scholarly journals Checklist of the vascular flora of the Sunda-Sahul Convergence Zone

2020 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elizabeth Joyce ◽  
Kevin Thiele ◽  
Ferry Slik ◽  
Darren Crayn

Background The Sunda-Sahul Convergence Zone, defined here as the area comprising Australia, New Guinea, and Southeast Asia (Indonesia to Myanmar), straddles the Sunda and Sahul continental shelves and is one of the most biogeographically famous and important regions in the world. Floristically, it is thought to harbour a large amount of the world’s diversity. Despite the importance of the area, a checklist of the flora has never before been published. Here we present the first working checklist of vascular plants for the Sunda-Sahul Convergence Zone. The list was compiled from 24 flora volumes, online databases and unpublished plot data. Taxonomic nomenclature was updated, and each species was coded into nested biogeographic regions. The list includes 60,415 species in 5,135 genera and 363 families of vascular plants. New information This is the first species-level checklist of the region and presents an updated census of the region’s floristic biodiversity. The checklist confirms that species richness of the SSCZ is comparable to that of the Neotropics, and highlights areas in need of further documentation and taxonomic work. This checklist provides a novel dataset for studying floristic ecology and evolution in this biogeographically important region of very high global biodiversity.

2020 ◽  
pp. 151-156
Author(s):  
A. P. Korablev ◽  
N. S. Liksakova ◽  
D. M. Mirin ◽  
D. G. Oreshkin ◽  
P. G. Efimov

A new species list of plants and lichens of Russia and neighboring countries has been developed for Turboveg for Windows, the program, intended for storage and management of phytosociological data (relevés), is widely used all around the world (Hennekens, Schaminée, 2001; Hennekens, 2015). The species list is built upon the database of the Russian website Plantarium (Plantarium…: [site]), which contains a species atlas and illustrated an online Handbook of plants and lichens. The nomenclature used on Plantarium was originally based on the following issues: vascular plants — S. K. Cherepanov (1995) with additions; mosses — «Flora of mosses of Russia» (Proect...: [site]); liverworts and hornworts — A. D. Potemkin and E. V. Sofronova (2009); lichens — «Spisok…» G. P. Urbanavichyus ed. (2010); other sources (Plantarium...: [site]). The new species list, currently the most comprehensive in Turboveg format for Russia, has 89 501 entries, including 4627 genus taxa compare to the old one with 32 020 entries (taxa) and only 253 synonyms. There are 84 805 species and subspecies taxa in the list, 37 760 (44.7 %) of which are accepted, while the others are synonyms. Their distribution by groups of organisms and divisions are shown in Table. A large number of synonyms in the new list and its adaptation to work with the Russian literature will greatly facilitate the entry of old relevé data. The ways of making new list, its structure as well as the possibilities of checking taxonomic lists on Internet resources are considered. The files of the species list for Turboveg 2 and Turboveg 3, the technique of associating existing databases with a new species list (in Russian) are available on the web page https://www.binran.ru/resursy/informatsionnyye-resursy/tekuschie-proekty/species_list_russia/.


Author(s):  
Pooja Sharma ◽  
Karan Veer

: It was 11 March 2020 when the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the name COVID-19 for coronavirus disease and also described it as a pandemic. Till that day 118,000 cases were confirmed of pneumonia with breathing problem throughout the world. At the start of New Year when COVID-19 came into knowledge a few days later, the gene sequencing of the virus was revealed. Today the number of confirmed cases is scary, i.e. 9,472,473 in the whole world and 484,236 deaths have been recorded by WHO till 26 June 2020. WHO's global risk assessment is very high [1]. The report is enlightening the lessons learned by India from the highly affected countries.


