West Nile fever is a disease caused by West Nile Virus (WNV), which is a flavivirus related to the viruses that cause St. Louis encephalitis, Japanese encephalitis, and yellow fever. It causes disease in humans, horses, and several species of birds. Most infected individuals show few signs of illness, but some develop severe neurological illness which can be fatal. West Nile Virus has an extremely broad host range. It replicates in birds, reptiles, amphibians, mammals, mosquitoes and ticks. (https://www.woah.org/en/disease/west-nile-fever/)
Chertification is a diagenetic process that converts carbonate sediments into chert. Cherts are composed of microcrystalline quartz that contains abundant water that is dispersed interstitially between the crystals. (Society for Sedimentary Geology. http://www.sepmstrata.org/page.aspx?pageid=100)
Biosaline agriculture is the production and growth of plants in saline rich groundwater and/or soil. (Masters, David G.; Benes, Sharon E.; Norman, Hayley C. (March 2007). "Biosaline agriculture for forage and livestock production". Agriculture, Ecosystems & Environment. 119 (3–4): 234–248.)
Christmas Island, officially known as the Territory of Christmas Island, is an Australian external territory comprising the island of the same name. It is located in the Indian Ocean. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas_Island)
Rhipicephalus bursa is a multi-host tick that is mainly associated with ruminants, but it can occasionally parasitize other animals such as wild ungulates and small mammals. (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5945973/)
Side scan sonar is a category of sonar system that is used to efficiently create an image of large areas of the sea floor. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Side-scan_sonar)
A vitamin that can dissolve in water. Vitamins are nutrients that the body needs in small amounts to stay healthy and work the way it should. Water-soluble vitamins are carried to the body's tissues but are not stored in the body. They are found in many plant and animal foods and in dietary supplements and must be taken in daily. Vitamin C and members of the vitamin B complex are water-soluble. (National Cancer Institute, 2025. NCI Dictionary of Cancer Terms. Water-soluble vitamin. https://www.cancer.gov/publications/dictionaries/cancer-terms/def/water-soluble-vitamin)
Biological invasions (bioinvasions), in the broad sense, are the movements of organisms to areas where they did not previously occur. This includes natural slow gradual spread and natural rapid expansion due to unusual geological or climatic events. (P. Snoeijs-Leijonmalm et al. (eds.), Biological Oceanography of the Baltic Sea, DOI 10.1007/978-94-007-0668-2_5)
Note
Biological invasion is typically seen as a disruptive force in ecosystems, whereas migration is a natural phenomenon essential for the survival and adaptation of many species.
A hot spring is a discharge of hot (>35–40°C) water from a vent at the Earth’s surface. (Jones, B., Renaut, R.W. (2011). Hot Springs and Geysers. In: Reitner, J., Thiel, V. (eds) Encyclopedia of Geobiology. Encyclopedia of Earth Sciences Series. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-9212-1_103)
A non-Newtonian fluid is a fluid that does not follow Newton's law of viscosity, i.e., constant viscosity independent of stress. In non-Newtonian fluids, viscosity can change when under force to either more liquid or more solid. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-Newtonian_fluid)
A manure contract is an agreement where the herders supply the animals' manure to the farmers' land. (FAO. 2003. Multilingual Thesaurus on Land Tenure. https://openknowledge.fao.org/handle/20.500.14283/x2038e )
