ABSTRACT: Species functional traits provide critical insights into how organisms interact with and respond to their environment. Key characteristics, such as body size, dispersal ability and trophic specialisation influence species' survival, reproduction and adaptability. Island ecosystems, particularly oceanic archipelagos like the Azores, serve as ideal natural laboratories for studying these traits due to t...
ABSTRACT: Agricultural expansion, a leading driver of biodiversity loss, has widespread effects on ecosystem services, particularly in tropical regions. In West Africa, the impact of intensified agriculture on local biodiversity – especially predator and decomposer species like spiders and ants – is understudied. This study aims to provide a checklist of terrestrial spiders and ants associated with savannahs an...
ABSTRACT: Beneath the Earth's surface lies a network of interconnected caves, voids, and systems of fissures forming in rocks of sedimentary, igneous, or metamorphic origin. Although largely inaccessible to humans, this hidden realm supports and regulates services critical to ecological health and human well-being. Subterranean ecosystems are integral to major biogeochemical cycles, sustain diverse surface habi...
The accurate measurement of audience engagement in real-world live events remains a significant challenge, with the majority of existing research confined to controlled environments like classrooms. This paper presents a comprehensive survey of Computer Vision AI-driven methods for real-time audience engagement monitoring and proposes a novel, holistic architecture to address this gap, with this architecture be...
The accurate measurement of audience engagement in real-world live events remains a significant challenge, with the majority of existing research confined to controlled environments like classrooms. This paper presents a comprehensive survey of Computer Vision AI-driven methods for real-time audience engagement monitoring and proposes a novel, holistic architecture to address this gap, with this architecture be...
Sarcomas are a rare and heterogeneous group of mesenchymal malignant tumors and account for approximately 1% of all adult cancers and around 20% of all pediatric solid tumors in Europe. Technology advances have enabled a more accurate and efficient characterization of the molecular mechanisms underlying the pathogenesis of sarcoma subtypes and revealed novel and unexpected therapeutic targets with prognostic/pr...
ABSTRACT: Aim Oceanic islands are known for being home to drastically different communities compared to the mainland, as their isolation and limited area significantly favour clades able to travel long distances over water. On spiders, this happens mainly, although not exclusively, through ballooning whose propensity is unevenly distributed across species and requires specific conditions, possibly influencing t...
ABSTRACT: Oceanic islands, recognised for their isolation, high endemic species richness and unique evolutionary paths compared with their continental counterparts, are extremely susceptible to anthropogenic activities. The fragmentation of island habitats and disruption of native ecosystems has increased the risk of extinction for many endemic species, including arthropods. Extinction is not random, and some s...
ABSTRACT: While between-habitat comparisons are commonplace in ecology, we know very little about the changes among species assemblages within habitats. Here we aimed to examine within-habitat processes in spider assemblages across three elevations in tropical forests, using a design tailored both geographically and methodologically for this purpose. We hypothesised greater within-habitat βTD (caused by lower c...