Search results for "Sting"

Sporadic nesting reveals long distance colonisation in the philopatric loggerhead sea turtle (Caretta caretta)

2018

The colonisation of new suitable habitats is crucial for species survival at evolutionary scale under changing environmental conditions. However, colonisation potential may be limited by philopatry that facilitates exploiting successful habitats across generations. We examine the mechanisms of long distance dispersal of the philopatric loggerhead sea turtle (Caretta caretta) by analysing 40 sporadic nesting events in the western Mediterranean. The analysis of a fragment of the mitochondrial DNA and 7 microsatellites of 121 samples from 18 of these nesting events revealed that these nests were colonising events associated with juveniles from distant populations feeding in nearby foraging gro…

Analysis of trematode parasite communities in fish eye lenses by pyrosequencing of naturally pooled DNA.

2011

Infections by multiple parasite species are common in nature and have important consequences for between species interactions and coevolutionary dynamics with the host populations. For example ecological and evolutionary factors underlying the structure of parasite communities determine the range of hosts a parasite can infect and set the basis for both evolution of host defences and parasite virulence as well as management of diseases. Studies investigating these factors have been facilitated in the recent past by genetic methods which surmount difficulties of traditional morphological taxonomy in identifying individual parasite species. Here we take a step further and present a novel meth…

Zeolite-silver-zinc nanoparticles : biocompatibility and their effect on the compressive strength of mineral trioxide aggregate

2016

Background This study was carried out to evaluate the biocompatibility of zeolite-silver-zinc (Ze-Ag-Zn) nanoparticles and their effect on the compressive strength of Mineral Trioxide Aggregate (MTA). Material and Methods Biocompatibility was evaluated by an MTT assay on the pulmonary adenocarcinoma cells with 0.05, 0.1, 0.25, 0.5, 1 and 5 mg/mL concentrations of Ze-Ag-Zn. For compressive strength test, four groups containing 15 stainless-steel cylinders with an internal diameter of 4 and a height of 6 mm were prepared and MTA (groups 1 and 2) or MTA + 2% Ze-Ag-Zn (groups 3 and 4) were placed in the cylinders. The compressive strength was evaluated using a universal testing machine 4 days a…

Deceiving predators: linking distraction behavior with nest survival in a ground-nesting bird

2016

New Reptile Hosts for Helminth Parasites in a Mediterranean Region

2020

ABSTRACT Parasitic helminths are an almost universal feature of vertebrate animals, but reptiles are among the hosts with the most depauperate parasite communities. Biological traits of reptiles ar...

Prohexadione calcium is herbicidal to the sunflower root parasite Orobanche cumana

2020

BACKGROUND The obligatory sunflower root parasite Orobanche cumana Wallr. deprives its host of essential nutrients, resulting in a dramatic reduction in yield and biomass. A post-emergence application with an imidazolinone herbicide on an imidazolinone-tolerant sunflower is highly effective against O. cumana. The herbicide inhibits the enzyme acetohydroxy acid synthase and consequently, growth of the parasite is inhibited, although the sunflower survives the treatment through mutations in the target enzyme. Interestingly, field studies have shown that a combined application of an imidazolinone herbicide with prohexadione resulted in reduced emergence of O. cumana compared with the sole appl…

Predicting olive flowering phenology with phenoclimatic models

2018

In plants, day length and temperature are the major climatic factors that affect the transition from a phenological phase to the next one. Non-linear models, such as growing degree hours (GDH), have been successfully used to calculate thermal time required for spring bud burst in deciduous fruit trees. In this experiment, temperature records and blooming dates of olive trees in different years and for 10 different sites in the Italian territory were recorded. Olive booming time was correlated to the amount of (GDH) accumulated from the date of bud rest onset, calculated as the day when the maximum negative chilling units accumulation was reached (UTAH Model), to full bloom. The GDH model wa…

Functional rearrangement of the light-harvesting antenna upon state transitions in a green alga

2014

AbstractState transitions in the green alga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii serve to balance excitation energy transfer to photosystem I (PSI) and to photosystem II (PSII) and possibly play a role as a photoprotective mechanism. Thus, light-harvesting complex II (LHCII) can switch between the photosystems consequently transferring more excitation energy to PSII (state 1) or to PSI (state 2) or can end up in LHCII-only domains. In this study, low-temperature (77 K) steady-state and time-resolved fluorescence measured on intact cells of Chlamydomonas reinhardtii shows that independently of the state excitation energy transfer from LHCII to PSI or to PSII occurs on two main timescales of <15 ps and …

Fruit quality evaluation of affirmed and local loquat (Eriobotrya japonicaLindl) cultivars using instrumental and sensory analyses

2016

Introduction. Fruit quality can be evaluated by combining instrumental and sensory analyses. These methodologies have been affirmed and tested on different fruit tree species, but loquat is still little known from this point of view. Materials and methods. In this trial, conducted in Palermo and Catania (Sicily, Italy), both instrumental and sensory analyses were carried out on fruit of 8 loquat affirmed cultivars (‘Golden Nugget’, ‘Peluche’) and local cultivars (‘Marceno’, ‘Sanfilippara’, ‘Nespolone di Trabia’, ‘Virticchiara’, ‘Bianco Dolce’ and ‘BRT20’) with the aim of assessing their quality traits. Results and discussion. The sensory results agreed quite well with the physicochemical da…

Cercarial behaviour alters the consumer functional response of three‐spined sticklebacks

2020

This is the peer reviewed version of the following article: Born-Torrijos, A., Paterson, R., van Beest, G., Vyhlídalová, T., Henriksen, E.H., Knudsen, R., Kristoffersen, R., Amundsen, P.-A. & Soldánová, M. (2021). Cercarial behaviour alters the consumer functional response of three-spined sticklebacks. Journal of Animal Ecology, 90, 978-988, which has been published in final form at https://doi.org/10.1111/1365-2656.13427. This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance with Wiley Terms and Conditions for Use of Self-Archived Versions. This article may not be enhanced, enriched or otherwise transformed into a derivative work, without express permission from Wiley or by st…