these two data types has led to difficulties in interpretation, particularly for short-lived phytoplankton and their microfossils. Fronts are narrow transition zones between distinct water masses and play an essential role in partitioning phytoplankton assemblages in the ocean. Whether they also delimit microfossil assemblages deposited at the sea floor is unclear. We examined the correlation between quasi-stationary mesoscale fronts and the spatial distribution of microfossils (diatoms, dinoflagellates and silicoflagellates) in the Bohai, Yellow and East China Seas, to establish a causal link between microfossil assemblages and the factors controlling pelagic species assemblages on continental shelves. Location: China. Time period: 2003–2015. Major taxa studied: Phytoplankton. Methods: Front locations were determined using gradient analysis of monthly satellite sea surface temperature (SST) for 2003–2015. Microfossil assemblages were classified using two-way indicator species analysis of the relative abundance of 345 species collected from surface sediments at 126 sites. The relationships between frontal patterns and microfossil assemblages were evaluated by superimposing maps of front location, microfossil distribution and environmental features in the main water masses and by canonical correspondence analysis. Results: Ten major fronts and four primary microfossil assemblages were identified. Analyses of the spatial patterns of fronts, microfossil assemblages, SST, salinity and nutrients revealed that the fronts partitioned the microfossils into assemblage types corresponding to the physicochemical features of the water masses. Main conclusions: Microfossil species assemblages and their indicator species are separated by mesoscale fronts and are correlated with water properties. Producing base maps of microfossil assemblages in relationship to SST fronts enables examination of the importance of quasi-stationary mesoscale fronts in constructing microfossil patterns on continental shelves. The results displayed potential for the interpretation sediment core data and their integration with the macroecological context.

Wild edible food plants (WFPs) are valuable resources in the traditional food systems of many local cultures worldwide, particularly in underdeveloped regions. Understanding patterns of food preferences requires conducting cross-cultural food studies among various ethnic groups in a specific area. In this context, the current study aimed to record WFP use among five ethnic groups in Punjab, Pakistan, by interviewing 175 informants selected through snowball sampling. The indicator food species for different ethnic groups were calculated using indicator analysis based on the percentage of citations. A total of 71 wild food plants (WFPs) belonging to 57 genera and 27 families were observed in the study area. A high proportion of these wild food plants (WFPs) belonged to Fabaceae with eleven species (15%), followed by Moraceae with seven species (9%). Fruits were most widely used (43%), followed by leaves (19%), and shoots (16%). The majority (35 species, 49%) of plants of WFPs were eaten as cooked vegetables. A cross-cultural comparison revealed that four species overlapped among five ethnic groups (Arain, Jutt, Rajpot, Mewati, and Dogar). The Arain ethnic group gathered and consumed a remarkable number of wild plants (35 species), possibly due to a special connection with the general abundance of the local flora, and being close to nature by adopting professions more allied to WFPs in the study area. The analysis of indicator species revealed distinct significant indicator values (p ≤ 0.05) between the main food species among the various ethnic groups. Amaranthus viridis was a common indicator of food in all five ethnic groups, while Ziziphus nammularia was a common indicator food plant of the Mewati, Rajpot, and Jutt ethnic groups; these plants are important in local diets, especially during times of food scarcity brought on by disease or drought. In addition, the current study reports 20 WFPs that have been rarely documented as human food in Pakistan’s ethnobotanical literature. Future development plans should consider biocultural heritage and pay appropriate attention to local ecological knowledge, dynamics, and historical exchanges of traditional food systems.

The Crillon Peninsula is located in the southwest part of Sakhalin Island and is a poorly explored territory. Despite the small size of the peninsula, environmental conditions in different parts of Crillon may vary. The research materials include 58 relevés from the northwest and southeast subregions of the peninsula. Taxonomic analysis was performed; and ecological patterns of meadow vegetation using the indicator scales of DN Tsyganov and IA Tsatsenkin were identified. Indices of species diversity, dominance, evenness, and the Jaccard index of similarity were calculated. The classification was based on a resemblance matrix of relevés calculated with the quantitative Bray–Curtis index. A total of 121 plant species representing 93 genera and 27 families have been found in the meadow ecosystems on the Crillon Peninsula. Five groups of meadow phytocoenoses were distinguished after classification, and nearly all of them are distributed equally in both research locations. The Crillon Peninsula’s north-west subregion has higher species diversity and equitability indices, whereas the southeast subregion has higher dominance indices. According to the results of the indicator analysis, both subregions of the Crillon Peninsula have the identical climatic and edaphic conditions. Statistically significant differences were obtained only for the regimes of climate continentality, harshness of winter, soil nitrogen richness (at p < 0.01) according to DN Tsyganov’s scales, and for indicators of soil richness/salinity and pasture digression (at p < 0.05) according to the scales of IA Tsatsenkin. These differences are explained by the climatic characteristics of the peninsular coasts and human activities. The results obtained allow us to conclude that data from one study location can be carefully extrapolated to the entire Crillon Peninsula. During the extrapolation process the anthropogenic stress and agricultural development should be considered.

