Search results for "cop"
showing 10 items of 25502 documents
Variation in timing of breeding of five woodpeckers in a primeval forest over 45 years: role of food, weather, and climate
2020
AbstractClimate warming could lead to ‘mis-matching’ of birds’ breeding times with availability of their invertebrate food resources. Fluctuating spring temperatures could influence variation in the commencement of egg-laying, as well as, in phenology of their resources (e.g., tree bud burst, appearance of folivorous caterpillars). We studied timing of Dendrocopos leucotos, Dendrocoptes medius, Dendrocopos major, Dryobates minor, and Picoides tridactylus breeding in, free of direct human intervention, strictly protected fragments of Białowieża Forest (Poland) in 1975–2019. We related their onset of breeding to inter-year variation in spring weather, trees’ bud burst and timing of folivorous…
Vegetation structure and greenness in Central Africa from Modis multi-temporal data.
2013
African forests within the Congo Basin are generally mapped at regional scale as broad-leaved evergreen forests, with a main distinction between terra-firme and swamp forests types. At the same time, commercial forest inventories, as well as national maps, have highlighted a strong spatial heterogeneity of forest types. A detailed vegetation map generated using consistent methods is needed to inform decision makers about spatial forest organisation and theirs relationships with environmental drivers in the context of global change. We propose a multi-temporal remotely sensed data approach to characterize vegetation types using vegetation index annual profiles. The classifications identified…
Spectroscopic analysis of hot-water- and dilute-acid-extracted hardwood and softwood chips
2017
Hot-water and dilute sulfuric acid pretreatments were performed prior to chemical pulping for silver/white birch (Betula pendula/B. pubescens) and Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris) chips to determine if varying pretreatment conditions on the original wood material were detectable via attenuated total reflectance (ATR) infrared spectroscopy. Pretreatment conditions varied with respect to temperature (130 °C and 150 °C) and treatment time (from 30 min to 120 min). The effects of the pretreatments on the composition of wood chips were determined by ATR infrared spectroscopy. The spectral data were compared to those determined by common wood chemistry analyses to evaluate the suitability of ATR spe…
Could male tergal secretions be considered as a nuptial gift in the Madeira cockroach?
2008
International audience; Many male insects provide somatic nuptial gifts that may strongly influence reproductive fitness, ensuring effective copulation or mediating paternal resource benefits in offspring. Although the courtship feeding behaviour on tergal gland secretions has been described in numerous cockroaches, studies on the function of these so-called nuptial gifts are lacking in this group. In this study, we examined, in the Madeira cockroach, Leucophaea maderae, the functional significance of tergal secretions by manipulating their availability on the back of males. We tested whether male tergal secretions function as a form of mating effort, and/or as a form of paternal investment…
Males do not always switch females when presented with a better reproductive option
2014
8 pages; International audience; Paired individuals are expected to leave their current partner for newly encountered ones of higher quality. In such cases, animals should therefore be able to compare the quality of their current partner to the quality of a new prospective mate next to the couple. We tested this prediction in Gammarus pulex, an amphipod species where paired males have been described to switch females before copulation. Contrary to expectations, a majority of males remained paired to their current female when presented to an unpaired female of higher quality. In fact, males did not seem to compare the quality of the 2 females before switching. They rather based their decisio…
Lateralization of complex behaviours in wild greater flamingos.
2018
8 pages; International audience; Lateralization refers to the preferential use of one side of the body to perform certain tasks, often as a consequence of the specialization of cerebral hemispheres. Individuals may benefit from lateralization if it allows them to perform complex tasks simultaneously. Studies on laterality further suggest that sex and age can influence the extent of lateralization. However, most studies on lateralization have been performed on captive individuals, exposed to simplified environments and expressing limited behavioural repertoire. Here, we evaluated behavioural lateralization in the greater flamingo, Phoenicopterus roseus, through observations of wild individua…
Nitric oxide and glutathione impact the expression of iron uptake- and iron transport-related genes as well as the content of metals in A. thaliana p…
2012
International audience; Mounting evidence indicate that nitric oxide (NO) acts as a signaling molecule mediating iron deficiency responses through the upregulation of the expression of iron uptake-related genes. Accordingly, NO donors such as nitrosoglutathione (GSNO) were reported to improve the fitness of plants grown under iron deficiency. Here, we showed that glutathione, a by-product of GSNO, triggered the upregulation of the expression of iron uptake- and transport-related gene and an increase of iron concentration in Arabidopsis thaliana seedlings facing iron deficiency. Furthermore, we provided evidence that under iron deficiency, NO released by GSNO did not improve the root iron co…
Influence of female moulting status on pairing decisions and size‐assortative mating in amphipods
2012
8 pages; International audience; Precopulatory mate guarding is a common strategy, which has evolved in species where the female receptivity (and thus egg fertilization) is predictable, but also limited to a short period. Although males are larger than females in many amphipods, the largest males pair with the largest females, leading to a positive sizeassortative pairing. Size-assortative pairing has received much attention but how moulting physiology could affect pairing decisions has rarely been studied. Here, we tested the hypothesis that the size-assortative pairing in the freshwater amphipod Gammarus pulex is closely related to the female moult cycle. We characterized moulting status …
Managing conservation values of protected sites: How to maintain deciduous trees in white-backed woodpecker territories
2020
Successional and other temporal habitat changes may also affect conservation areas and reduce their conservation value. Active management to promote vulnerable habitat features may be an effective, but controversial, solution. Old deciduous trees and deciduous dead wood in boreal forest reserves are examples of habitat features that may be lost during succession, yet several threatened species, including the white-backed woodpecker (Dendrocopos leucotos), are dependent on them. Encroaching spruce have been removed from white-backed woodpecker territories to promote the regeneration of deciduous trees and to preserve habitat quality, although the efficiency of this treatment is unclear. In t…
How to reach optimal estimates of confidence intervals in microscopic counting of phytoplankton?
2021
Abstract Present practices in the microscopic counting of phytoplankton to estimate the reliability of results rely on the assumption of a random distribution of taxa in sample preparations. In contrast to that and in agreement with the literature, we show that aggregated distribution is common and can lead to over-optimistic confidence intervals, if estimated according to the shortcut procedure of Lund et al. based on the number of counted cells. We found a good linear correlation between the distribution independent confidence intervals for medians and those for parametric statistics so that 95% confidence intervals can be approximated by using a correction factor of 1.4. Instead, the rec…