Background: Saltational evolution in which a particular lineage undergoes relatively rapid, significant, and unparalleled change as compared with its closest relatives is rarely invoked as an alternative model to the ...

Despite the relative richness of spider species across the Southern Ocean islands remarkably little information is available on their biology. Here, the critical thermal limits of an indigenous (Myro kerguelenensis, Desidae) ...

Background: The number of rodent clades identified above the family level is contentious, and to date, no consensus has been reached on the basal evolutionary relationships among all rodent families. Rodent suprafamilial ...

Background: Oceanography and life-history characteristics are known to influence the genetic structure of marine species, however the relative role that these factors play in shaping phylogeographic patterns remains ...

For tsetse (Glossina spp.), the vectors of human and animal trypanosomiases, the physiological mechanisms linking variation in population dynamics with changing weather conditions have not been well established. Here, we ...

According to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) the development of bioindicators is extremely necessary to achieve the conservation targets by 2010, and insects are considered an effective group for this goal. ...

Biological invasions are a growing problem in South Africa. Many alien species have been introduced for various reasons and through multiple pathways over the past few centuries. Invasive alien reptiles and amphibians ...

The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA) has identified climate change, habitat destruction, invasive species, overexploitation and pollution as the major drivers of biodiversity loss and sources of concern for human ...

The need for taxonomy is imperative as we cannot protect organisms that are not known and which remain unidentified and uncharacterised, thereby limiting our capacity to understand them and to assess the influence of ...

Several controversies currently dominate the fields of arthropod metabolic rate, gas exchange and water balance, including the extent to which modulation of gas exchange reduces water loss, the origins of discontinuous gas ...