Search results for " animal"
showing 10 items of 3438 documents
Genome sequence of the pea aphid Acyrthosiphon pisum
2010
The genome of the pea aphid shows remarkable levels of gene duplication and equally remarkable gene absences that shed light on aspects of aphid biology, most especially its symbiosis with Buchnera.
Molecular phylogeny of the extinct giant deer, Megaloceros giganteus.
2006
a Centre de Genetique Moleculaire et Cellulaire (CGMC), CNRS UMR 5534, Universite Claude Bernard Lyon 1, Villeurbanne, France b Laboratoire d’Anthropologie des Populations du Passe, CNRS UMR 5199 PACEA, Universite Bordeaux 1, Talence, France c UCD School of Biology and Environmental Science, UCD, BelWeld, Dublin 4, Ireland d Laboratoire d’Ecologie des Hydrosystemes Fluviaux, CNRS UMR 5023, Universite Claude Bernard Lyon 1, Villeurbanne, France e Biogeosciences-Dijon, CNRS UMR 5561, Universite de Bourgogne, Centre des Sciences de la Terre, Dijon, France f Department of Palaeontology, Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences, Brussels, Belgium g Department of Biology, University College Lo…
Defense strategies used by two sympatric vineyard moth pests.
2014
8 pages; International audience; Natural enemies including parasitoids are the major biological cause of mortality among phytophagous insects. In response to parasitism, these insects have evolved a set of defenses to protect themselves, including behavioral, morphological, physiological and immunological barriers. According to life history theory, resources are partitioned to various functions including defense, implying trade-offs among defense mechanisms. In this study we characterized the relative investment in behavioral, physical and immunological defense systems in two sympatric species of Tortricidae (Eupoecilia ambiguella, Lobesia botrana) which are important grapevine moth pests. …
The conservation status of the world's freshwater molluscs
2021
With the biodiversity crisis continuing unchecked, we need to establish levels and drivers of extinction risk, and reassessments over time, to effectively allocate conservation resources and track progress towards global conservation targets. Given that threat appears particularly high in freshwaters, we assessed the extinction risk of 1428 randomly selected freshwater molluscs using the IUCN Red List Categories and Criteria, as part of the Sampled Red List Index project. We show that close to one-third of species in our sample are estimated to be threatened with extinction, with highest levels of threat in the Nearctic, Palearctic and Australasia and among gastropods. Threat levels were hi…
Guidance for the risk assessment of the presence at low level of genetically modified plant material in imported food and feed under Regulation (EC) …
2017
Abstract This document provides guidance for the risk assessment under Regulation (EC) No 1829/2003 of the unintended, adventitious or technically unavoidable presence in food and feed of low level of genetically modified plant material intended for markets other than in the European Union. In this context, the presence at low level is defined to be maximum 0.9% of genetically modified plant material per ingredient. This guidance is intended to assist applicants by indicating which scientific requirements of Annex II of Regulation (EU) No 503/2013 are considered necessary for the risk assessment of the presence at low levels of genetically modified plant material in food and feed.
Increasing water temperature and disease risks in aquatic systems: Climate change increases the risk of some, but not all, diseases
2010
Global warming may impose severe risks for aquatic animal health if increasing water temperature leads to an increase in the incidence of parasitic diseases. Essentially, this could take place through a temperature-driven effect on the epidemiology of the disease. For example, higher temperature may boost the rate of disease spread through positive effects on parasite fitness in a weakened host. Increased temperature may also lengthen the transmission season leading to higher total prevalence of infection and more widespread epidemics. However, to date, general understanding of these relationships is limited due to scarcity of long-term empirical data. Here, we present one of the first long…
Environmental change and disease dynamics: effects of intensive forest management on Puumala hantavirus infection in boreal bank vole populations.
2012
Intensive management of Fennoscandian forests has led to a mosaic of woodlands in different stages of maturity. The main rodent host of the zoonotic Puumala hantavirus (PUUV) is the bank vole (Myodes glareolus), a species that can be found in all woodlands and especially mature forests. We investigated the influence of forest age structure on PUUV infection dynamics in bank voles. Over four years, we trapped small mammals twice a year in a forest network of different succession stages in Northern Finland. Our study sites represented four forest age classes from young (4 to 30 years) to mature (over 100 years) forests. We show that PUUV-infected bank voles occurred commonly in all forest age…
Differential influence of Pomphorhynchus laevis (Acanthocephala) on the behaviour of native and invader gammarid species
2000
Although various species of acanthocephalan parasites can increase the vulnerability of their amphipod intermediate hosts to predation, particularly by altering their photophobic behaviour, their influence on the structure of amphipod communities and the success of invader species has so far received little attention. We compared the prevalence and behavioural influence of a fish acanthocephalan parasite, Pomphorhynchus laevis, in two species of amphipods, Gammarus pulex and Gammarus roeseli in sympatry in the river Ouche (Burgundy, eastern France). There, G. pulex is a resident species, whereas G. roeseli is a recent coloniser. Both uninfected G. pulex and G. roeseli were strongly photopho…
A manipulative parasite increasing an antipredator response decreases its vulnerability to a nonhost predator.
2009
8 pages; International audience; Trophically transmitted parasites have to deal with the antipredator adaptations of their intermediate hosts. Some of these parasites induce behavioural changes in their intermediate hosts that make them more vulnerable to predation by definitive hosts. However, the adaptiveness of behavioural manipulation also depends on the probability of being eaten by a nonhost predator. Parasites might therefore try to use specific antipredator responses of intermediate hosts to avoid this dead end. We tested this hypothesis using the acanthocephalan Polymorphus minutus and its intermediate amphipod host, Gammarus roeseli. In their natural habitat, uninfected G. roeseli…
Social interactions modulate the virulence of avian malaria infection
2013
There is an increasing understanding of the context-dependent nature of parasite virulence. Variation in parasite virulence can occur when infected individuals compete with conspecifics that vary in infection status; virulence may be higher when competing with uninfected competitors. In vertebrates with social hierarchies, we propose that these competition-mediated costs of infection may also vary with social status. Dominant individuals have greater competitive ability than competing subordinates, and consequently may pay a lower prevalence-mediated cost of infection. In this study we investigated whether costs of malarial infection were affected by the occurrence of the parasite in compet…