Given the globally declining status of amphibians, understanding why some species are found in heavily modified environments is of considerable interest.
These mutants display modified environments at the so-called Zn2 site or DCH site, reproducing the metal coordination environments of structurally related metallohydrolases.
With necessary caution, the results can be used as a proxy for human diet in the past and reconstructions of anthropogenically modified environments.
Crop weeds develop in highly modified environments and are one of the most severe threats to agriculture worldwide, because their invasive nature determines competition for resources with crops and at the same time they can be hosts for pests and diseases.
A study in Colombia found that habitat degradation negatively affected phlebotomine populations but that medically important sandfly species were able to exploit modified environments (10 ).
Five seropositive yellow pygmy rice rats were captured in modified environments: one was captured along a road border, two were captured in peridomestic environments, and two were captured in shrublands, at <150 m from homes.