Author(s):  
Yilmaz Akyüz

The crisis demolished the myth that EDEs were decoupled from advanced economies and BRICS were becoming new engines of global growth. From 2011 onwards, with the end of the twin booms in commodity prices and capital inflows, growth in EDEs has converged downward towards the depressed levels of advanced economies from the very high levels achieved in the run-up to the global crisis and the immediate aftermath. Loss of momentum is particularly visible in economies that failed to manage the earlier booms prudently. In examining the spillovers from policies in major advanced economies and China to EDEs, the chapter introduces the notion of commodity-finance nexus wherein these markets reinforce each other during both expansions and contractions. The chapter concludes with a brief discussion of policies needed to put the world economy into decent shape and to avoid liquidity and debt crises in EDEs.


2020 ◽  
Vol 100 (1) ◽  
pp. 40-55 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert L. Conner ◽  
Greg J. Boland ◽  
Chris L. Gillard ◽  
Yongyan Chen ◽  
Xuechan Shan ◽  
...  

Anthracnose, caused by the fungus Colletotrichum lindemuthianum (Sacc. & Magnus) Briosi & Cavara, is one of the most destructive diseases of dry bean (Phaseolus vulgaris L.) in the world. Between 2005 and 2015, commercial fields of dry beans in Manitoba and Ontario were surveyed to determine the frequency of occurrence of races of the anthracnose fungus. Throughout the study, race 73 was most prevalent in Manitoba and Ontario. However, three anthracnose races not previously reported in Canada also were identified. These three new races and four previously identified anthracnose races were used to screen 52 dry bean cultivars, as well as a mung bean and azuki bean cultivar from Ontario, for their seedling reactions to determine their patterns of race resistance. The dry bean cultivars were classified into a total of 19 resistance spectra based on the pattern of seedling reactions to the seven anthracnose races. The most common resistance spectrum was susceptible to the majority of the anthracnose races and no cultivar was resistant to all of the races. Many bean cultivars produced intermediate anthracnose ratings to races 31 and 105 and tests of 16 dry bean cultivars against those races indicated that all cultivars with intermediate ratings to a specific race were segregating in their seedling reactions and none of the cultivars produced plants with only intermediate anthracnose severity ratings. This study provides new information on the anthracnose reactions of common bean cultivars in Canada, which should be useful for the development of new bean cultivars with durable resistance.


Author(s):  
Ned Augenblick ◽  
Matthew Rabin

Abstract When a Bayesian learns new information and changes her beliefs, she must on average become concomitantly more certain about the state of the world. Consequently, it is rare for a Bayesian to frequently shift beliefs substantially while remaining relatively uncertain, or, conversely, become very confident with relatively little belief movement. We formalize this intuition by developing specific measures of movement and uncertainty reduction given a Bayesian’s changing beliefs over time, showing that these measures are equal in expectation and creating consequent statistical tests for Bayesianess. We then show connections between these two core concepts and four common psychological biases, suggesting that the test might be particularly good at detecting these biases. We provide support for this conclusion by simulating the performance of our test and other martingale tests. Finally, we apply our test to data sets of individual, algorithmic, and market beliefs.


2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Rafaël Govaerts ◽  
Eimear Nic Lughadha ◽  
Nicholas Black ◽  
Robert Turner ◽  
Alan Paton

AbstractThe World Checklist of Vascular Plants (WCVP) is a comprehensive list of scientifically described plant species, compiled over four decades, from peer-reviewed literature, authoritative scientific databases, herbaria and observations, then reviewed by experts. It is a vital tool to facilitate plant diversity research, conservation and effective management, including sustainable use and equitable sharing of benefits. To maximise utility, such lists should be accessible, explicitly evidence-based, transparent, expert-reviewed, and regularly updated, incorporating new evidence and emerging scientific consensus. WCVP largely meets these criteria, being continuously updated and freely available online. Users can browse, search, or download a user-defined subset of accepted species with corresponding synonyms and bibliographic details, or a date-stamped full dataset. To facilitate appropriate data reuse by individual researchers and global initiatives including Global Biodiversity Information Facility, Catalogue of Life and World Flora Online, we document data collation and review processes, the underlying data structure, and the international data standards and technical validation that ensure data quality and integrity. We also address the questions most frequently received from users.


