An international team analyzes for the first time how indirect interactions in mutualistic network shape species fitness and, therefore, their reproductive success and conservation,
The loss of species and their interactions, both directs and indirects, have ecological and evolutionary consequences.

what are the processes that have originated this high diversity in the tropics? Researchers of the Doñana Biological Station – CSIC wanted to address this question in their latest study, looking into the drivers that have originated this high diversity of shrews in the tropics, specifically in Sundaland, South-East Asia. The work has been carried out in collaboration with scientists from Geneva, Harvard and Smithsonian museums and Sabah Parks (Malaysia).

Parasitoid wasps may act as hyperparasites and sometimes regulate the populations of their hosts by a top-down dynamic. Nasonia vitripennis is a generalist gregarious parasitoid that parasitizes several host flies, including the blowfly Protocalliphora, which in turn parasitizes bird nestlings. Nonetheless, the ecological factors underlying N. vitripennis prevalence and parasitoidism intensity on its hosts in natural populations are poorly understood. The prevalence of N. vitripennis in...

A novel analytical methodology for the determination and extraction of catecholamines (dopamine, epinephrine and norepinephrine) and their metabolites DL-3,4-dihydroxyphenyl glycol and DL-3,4-dihydroxymandelic acid by LC-MS is here developed and validated for application to human and animal urine and hair samples.

When a population shows a marked morphological change, it is important to know whether that population is genetically distinct; if it is not, the novel trait could correspond to an adaptation that might be of great ecological interest. Here, a subspecies of water shrew, Neomys fodiens niethammeri, which is found in a narrow strip of the northern Iberian Peninsula was studied.