Search results for " traits"
showing 10 items of 492 documents
Facebook groups as citizen science tools for plant species monitoring
2021
I social network sono canali di comunicazione utilizzati per condividere enormi quantità di dati, che possono essere utilizzati per la ricerca scientifica, anche nel campo della biodiversità. Per sapere quanto i dati ricavati dai social network possono integrare quelli raccolti per scopi scientifici, è necessario individuarne i bias. Utilizzando i dati estratti da un gruppo Facebook specializzato nella flora vascolare siciliana, abbiamo analizzato quali sono i caratteri che aumentano la probabilità che una pianta spontanea venga fotografata e postata su un social network. A tal fine, abbiamo confrontato frequenze e attributi delle specie fotografate dai membri del gruppo Facebook con quelli…
On personality, energy metabolism and mtDNA introgression in bank voles
2014
Consistent interindividual differences in behaviour, or animal personality, are emerging as an important determinant of a wide range of life history traits and fitness. Individual behaviour, however, may be constrained by between-individual variability in energy metabolism and may become unstable owing to intrinsic and extrinsic stressors. Here we tested the relationship between personality and physiology using wild-caught bank voles, Myodes glareolus, that varied according to mtDNA type (original or introgressed from Myodes rutilus). Personality traits and their within-individual consistency were assessed using an open field test and basal metabolic rate (BMR) was measured in an open-flow …
Antibiotics accelerate growth at the expense of immunity
2021
Antibiotics have long been used in the raising of animals for agricultural, industrial or laboratory use. The use of subtherapeutic doses in diets of terrestrial and aquatic animals to promote growth is common and highly debated. Despite their vast application in animal husbandry, knowledge about the mechanisms behind growth promotion is minimal, particularly at the molecular level. Evidence from evolutionary research shows that immunocompetence is resource-limited, and hence expected to trade off with other resource-demanding processes, such as growth. Here, we ask if accelerated growth caused by antibiotics can be explained by genome-wide trade-offs between growth and costly immunocompete…
High-Pressure Carbon Dioxide Use to Control Dried Apricot Pests, Tribolium castaneum and Rhyzopertha dominica, and Assessing the Qualitative Traits o…
2021
One of the new ways of warehouse pest control is the carbon dioxide treatment, which had no residues on the target products. In the present research, at first, CO2 gas was applied to control two important pest species infesting dried apricots. Dry apricots infested with adults of Tribolium castaneum (Herbst) or Rhyzopertha dominica (F.) were exposed to CO2 gas pressures correspond to 9.1, 16.7, 23.1, 28.6, and 33.4 mol% for 24 h. The results showed higher mortality rates with increasing the gas pressures in all the experiments. The minimum and maximum losses of the pests were determined at concentrations of 9.1 and 33.4 mol%, respectively. Evaluation of CO2 gas effects on the quality charac…
Social organization and the evolution of life-history traits in two queen morphs of the ant Temnothorax rugatulus.
2020
ABSTRACT During the evolution of social insects, not only did life-history traits diverge, with queens becoming highly fecund and long lived compared with their sterile workers, but also individual traits lost their importance compared with colony-level traits. In solitary animals, fecundity is largely influenced by female size, whereas in eusocial insects, colony size and queen number can affect the egg-laying rate. Here, we focused on the ant Temnothorax rugatulus, which exhibits two queen morphs varying in size and reproductive strategy, correlating with their colony's social organization. We experimentally tested the influence of social structure, colony and body size on queen fecundity…
Insect personality: what can we learn from metamorphosis?
2018
6 pages; International audience; Ontogeny of animal personality is still an open question. Testing whether personality traits correlated with state variables (e.g. metabolic rate, hormones) and/or life history traits, and which ones are involved, requires more empirical studies. Insects with metamorphosis represent a good opportunity to tackle this question. Because of the various degrees of internal (physiological, nervous) and environmental changes linked to metamorphosis they allow testing whether these modifications drive consistency in personality traits between immature and adult stages. In this review, we establish general predictions for the effects of metamorphosis on personality i…
Larval intraspecific competition for food in the European grapevine moth Lobesia botrana.
2014
AbstractEffective pest management with lower amounts of pesticides relies on accurate prediction of insect pest growth rates. Knowledge of the factors governing this trait and the resulting fitness of individuals is thus necessary to refine predictions and make suitable decisions in crop protection. The European grapevine moth, Lobesia botrana, the major pest of grapes in Europe, is responsible for huge economic losses. Larvae very rarely leave the grape bunch on which they were oviposited and thus cannot avoid intraspecific competition. In this study, we determined the impact of intraspecific competition during the larval stage on development and adult fitness in this species. This was tes…
Influence of different sources of vegetable, whey and microalgae proteins on the physicochemical properties and amino acid profile of fresh pork saus…
2019
Abstract The purpose of this study was to evaluate changes in the physicochemical properties and amino acid profiles of pork sausages prepared by including vegetable protein sources (beans, peas, and lentils), microalgae (Chlorella and Spirulina) or whey, as compared with a control (soy protein). Significant differences were found for all the studied parameters. The protein content was significantly lower in sausages made with pea protein compared with the control. Colour parameters changed significantly after the incorporation of microalgae proteins. Moreover, significant differences among treatments were observed in the amino acid profile. The inclusion of Spirulina proteins resulted in a…
Experimental evidence for a cost of resistance to the fungal pathogen, Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis, for the palmate newt, Lissotriton helveticus
2013
Background Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis (Bd), the causative agent of chytridiomycosis, is decimating amphibians worldwide. Unsurprisingly, the majority of studies have therefore concentrated on documenting morbidity and mortality of susceptible species and projecting population consequences as a consequence of this emerging infectious disease. Currently, there is a paucity of studies investigating the sub-lethal costs of Bd in apparently asymptomatic species, particularly in controlled experimental conditions. Here we report the consequences of a single dose of B. dendrobatidis zoospores on captive adult palmate newts (Lissotriton helveticus) for morphological and behavioural traits that …
Post-copulatory sexual selection allows females to alleviate the fitness costs incurred when mating with senescing males.
2019
8 pages; International audience; Male senescence has detrimental effects on reproductive success and offspring fitness. When females mate with multiple males during the same reproductive bout, post-copulatory sexual selection that operates either through sperm competition or cryptic female choice might allow females to skew fertilization success towards young males and as such limit the fitness costs incurred when eggs are fertilized by senescing males. Here, we experimentally tested this hypothesis. We artificially inseminated female North African houbara bustards with sperm from dyads of males of different (young and old) or similar ages (either young or old). Then, we assessed whether si…