Electromobility is the challenge of modern cities. The following article explores this issue. The article presents the authors’ assessment of the impact of sustainable urban mobility indicators on the development of electromobility strategies in cities. The purpose of the paper is to describe which indicators of sustainable urban mobility may influence the development of electromobility strategies in cities by increasing the number of not only low-emission cars (electric and hybrid) and low-emission buses but also public bicycles. The hypothesis posited in the work is: sustainable urban mobility is an important factor in the development of electromobility in cities. Our literature analysis, expert research, and statistical analysis allowed us to prepare a possibly comprehensive set of indicators for sustainable urban mobility that have a potential impact on the development of electromobility strategies. We ran a thematic analysis of systematic literature reviews and collected around 50 specific types of indicators and measures of sustainable mobility. After consulting the indicator database with experts, we expanded a list of 21 indicators of sustainable mobility. Next, using regression analysis, it was determined which of the sustainable urban mobility indicators is the most important for the development of electromobility strategies in the three identified transport systems.

Background Host microbiomes play a role in hormone production and subsequent fertility in humans, but this is less well understood in non-model organisms. This is of particular relevance to species in zoo-based conservation breeding programmes, as relationships between host microbiome composition and reproductive output may allow for the development of microbial augmentation strategies to improve success. Here, we characterise faecal bacterial communities of breeding and non-breeding eastern black rhino ( Diceros bicornis michaeli ) using 16S rRNA gene amplicon sequencing and quantify progestagen and glucocorticoid metabolite concentrations through enzyme immunoassays to identify such relationships. Results We identified significant differences in black rhino gut microbiome composition according to ID, institution, breeding success and ovarian cycle phase. In particular, the gut microbiome during pregnancy and post-parturition was significantly altered. Around a third of bacterial genera showed more than ± 10% correlation with either progestagen and/or glucocorticoid concentration, and in general, microbial genera correlated with both hormones in the same direction. Through a combination of analyses, we identified four genera ( Aerococcaceae , Atopostipes , Carnobacteriaceae and Solobacterium ) that were significantly associated with breeding success, pregnancy and/or post-parturition, and higher faecal progestagen metabolite concentrations. These genera had a lower-than-average relative abundance in the gut microbiome. Conclusion Our results indicate that many members of the gut microbiome of black rhino are associated with hormone production and breeding success, and some members of the rare microbiota appear to be particularly important. Although the directionality of the relationship is unclear, the variation in gut microbiome communities represents a potential biomarker of reproductive health. We identified four genera that were associated with multiple indicators of reproductive output; these could be candidate probiotics to improve the breeding success of black rhino in zoo-based conservation breeding programmes. Further work is required to understand the efficacy and feasibility of this, either directly through microbial augmentation (e.g. probiotics) or indirectly via dietary manipulation or prebiotics.

Agriculture and its allied sector contribute significantly to the gross domestic product of every country. Several small-scale enterprises engaged in waste biomass processing have been setup recently. Such industrial setups not only help in solving the waste management issues but also play an important role in offering employment at the grass root level generating a significant social impact along with economic advantage to the local entrepreneur. Hence, assessment of such biomass processing enterprise (BPE) based on economic, environment, and social parameters has become necessary. In this paper, a general framework for sustainability assessment is discussed using a case study of cow dung–urine biorefinery as a representative BPE. Real-time data of BPE has been collected for evaluation and a sustainability index (SI) is evaluated using multicriteria decision method. The SI is calculated as per the weightage assigned and value function of the indicator and criteria. The SI for the BPE was observed to be 0.69 for the chosen set of criteria and indicator and weightages. A sensitivity analysis has been performed to check the dependence of the results on the weightages assigned to various criteria and indicators. It was also observed that the results were more sensitive to the indicators having a low value function.

