Search results for "flies"

Recensione di GAUCI C., 2018. Dragonflies and damselflies of the Maltese islands. Birdlife Malta, Malta: 1-150. € 20

2018

The role of power line rights-of-way as an alternative habitat for declined mire butterflies

2011

Habitat loss is one of the greatest threats for biodiversity. In Finland, two thirds of natural mires have been drained for silviculture, which transforms open wetlands into dense forests. However, vegetation management of power line rights-of-way (ROW) maintain the drained mires as open areas. The aim of this study was to determine the effect of the power line ROW vegetation management on butterfly abundance, species richness and community structure by comparing the managed power line ROWs to unmanaged drained control sites and to natural mires. The species richness or abundance of mire butterflies did not differ between the power line ROWs and natural mires. In contrast, both species rich…

Predicting the risk of extinction from shared ecological characteristics

2005

Understanding the ultimate causes of population declines and extinction is vital in our quest to stop the currently rampant biodiversity loss. Comparison of ecological characteristics between threatened and nonthreatened species may reveal these ultimate causes. Here, we report an analysis of ecological characteristics of 23 threatened and 72 nonthreatened butterfly species. Our analysis reveals that threatened butterflies are characterized by narrow niche breadth, restricted resource distribution, poor dispersal ability, and short flight period. Based on the characteristics, we constructed an ecological extinction risk rank and predicted which of the currently nonthreatened species are at …

New discoveries in New World Atissini as revealed in revision of Pelignellus Sturtevant & Wheeler (Diptera: Ephydridae)

2019

Pelignellus is resurrected from synonymy with Atissa and is revised. The genus and both included species—P. subnudus Sturtevant & Wheeler from the USA (California) and P. freidbergi n. sp. from Central America (Costa Rica, El Salvador, Panama)—are described with an emphasis on structures of the male terminalia, which are fully illustrated. The species are keyed and their distribution data are provided. For perspective and to facilitate recognition of genera and species, the tribe Atissini is diagnosed and a key to genera is provided.

Bioconversion of Gibberellin Fermentation Residue into Feed Supplement and Organic Fertilizer Employing Housefly (Musca domestica L.) Assisted by Cor…

2014

The accumulation of a considerable quantity of gibberellin fermentation residue (GFR) during gibberellic acid A3 (GA3) production not only results in the waste of many resources, but also poses a potential hazard to the environment, indicating that the safe treatment of GFR has become an urgent issue for GA3 industry. The key to recycle GFR is converting it into an available resource and removing the GA3 residue. To this end, we established a co-bioconversion process in this study using house fly larvae (HFL) and microbes (Corynebacterium variabile) to convert GFR into insect biomass and organic fertilizer. About 85.5% GA3 in the GFR was removed under the following optimized solid-state fer…

Effects of environment and genotype on dispersal differ across departure, transfer and settlement in a butterfly metapopulation

2022

Active dispersal is driven by extrinsic and intrinsic factors at the three stages of departure, transfer and settlement. Most empirical studies capture only one stage of this complex process, and knowledge of how much can be generalized from one stage to another remains unknown. Here we use genetic assignment tests to reconstruct dispersal across 5 years and 232 habitat patches of a Glanville fritillary butterfly ( Melitaea cinxia ) metapopulation. We link individual dispersal events to weather, landscape structure, size and quality of habitat patches, and individual genotype to identify the factors that influence the three stages of dispersal and post-settlement survival. We found that ne…

Innovative and Applied Research in Biology: Proceedings

2022

The collection contains SCIENTIFIC articles on the topics of the LU 80 conference reports. The main focus is on innovative and applied research in biology and interdisciplinary fields.

Gene Regulation and Species-Specific Evolution of Free Flight Odor Tracking in Drosophila

2018

Running title: flight evolution in Drosophila This is an invited contribution to the special issue on Genetics of Adaptation based on a symposium of the same name at the National Centre for Biological Sciences (TIFR, Bangalore, India) in November 2016; International audience; The flying ability of insects has coevolved with the development of organs necessary to take-off from the ground, generate, and modulate lift during flight in complex environments. Flight orientation to the appropriate food source and mating partner depends on the perception and integration of multiple chemical signals. We used a wind tunnel-based assay to investigate the natural and molecular evolution of free flight …

Varying Definitions of Abundance and Incomplete Assemblages Challenge the Generality of the Interspecific Abundance—Distribution Relationships

2011

Empirical evidence does not fully support the universal nature of the positive interspecific abundance—distribution relationship. We have earlier documented a negative relationship for butterfly species in Finland, but recently our view was again challenged using a small subset of Finnish butterflies as apparent evidence. Here we scrutinize the critique and identify some general conceptual challenges in analyses of interspecific abundance—distribution relationships. We identify the common problem that the abundance—distribution studies include only a small subset of species, and thus reveal only sample characteristics, not overall patterns in complete assemblages. Small subsets of species a…

DNA barcode reference library for Iberian butterflies enables a continental-scale preview of potential cryptic diversity

2015

How common are cryptic species - those overlooked because of their morphological similarity? Despite its wide-ranging implications for biology and conservation, the answer remains open to debate. Butterflies constitute the best-studied invertebrates, playing a similar role as birds do in providing models for vertebrate biology. An accurate assessment of cryptic diversity in this emblematic group requires meticulous case-by-case assessments, but a preview to highlight cases of particular interest will help to direct future studies. We present a survey of mitochondrial genetic diversity for the butterfly fauna of the Iberian Peninsula with unprecedented resolution (3502 DNA barcodes for all 2…