Marine caves are biodiversity reservoirs and refuge habitats, harbouring rare species and
living fossils. The Mediterranean Sea hosts more than 3000 caves, which are among the …

Cave animals are excellent models to study the general principles of evolution as well as the
mechanisms of adaptation to a novel environment: the perpetual darkness of caves. In this …

The second edition of this widely cited textbook continues to provide a concise but
comprehensive introduction to cave and subterranean biology, describing this fascinating …

The use of semi‐isolated habitats such as oceanic islands, lakes and mountain summits as
model systems has played a crucial role in the development of evolutionary and ecological …

While grounded in the hard sciences of physics, chemistry, geology, and astronomy, as well
as well-accepted principles in the life sciences, astrobiology remains the most speculative of …

Context A landscape is defined as a “system of ecosystems” and this is a model in which
karst areas can easily be integrated. In karst areas, much of the connectivity between the …

Background An emerging cavefish model, the cyprinid genus Sinocyclocheilus, is endemic
to the massive southwestern karst area adjacent to the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau of China. In …

Extreme selective environments are commonly believed to funnel evolution toward a few
predictable outcomes. Caves are well-known extreme environments with characteristically …

To date, the highly adapted cave microbial communities are challenged by the expanding
anthropization of these subterranean habitats. Although recent advances in characterizing …

Subterranean ecosystems present ideal opportunities to study mechanisms underlying
responses to changes in climate because species within them are often adapted to a largely …