Search results for "Tropical"

The Aqua-Planet Experiment (APE): Response to Changed Meridional SST Profile

2013

This paper explores the sensitivity of Atmospheric General Circulation Model (AGCM) simulations to changes in the meridional distribution of sea surface temperature (SST). The simulations are for an aqua-planet, a water covered Earth with no land, orography or sea- ice and with specified zonally symmetric SST. Simulations from 14 AGCMs developed for Numerical Weather Prediction and climate applications are compared. Four experiments are performed to study the sensitivity to the meridional SST profile. These profiles range from one in which the SST gradient continues to the equator to one which is flat approaching the equator, all with the same maximum SST at the equator. The zonal mean circ…

The nasus gland: A new gland in soldiers of Angularitermes (Termitidae, Nasutitermitinae)

2015

Termites have developed many exocrine glands, generally dedicated to defence or communication. Although a few of these glands occur in all termite species, or represent synapomorphies of larger clades, others are morphological innovations of a single species, or a few related species. Here, we describe the nasus gland, a new gland occurring at the base of the nasus of Angularitermes soldiers. The nasus gland is composed of class 1, 2, and 3 secretory cells, a rare combination that is only shared by the sternal and tergal glands of some termites and cockroaches. The ultrastructural observations suggest that the secretion is produced by class 2 and 3 secretory cells, and released mostly by cl…

Revised classification of the New World Cylapini (Heteroptera: Miridae: Cylapinae): taxonomic review of the genera Cylapinus, Cylapoides and Peltidoc…

2021

Cylapini, as currently circumscribed, is a relatively small group of plant bugs currently comprising 17 genera and 65 species. Most representatives of the tribe are distributed in the New World (10 genera and 47 species) with other members occurring in the Afrotropical, Oriental, and Australian regions. They have primarily tropical and subtropical distributions with only a few members inhabiting temperate regions. This paper provides a taxonomic review of three of the New World Cylapini genera: Cylapinus Carvalho, 1986, Cylapoides Carvalho, 1952, and Peltidocylapus Poppius, 1909. Most species are diagnosed and redescribed. Eight new species are described as new: Cylapinus yasunagai sp. nov.…

Leishmania tarentolae and Leishmania infantum in humans, dogs and cats in the Pelagie archipelago, southern Italy.

2021

Visceral leishmaniasis (VL) caused by Leishmania infantum is endemic in the Mediterranean basin with most of the infected human patients remaining asymptomatic. Recently, the saurian-associated Leishmania tarentolae was detected in human blood donors and in sheltered dogs. The circulation of L. infantum and L. tarentolae was investigated in humans, dogs and cats living in the Pelagie islands (Sicily, Italy) by multiple serological and molecular testing. Human serum samples (n = 346) were tested to assess the exposure to L. infantum by immunofluorescence antibody test (IFAT), enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) and Western blot (WB) and to L. tarentolae by IFAT. Meanwhile, sera from do…

2014

The free-living planktonic freshwater bacterium Polynucleobacter necessarius subspecies asymbioticus (> 99% 16S rRNA similarity) represents a taxon with a cosmopolitan distribution and apparently ubiquitous occurrence in lentic freshwater habitats. We tested for intra-taxon biogeographic patterns by combining cultivation-independent and cultivation methods. A culture collection of 204 strains isolated from globally distributed freshwater habitats (Arctic to Antarctica) was investigated for phylogeographic patterns based on sequences of two markers, the 16S–23S internal transcribed spacers and the glutamine synthetase gene (glnA). Genetic distance between isolates showed significant geograph…

Climatic and Pathological Rhythms in a Humid Tropical Area, the Case of The Philippines

1997

The fact that weather significantly affects yearly, monthly and daily morbidity in human populations has been documented for a long time by a number of individuals. They have illustrated very well some of the basic structure and underlying mechanisms of seasonality in morbidity. But until now almost all these efforts were carried out in countries with temperate mid-latitude climates. Furthermore, meteoropathological investigations have for the most part concentrated upon mortality statistics for the usual reasons of data availability and comparability. However, an important question that arises when considering the effects of weather on diseases is how the relationship varies under differen…

Mapping a-priori defined plant associations using remotely sensed vegetation characteristics

2014

Abstract Incorporation of a priori defined plant associations into remote sensing products is a major challenge that has only recently been confronted by the remote sensing community. We present an approach to map the spatial distribution of such associations by using plant indicator values (IVs) for salinity, moisture and nutrients as an intermediate between spectral reflectance and association occurrences. For a 12 km 2 study site in the Netherlands, the relations between observed IVs at local vegetation plots and visible and near-infrared (VNIR) and short-wave infrared (SWIR) airborne reflectance data were modelled using Gaussian Process Regression (GPR) (R 2 0.73, 0.64 and 0.76 for sali…

Comparing the Climatic and Landscape Risk Factors for Lyme Disease Cases in the Upper Midwest and Northeast United States

2020

Lyme disease, recognized as one of the most important vector-borne diseases worldwide, has been increasing in incidence and spatial extend in United States. In the Northeast and Upper Midwest, Lyme disease is transmitted by Ixodes scapularis. Currently, many studies have been conducted to identify factors influencing Lyme disease risk in the Northeast, however, relatively few studies focused on the Upper Midwest. In this study, we explored and compared the climatic and landscape factors that shape the spatial patterns of human Lyme cases in these two regions, using the generalized linear mixed models. Our results showed that climatic variables generally had opposite correlations with Lyme d…

Diversidad de mosquitos (Diptera: Culicidae) de Jarabacoa, República Dominicana

2019

En República Dominicana tienen especial interés, dada su gran relevancia médica, las enfermedades transmitidas por mosquitos. La presente investigación profundiza sobre la diversidad de los culícidos existentes en el municipio de Jarabacoa, a fin de actualizar la información sobre estos dípteros y sus principales sitios de cría, naturales y artificiales. Para tal cometido, se procedió a la búsqueda activa de formas preimaginales mediante la técnica del dipper; se utilizaron pipetas plásticas para muestrear en reservorios de pequeño tamaño. La identificación se llevó a cabo mediante la utilización de lupa binocular y microscopio, con la ayuda de claves taxonómicas específicas. Se capturaron …

Tropical Atlantic temperature seasonality at the end of the last interglacial

2015

The end of the last interglacial period, ~118 kyr ago, was characterized by substantial ocean circulation and climate perturbations resulting from instabilities of polar ice sheets. These perturbations are crucial for a better understanding of future climate change. The seasonal temperature changes of the tropical ocean, however, which play an important role in seasonal climate extremes such as hurricanes, floods and droughts at the present day, are not well known for this period that led into the last glacial. Here we present a monthly resolved snapshot of reconstructed sea surface temperature in the tropical North Atlantic Ocean for 117.7±0.8 kyr ago, using coral Sr/Ca and δ18O records. W…