Search results for "ASIC"
showing 10 items of 11113 documents
Sexual selection in a wolf spider: Male drumming activity, body size, and viability
1996
Females are often believed to actively choose highly ornamented males (males with extravagant morphological signals or intense sexual display), and ornaments should be honest signals of male viability. However, this belief is relying only on some pieces of empirical evidence from birds. Our study reports active female choice on sexual display that indicates male viability in spiders. We established trials in which we studied female choice in relation to male courtship drumming activity and body size. Females chose the most actively drumming males as mating partners, but the body size of the males did not seem to be selected. Male drumming activity turned out to be a good predictor of male v…
Viability selection creates negative heterozygosity–fitness correlations in female Black Grouse Lyrurus tetrix
2017
There is widespread interest in the relationship between individual genetic diversity and fitness–related traits (heterozygosity–fitness correlations, HFC). Most studies found weak continuous increases of fitness with increasing heterozygosity while negative HFC have rarely been reported. Negative HFC are expected in cases of outbreeding depression and outbreeding is rare in natural populations; but negative HFC may also arise through viability selection acting on low heterozygosity individuals at an early stage producing a skew in the heterozygosity distribution leading to negative HFCs. We tested this idea using survival and clutch parameters (egg mass, egg volume, chick mass, clutch size…
Mycorrhizal symbiosis primes the accumulation of antiherbivore compounds and enhances herbivore mortality in tomato
2021
Abstract Plant association with arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) can increase their ability to overcome multiple stresses, but their impact on plant interactions with herbivorous insects is controversial. Here we show higher mortality of the leaf-chewer Spodoptera exigua when fed on tomato plants colonized by the AMF Funneliformis mosseae, evidencing mycorrhiza-induced resistance. In search of the underlying mechanisms, an untargeted metabolomic analysis through ultra-performance liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry (UPLC-MS) was performed. The results showed that mycorrhizal symbiosis had a very limited impact on the leaf metabolome in the absence of stress, but significantly m…
Give me a sample of air and I will tell which species are found from your region : Molecular identification of fungi from airborne spore samples
2017
Fungi are a megadiverse group of organisms, they play major roles in ecosystem functioning and are important for human health, food production and nature conservation. Our knowledge on fungal diversity and fungal ecology is however still very limited, in part because surveying and identifying fungi is time demanding and requires expert knowledge. We present a method that allows anyone to generate a list of fungal species likely to occur in a region of interest, with minimal effort and without requiring taxonomical expertise. The method consists of using a cyclone sampler to acquire fungal spores directly from the air to an Eppendorf tube, and applying DNA barcoding with probabilistic specie…
Host dispersal shapes the population structure of a tick-borne bacterial pathogen
2020
Birds are hosts for several zoonotic pathogens. Because of their high mobility, especially of longdistance migrants, birds can disperse these pathogens, affecting their distribution and phylogeography. We focused on Borrelia burgdorferi sensu lato, which includes the causative agents of Lyme borreliosis, as an example for tick-borne pathogens, to address the role of birds as propagation hosts of zoonotic agents at a large geographical scale. We collected ticks from passerine birds in 11 European countries. B. burgdorferi s.l. prevalence in Ixodes spp. was 37% and increased with latitude. The fieldfare Turdus pilaris and the blackbird T. merula carried ticks with the highest Borrelia prevale…
Clonal populations of Clavibacter michiganensis subsp michiganensis are responsible for the outbreaks of bacterial canker in greenhouse tomatoes in I…
2015
Clavibacter michiganensis subsp. michiganensis (Cmm) strains, collected in greenhouses from 17 farms during tomato bacterial canker outbreaks occurring between 2005 and 2008 in Sicily, were analysed by a multiphasic approach. Population studies were conducted to investigate the possible sources of inocula. Cmm strains were characterized by PCR assays targeting virulence genes, fingerprinting techniques, metabolic profiles and virulence. These strains were comparatively analysed with Cmm strains isolated in other parts of Italy over a period of 15 years. Chromosomal genes encoding virulence determinants tomA, ppaA, chpC, and the plasmid-encoded genes pat-1 and celA were detected by PCR in al…
A Metabarcoding Survey on the Fungal Microbiota Associated to the Olive Fruit Fly.
2017
The occurrence of interaction between insects and fungi is interesting from an ecological point of view, particularly when these interactions involve insect pests and plant pathogens within an agroecosystem. In this study, we aimed to perform an accurate analysis on the fungal microbiota associated to Bactrocera oleae (Rossi) through a metabarcoding approach based on 454 pyrosequencing. From this analysis, we retrieved 43,549 reads that clustered into 128 operational taxonomic units (OTUs), of which 29 resulted in the “core” associate fungi of B. oleae. This fungal community was mainly represented by sooty mould fungi, such as Cladosporium spp., Alternaria spp. and Aureobasidium spp., by pl…
New national and regional bryophyte records, 56
2018
WOS: 000441652000006
Novel biocatalysts for glycerol conversion into 2,3-butanediol
2016
Abstract Bioconversion of biodiesel-derived waste glycerol into high-value products is proposed as a solution to improve economic viability of biorefineries. Several microorganisms are able to metabolize glycerol into 2,3-butanediol (2,3-BD), a promising bulk chemical with wide applications: solvent, fuel additive, and feedstock for synthetic rubber production, among them. In the present work, a wide screening of microorganisms present both into the waste water treatment system in a biodiesel industry and in culture collections was carried out in order to evaluate their potential as new 2,3-BD producer biocatalysts. Two microorganisms for 2,3-BD production from glycerol as sole carbon sourc…
Environmental DNA effectively captures functional diversity of coastal fish communities.
2020
Robust assessments of taxonomic and functional diversity are essential components of research programmes aimed at understanding current biodiversity patterns and forecasting trajectories of ecological changes. Yet, evaluating marine biodiversity along its dimensions is challenging and dependent on the power and accuracy of the available data collection methods. Here we combine three traditional survey methodologies (underwater visual census strip transects [UVCt], baited underwater videos [BUV] and small-scale fishery catches [SSFc]), and one novel molecular technique (environmental DNA metabarcoding [eDNA]-12S rRNA and cytochrome oxidase subunit 1 [COI]) to investigate their efficiency and…