The Caatinga is an exclusively Brazilian biome, and is the largest and most biodiverse Seasonal Tropical Dry Forest in the world. Despite that, the mammalian fauna, especially small mammals, is the least studied of all Brazilian biomes. In order to fill gaps and provide detailed information on small mammals (Didelphimorphia, Rodentia) in the Caatinga biome, we compiled reliable records focusing on richness, composition and som...

Current climate change is disrupting biotic interactions and eroding biodiversity worldwide. However, species sensitive to aridity, high temperatures, and climate variability might find shelter in microclimatic refuges, such as leaf rolls built by arthropods. To explore how the importance of leaf shelters for terrestrial arthropods changes with latitude, elevation, and climate, we conducted a distributed experiment comparing a...

The construction of shelters on plants by arthropods might influence other organisms via changes in colonization, community richness, species composition, and functionality. Arthropods, including beetles, caterpillars, sawflies, spiders, and wasps often interact with host plants via the construction of shelters, building a variety of structures such as leaf ties, tents, rolls, and bags; leaf and stem galls, and hollowed out st...

Feedback on personal exposure to air pollution, noise or extreme temperatures through wearable sensors or sensors installed at home or in the workplace can offer information that might motivate behaviours to mitigate exposure. As personal measurement devices are becoming increasingly accessible, it is important to evaluate the effects of such sensors on human perception and behaviour. We conducted a systematic literature resea...

Global population growth, urbanization, and climate change worsen the immediate environment of many individuals. Elevated concentrations of air pollutants, higher levels of acoustic noise, and more heat days, as well as increasingly complex mixtures of pollutants pose health risks for urban inhabitants. There is a growing awareness of the need to record personal environmental conditions (“the human exposome”) and to study opti...

Rainbow trout ( Oncorhynchus mykiss ) and common carp ( Cyprinus carpio ) are the two most common species in traditional fish farming in Germany. Their aquaculture is threatened upon others by viruses that can cause a high mortality. Therefore, this work focuses on three viruses—viral haemorrhagic septicaemia virus, infectious hematopoietic necrosis virus and cyprinid herpesvirus 3 (CyHV‐3)—that endanger these species. To prev...

Birds are hosts for several zoonotic pathogens. Because of their high mobility, especially of longdistance migrants, birds can disperse these pathogens, affecting their distribution and phylogeography. We focused on Borrelia burgdorferi sensu lato, which includes the causative agents of Lyme borreliosis, as an example for tick‐borne pathogens, to address the role of birds as propagation hosts of zoonotic agents at a large geog...

In a search for alternative, environmentally friendly and effective disinfecting agents, a commercially available protease—Neutrase ® —was tested in this work for inactivation of koi herpesvirus (KHV) and of viral haemorrhagic septicaemia virus (VHSV). For comparison, the stability of these viral pathogens in similar configurations at various pH values and concentrations of peracetic acid or quicklime, typically used for disin...

A new 1 km global IIASA ‐ IFPRI cropland percentage map for the baseline year 2005 has been developed which integrates a number of individual cropland maps at global to regional to national scales. The individual map products include existing global land cover maps such as GlobCover 2005 and MODIS v.5, regional maps such as AFRICOVER and national maps from mapping agencies and other organizations. The different products are ra...