We studied the distribution pattern, species diversity and life-form spectra of plant communities along an altitudinal gradient in the mid-section of the northern slopes of Qilianshan Mountains by means of multivariate analyses. Two data sets (167 species x 75 plots, 10 environmental variables x 75 plots), originated from the fieldworks in 1998-1999, were subjected to TWINSPAN and DCCA, resulting in 8 major plant communities: 1) Asterothamnus centraliasiaticus-Halogeton arachnoideus desert grassland on azonal substrates from 1450 to 1600 m and 2) zonal Reaumuria soogorica desert grassland on gravels from 1470 to 1900 m; 3) Stipa przewalskii-Stipa purpurea montane grassland from 2200 to 2900 m; 4) Polygonum viviparum alpine grassland from 2900 to 3700 m; 5) Caragana stenophylla-Ajania fruticulosa dry-warm shrubland from 2350 to 2800 m; 6) Sabina przewalskii mid-wet warm forest from 2700 to 3300 m; 7) Picea crassifolia cold coniferous forest from 2450 to 3200 m; 8) Caragana jubata wet-cold alpine shrubland from 3100 to 3700 m. Species diversity and species richness of both grasslands and forests peaked at the intermediate portion of the elevational gradient. Evenness might be strongly influenced by either biotic or abiotic factors at a local scale, while seems quite independent of an elevational gradient at landscape scales. Beta-diversity decreased from 1500 to 3700 m, indicating that species turnover declined with increased elevation. Both richness of life-form and total species richness in a given altitudinal belt (gamma-diversity) peaked at intermediate elevations, while relative species richness of different life-form varied differently along the altitudinal gradient.

Human communities in forested areas that are expected to experience climate-related changes have received little attention in the scholarly literature on vulnerability assessment. Many communities rely on forest ecosystems to support their social and economic livelihoods. Climate change could alter these ecosystems. We developed a framework that measures social vulnerability to slow-onset climate-related changes in forest ecosystems. We focused on temperate forests because this biome is expected to experience dramatic change in the coming years, with adverse effects for humans. We advance climate change vulnerability science by making improvements to measures of exposure and sensitivity and by incorporating a measure of adaptive capacity. We improved on other methods of assessing exposure by incorporating climate change model projections and thus a temporal perspective. We improved on other methods of assessing sensitivity by incorporating a variable representing interdependency between human populations and forests. We incorporated a measure of adaptive capacity to account for ways socioeconomic conditions might mitigate exposure and sensitivity. Our geographic focus was the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. We found that fifteen of the region's seventy-five counties were highly vulnerable to climate-related changes due to some combination of exposure, sensitivity, and adaptive capacity. Nine counties were highly vulnerable because they ranked very high in terms of exposure and sensitivity and very low in terms of adaptive capacity. The framework we developed could be useful for investigations of vulnerability to climate change in other forested contexts and in other ecological contexts where slow-onset changes might be expected under future climate conditions.

The EU–Mercosur Partnership Agreement (EMPA), whose ratification process started following the European Commission’s decision on 3 September 2025, is one of the EU’s most comprehensive trade agreements. From the outset, it raised serious concerns among environmental organizations about the risk of accelerating deforestation in the Amazon, potentially exacerbated by the liberalization of trade in agricultural products. This article analyzes the problem of enforcing the environmental provisions of the agreement in the context of deforestation. We argue that the effectiveness of these clauses is fundamentally undermined by two interrelated challenges: the limitations of the legal mechanisms enshrined in the agreement and the increasing ambiguity of data used to monitor deforestation. Using statistical analysis of time series (2002–2024)—including Student’s t-test for dependent samples, Spearman rank correlation, and trend regression models—the nature and trend of increasing divergence between two major indicators of deforestation, namely the official Brazilian PRODES and the Global Forest Watch (GFW), were quantified. The results show a systematic and statistically significant discrepancy between indicators, which has structurally widened since 2015. This fundamental ambiguity of data creates a serious “enforcement gap”, allowing us to challenge the scale of the violations and may, in practice, prevent the effective application of the environmental clauses of the agreement, undermining the EU’s policy objectives related to the EUDR and the Green Deal. The article also outlines institutional options to address this enforcement gap by strengthening the transparency, consistency, and evidentiary use of deforestation data in the implementation of the agreement.