Search results for " structures"
showing 10 items of 4162 documents
Viability, behavior, and color expression in the offspring of matings between common wall lizard Podarcis muralis color morphs
2021
Abstract Color polymorphisms are widely studied to identify the mechanisms responsible for the origin and maintenance of phenotypic variability in nature. Two of the mechanisms of balancing selection currently thought to explain the long-term persistence of polymorphisms are the evolution of alternative phenotypic optima through correlational selection on suites of traits including color and heterosis. Both of these mechanisms can generate differences in offspring viability and fitness arising from different morph combinations. Here, we examined the effect of parental morph combination on fertilization success, embryonic viability, newborn quality, antipredator, and foraging behavior, as we…
Terpenoid bio-transformations and applications via cell/organ cultures: a systematic review.
2019
Structurally diverse natural products are valued for their targeted biological activity. The challenge of working with such metabolites is their low natural abundance and complex structure, often with multiple stereocenters, precludes large-scale or unsophisticated chemical synthesis. Since select plants contain the enzymatic machinery necessary to produce specialized compounds, tissue cultures can be used to achieve key transformations for large-scale chemical and/or pharmaceutical applications. In this context, plant tissue-culture bio-transformations have demonstrated great promise in the preparation of pharmaceutical products. This review describes the capacity of cultured plant cells t…
Maternal effects on offspring Igs and egg size in relation to natural and experimentally improved food supply
2008
1. Maternal effects have been suggested to function as a mechanism for transgenerational plasticity, in which the environment experienced by the mother is translated into the phenotype of the offspring. In birds and other oviparous vertebrates where early development is within the egg, mothers may be able to improve the viability prospects of their offspring at hatching by priming eggs with immunological and nutritional components. 2. We studied how resource availability affects maternal investment in offspring by feeding Ural owl (Strix uralensis, Pall.) females prior to egg-laying in 3 years of dramatically different natural food conditions. 3. Supplementary feeding prior to laying increa…
Direct and transgenerational effects of an experimental heat wave on early life stages in a freshwater snail
2018
AbstractGlobal climate change imposes a serious threat to natural populations of many species. Estimates of the effects of climate change-mediated environmental stresses are, however, often based only on their direct effects on organisms, and neglect the potential transgenerational effects. We investigated whether high temperature (i.e. an experimental heat wave) that is known to reduce performance of adultLymnaea stagnalissnails affects their offspring through maternal effects. Specifically, we tested whether eggs and hatched juveniles are affected by maternal thermal environment, and how strong these effects are compared with direct effects of temperature on offspring. We examined the eff…
Blood parasites mediate morph-specific maintenance costs in a colour polymorphic wild bird
2011
Parasites can mediate profound negative effects on host fitness. Colour polymorphism has been suggested to covary genetically with intrinsic physiological properties. Tawny owl colour polymorphism is highly heritable with two main morphs, grey and brown. We show that experimental medication acts to reduce blood parasites and that medicated grey females maintain body mass during breeding, whereas medicated brown females decline in body mass similar to control females of both morphs. We find no effect of medication on general immunoglobulin levels, antigen-specific humoral response or H/L ratio. In the descriptive data, both morphs have similar blood parasite infection rates, but blood parasi…
Do colour morphs of wall lizards express different personalities?
2021
Abstract Colour morphs sometimes have different behavioural strategies which may be maintained by frequency or density dependence mechanisms. We investigated temporal changes in behavioural reaction to a novel environment among colour morphs (yellow, orange, white) of the European wall lizard (Podarcis muralis). Adult males were given two 15 min experimental trials, and their locomotion was highly consistent between the two trials. Boldness, freezing and escape behaviour were less repeatable. Colour morphs differed in their locomotion and freezing behaviour. Boldness was similar among the morphs, whereas escape behaviour was lowest in yellow morph. Consequently, yellow morph males tended to…
First Descriptions of Larva and Pupa of Bagous claudicans Boheman, 1845 (Curculionidae, Bagoinae) and Systematic Position of the Species Based on Mol…
2019
In this paper, the mature larva and pupa of Bagous claudicans are described and illustrated for the first time. Measurements of younger larval instars are also given. The biology of the species is discussed in association with larval morphology and feeding habits. Overall larval and pupal morphological characters of the genus Bagous are presented. Confirmation of the larva identification as Bagous claudicans species was conducted by cytochrome oxidase I (COI) sequencing. DNA barcoding was useful for specimen identification of larval stages. The systematic position of the species within the Bagous collignensis-group, based on morphological and molecular results, is also discussed.
Early exposure to predation risk carries over metamorphosis in two distantly related freshwater insects
2017
1. Predation and competition play a central role in ecological communities, and it is increasingly recognised that animals use early warning cues to reduce the impact of these antagonistic interactions. 2. Strategies to avoid risk can occur during embryo development through plasticity in egg hatching time. This strategy, and its associated costs and carryover effects on adults are little understood in insects. In this study, these are explored in two distantly related freshwater insects: the damselfly Ischnura elegans and the mosquito Aedes albopictus. 3. As predicted, damselfly eggs hatched earlier in response to larval predators cues, a treatment that also affected adult size. Risk cues d…
DNA barcoding the phyllosoma of Scyllarides squammosus (H. Milne Edwards, 1837) (Decapoda: Achelata: Scyllaridae)
2016
Scyllarides has the largest number of species with commercial importance within the Scyllaridae family. As for other achelate lobsters, however, little is known of the unique long-lived planktonic phyllosoma stages of any of these tropical and temperate species. Recently, a large and diverse collection of Scyllaridae phyllosoma, compiled from cruises along the Coral Sea and spanning several years, has been analysed. Molecular evidence from DNA-barcoding and phylogenetic analyses is provided here on the identity of S. squammosus phyllosoma larvae, including stages that were previously undescribed or poorly known. As a consequence, the growth and morphological changes that occur during the mi…
Interspecific comparison of the performance of soaring migrants in relation to morphology, meteorological conditions and migration strategies.
2012
This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License.-- et al.