Author(s):  
William C. Leighty ◽  
John H. Holbrook

We must soon “run the world on renewables” but cannot, and should not try to, accomplish this entirely with electricity transmission. We need to supply all energy, not just electricity, from diverse renewable energy (RE) resources, both distributed and centralized, where the world’s richest RE resources — of large geographic extent and high intensity — are stranded: far from end-users with inadequate or nonexistent gathering and transmission systems to deliver the energy. Electricity energy storage cannot affordably firm large, intermittent renewables at annual scale, while carbon-free gaseous hydrogen (GH2) and liquid anhydrous ammonia (NH3) fuels can: GH2 in large solution-mined salt caverns, NH3 in surface tanks, both pressurized and refrigerated. “Smart Grid” is emerging as primarily a DSM (demand side management) strategy to encourage energy conservation. Making the electricity grid “smarter” does not: 1. Increase physical transmission capacity; 2. Provide affordable annual-scale firming storage for RE; 3. Solve grid integration problem for large, time-varying RE; 4. Alleviate NIMBY objections to new transmission siting; 5. Reduce the high O&M costs of overhead electric lines. The “smarter” grid may be more vulnerable to cyberattack. Adding storage, control, and quality adjunct devices to the electricity grid, to accommodate very high renewables content, may be technically and economically inferior to GH2 and NH3 RE systems. Thus, we need to look beyond “smart grid”, expanding our concept of “transmission”, to synergistically and simultaneously solve the transmission, firming storage, and RE integration “balancing” problems now severely constraining our progress toward “running the world on renewables”.


2009 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 23-28 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katarzyna Kubiak

Genetic diversity ofAvena strigosaSchreb. ecotypes on the basis of isoenzyme markersGenetic diversity was analyzed in 19 ecotypes of the diploid oatA. strigosaoriginating from various geographical regions of the world. Six isoenzyme systems (AAT, ACP, EST, LAP, MDH, PX) were studied and 16 loci were identified. Only two loci (Est4andMdh2) were polymorphic. Ecotypes were characterized by the percentage of polymorphic loci (P=3.3%), the mean number of alleles per locus (A=1.04) and intrapopulation diversity (HS=0.013). Total genetic diversity (HT=0.07) and interpopulation diversity (DST=0.057) were examined as well. The value of the coefficient of gene differentiation (GST=0.821) indicated that diversity among populations was an important contributor to total variability. Genetic similarity betweenA. strigosapopulations was very high (IN=0.94). Cluster analysis did not demonstrate strongly differentiated groups among the ecotypes examined.


Ocean Science ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 411-426 ◽  
Author(s):  
D. J. Webb

Abstract. The resonances of Hudson Bay, Foxe Basin and Hudson Strait are investigated using a linear shallow water numerical model. The region is of particular interest because it is the most important region of the world ocean for dissipating tidal energy. The model shows that the semi-diurnal tides of the region are dominated by four nearby overlapping resonances. It shows that these not only affect Ungava Bay, a region of extreme tidal range, but they also extend far into Foxe Basin and Hudson Bay and appear to be affected by the geometry of those regions. The results also indicate that it is the four resonances acting together which make the region such an important area for dissipating tidal energy.


A brief review of the major advances since 1979 in Silurian and Devonian palaeobotany is followed by a preliminary report on a Gedinnian assemblage from the Welsh Borderland. This is dominated by rhyniopsids and includes several species of Cooksonia and Salopella . Spores have been isolated from a number of taxa. The assemblage is used to illustrate the problems of recognition and classification of early vascular plants. Parallel sedimentological and palaeogeographical studies permit speculation on the ecology and life histories of the plants that colonized the Old Red Continent. It is concluded that the lack of well preserved and independently dated assemblages from elsewhere in the world (an exception being the Baragwanathia flora of Australia) prevents the detection of any provincialism in the late Silurian and early Devonian and makes generalizations on the early history of vascular plants premature.


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