Search results for " Invasion"
showing 10 items of 162 documents
Current Status of and Threats to Sicilian Turtles
2022
Based on the critical review of the literature published in the last 22 years, an attempt was made to evaluate the current knowledge gap on the distribution and status of the native Testudines taxa occurring in Sicily (namely Caretta caretta, Emys trinacris, and Testudo hermanni hermanni), as well as the available knowledge of the only non-native species with putative viable populations occurring on the island, i.e., Trachemys scripta. Summarizing the current information, all of the Testudines species occurring in Sicily showed a fragmented and incompletely-known distribution, and only scarce data are available about their phenology. Moreover, despite their inclusion of international and na…
Ghost cell odontogenic carcinoma: a rare case report and review of literature
2014
Objectives: Ghost cell odontogenic carcinoma is a rare condition characterized by ameloblastic-like islands of epithelial cells with aberrant keratinitation in the form of Ghost cell with varying amounts of dysplastic dentina. Material and Methods: We report a case of a 70 year-old woman with a rapid onset of painful swelling right maxillary tumor. Magnetic resonance showed a huge tumor dependent on the right half of the right hard palate with invasion of the pterygoid process and focally to the second branch of the trigeminal. Radiological stage was T4N0. The patient underwent a right subtotal maxillectomy with clear margins. Adjuvant radiotherapy was given. The patient was free of residua…
Correlation study of GAPDH, Bcl-2, and Bax protein immunoexpression in patients with colorectal adenocarcinoma.
2018
Introduction Colorectal cancer (CRC) is the third and second most commonly diagnosed cancer worldwide in males and females, respectively. Despite prominent progress in diagnosis and treatment, the recurrence rates are still high. A tumour hypoxic environment leads to an increase in glycolytic metabolism. The crucial intermediate component of glycolysis, glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase (GAPDH), could play a significant role in cancer progression. An increased level of GAPDH has been described in oncogene-induced transformation and anti-apoptotic function. In other studies, GAPDH has been involved in apoptosis induction. Aim We examined colorectal adenocarcinoma samples to assess the…
Molecular data attest to the occurrence of autochthonous Daphnia pulex (Crustacea, Branchiopoda) populations in Sicily, Italy
2021
Biological invasions are known to be among the most important threats to the long-term conservation of native biota, and their effects might be even more difficult to contrast when they are cryptic, i.e., when the non-native invaders cannot be easily recognised based on morphology, and can thus be confused with native taxa. Such cryptic invasions are known to widely occur in the cladoceran genus Daphnia O.F. Müller, 1785, so that the actual distribution and status of most species and lineages need to be checked with a genetic approach. In the frame of this work, we investigated if the Sicilian populations of D. (Daphnia) pulex Leydig, 1860 belonged to the allochthonous North American lineag…
Invasion biology in non‐free‐living species: interactions between abiotic (climatic) and biotic (host availability) factors in geographical space in …
2013
In invasion processes, both abiotic and biotic factors are considered essential, but the latter are usually disregarded when modeling the potential spread of exotic species. In the framework of set theory, interactions between biotic (B), abiotic (A), and movement-related (M) factors in the geographical space can be hypothesized with BAM diagrams and tested using ecological niche models (ENMs) to estimate A and B areas. The main aim of our survey was to evaluate the interactions between abiotic (climatic) and biotic (host availability) factors in geographical space for exotic symbionts (i.e., non-free-living species), using ENM techniques combined with a BAM framework and using exotic Entoc…
Loss of a freshwater copepod species from El Junco Lake, Galápagos following the introduction and eradication of the Nile tilapia
2021
An undescribed diaptomid copepod probably belonging to a new Mastigodiaptomus species has been discovered and was very abundant in El Junco Lake (San Cristóbal Island, Ecuador) from 1966 until 2004. The species was not found in samples from 2007, 2008 or 2018. The loss of this key species from the lake coincides with the illegal introduction of Nile tilapia to El Junco Lake in 2005 and its subsequent eradication in 2008. The disappearance of this biogeographically and ecologically important copepod population may be explained by direct mechanisms of predation and competition, by a combination of both processes, and by indirect mechanisms linked to alterations in the lake ecosystem. The effe…
New Data on Native and Alien Vascular Flora of Sicily (Italy): New Findings and Updates
2023
In this paper, based on fieldwork and herbaria surveys, new data concerning the presence of 32 native and alien vascular species for Sicily (Italy) are provided. Among the native species, the occurrence of the following taxa is reported for the first time or confirmed after many decades of non-observation: Aira multiculmis, Arum maculatum, Carex flacca subsp. flacca, Mentha longifolia, Oxybasis chenopodioides, Najas minor and Xiphion junceum. Furthermore, we document the presence of three native species (Cornus mas, Juncus foliosus and Limonium avei) that, despite being repeatedly observed in Sicily and reported in the literature, are inexplicably omitted by the most recent authoritative ch…
First record of the alien leech Myzobdella lugubris Leidy, 1851 (Hirudinea, Piscicolidae) in the Palearctic
2018
espanolEn este estudio reportamos la aparicion de la sanguijuela Neartica Myzobdella lugubris en un cuerpo de agua salobre de la reserva natural Riserva Naturale dello Stato “Le Cesine” (Apulia, Italy). Dos especimenes de la especie fueren recolectados en el cuello y las extremidades anteriores de una tortuga de estanque europea Emys orbicularis hellenica en Octubre del 2016. La identificacion de los dos especimenes fue basada en datos morfologicos y de secuenciacion molecular. En su distribucion natural, M. lugubris es conocida por ser huesped y vector de bacterias y virus, de los cuales algunos son patogenos de gravedad en peces. En vista de los posibles efectos nocivos, que ejercen sobre…
Learning how to live together: genomic insights into prokaryote–animal symbioses
2008
Our understanding of prokaryote-eukaryote symbioses as a source of evolutionary innovation has been rapidly increased by the advent of genomics, which has made possible the biological study of uncultivable endosymbionts. Genomics is allowing the dissection of the evolutionary process that starts with host invasion then progresses from facultative to obligate symbiosis and ends with replacement by, or coexistence with, new symbionts. Moreover, genomics has provided important clues on the mechanisms driving the genome-reduction process, the functions that are retained by the endosymbionts, the role of the host, and the factors that might determine whether the association will become parasitic…
An adaptive rectangular mesh administration and refinement technique with application in cancer invasion models
2022
We present an administration technique for the bookkeeping of adaptive mesh refinement on (hyper-)rectangular meshes. Our technique is a unified approach for h-refinement on 1-, 2- and 3D domains, which is easy to use and avoids traversing the connectivity graph of the ancestry of mesh cells. Due to the employed rectangular mesh structure, the identification of the siblings and the neighbouring cells is greatly simplified. The administration technique is particularly designed for smooth meshes, where the smoothness is dynamically used in the matrix operations. It has a small memory footprint that makes it affordable for a wide range of mesh resolutions over a large class of problems. We pre…