1. Thermal performance traits are regularly used to make forecasts of the responses of ectotherms to anthropogenic environmental change, but such forecasts do not always differentiate between fundamental and realised thermal niches. 2. Here we determine the relative extents to which variation in the fundamental and realised thermal niches accounts for current variation in species abundance and occupancy and assess the effects of niche-choice on future-climate response estimations. 3. We investigated microclimate and macroclimate temperatures alongside abundance, occupancy, critical thermal limits and foraging activity of 52 ant species (accounting for >95% individuals collected) from a regional assemblage from across the Western Cape Province, South Africa, between 2003 and 2014. 4. Capability of a species to occupy sites experiencing the most extreme temperatures, coupled with breadth of realised niche, explained most deviance in occupancy (up to 75%), while foraging temperature range and body mass explained up to 50.5% of observed variation in mean species abundance. 5. When realised niches are used to forecast responses to climate change, large positive and negative effects among species are predicted under future conditions, in contrast to the forecasts of minimal impacts on all species that are indicated by fundamental niche predictions.
Our changing relationship with the biosphere is one of many anxieties that human society currently confronts. The paradox that some biodiversity that has been moved across the planet by human trade could actually be harmful is unknown to many people. They are either oblivious, or perceive nature as being under threat, rather than as threatening in itself. Consequently workers in the field of invasion science widely acknowledge the need to inform the public about the subtleties surrounding the movement and control of invasive alien species, where some biodiversity can be bad or good, depending on our immediate relationship with those particular organisms. The aspects of South African science and environmental education reviewed for this chapter reveal broad-scale efforts to explain the impacts and intricacies of invasive species; these range from inclusion in school and university curricula, through to exposure on primetime television. Nevertheless, other surveys show that many people remain unaware of the issues around invasive species. Several South African awareness projects reviewed in this chapter conclude that more needs to be done, including further assessment of people's knowledge of and attitudes to invaders. Use of citizen science, as a mechanism for both data
We present evidence that systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) patients, but not other mixed connective tissue disease patients, have been exposed to a retrovirus similar or identical to known human T-lymphotropic viruses (HTLV). Serological studies demonstrated a high incidence of seropositivity in SLE patients to HTLV-I antigens by indirect immunofluorescence and Western blot analysis, and to HTLV-III by Western blot analysis. Furthermore, peripheral blood mononuclear cells from four patients with SLE cultivated in vitro expressed HTLV-I antigens after 3 days or more in culture, and reverse transcriptase activity was detected in supernatants from short-term cultures.
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