The Armenian highlands encompasses rugged and environmentally diverse landscapes and is characterized by a mosaic of distinct ecological niches and large temperature gradients. Strong seasonal fluctuations in resource availability along topographic gradients likely prom...

Sparidae (Teleostei: Spariformes) are a family of fish constituted by approximately 150 species with high popularity and commercial value, such as porgies and seabreams. Although the phylogeny of this family has been investigated multiple times, its position among other...

The catfish family Siluridae contains 107 described species distributed in Asia, but with some distributed in Europe. In this study, karyotypes and other chromosomal characteristics of 15 species from eight genera were examined using conventional and molecular cytogenet...

We present the first cytogenetic data for Lebiasina bimaculata and L. melanoguttata with the aim of (1) investigating evolutionary events within Lebiasina and their relationships with other Lebiasinidae genera and (2) checking the evolutionary relationships between Lebi...

D.Y.S. was supported by Gravitation-SIAM Program (grant 24002002, Dutch Ministry of Education and Science) and by RFBR (grant 16-04-00035). K.S.M., Y.I.W. and E.V.K. are supported by the intramural program of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (to the Nati...

Phragmites australis is a cosmopolitan grass and often the dominant species in the ecosystems it inhabits. Due to high intraspecific diversity and phenotypic plasticity, P. australis has an extensive ecological amplitude and a great capacity to acclimate to adverse envi...

AbstractThe origin and dispersal of the domestic cat remain elusive despite its importance to human societies around the world. Archaeological evidence for domestication centers in the Near East and in Egypt is contested, and genetic data on modern cats show thatFelis s...

Background Micronucleus (MN) assay is a well standardized approach for evaluation of clastogenic/aneugenic effects of mutagens. Fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) is successfully used to characterize the chromosomal content of MN. However, the relationships betwe...

Reliable taxonomy underpins communication in all of biology, not least nature conservation and sustainable use of ecosystem resources. The flexibility of taxonomic interpretations, however, presents a serious challenge for end-users of taxonomic concepts. Users need sta...

AbstractLake El'gygytgyn is situated in a 3.6 Ma old impact crater in northeastern Siberia. Presented here is a reconstruction of the Quaternary lake-level history as derived from sediment cores from the southern lake shelf. There, a cliff-like bench 10 m below the mode...