Adaptive significance of avian beak morphology for ectoparasite control

Adaptive significance of avian beak morphology for ectoparasite control.

The beaks of Darwin's finches and other birds are among the best known examples of adaptive evolution. Beak morphology is usually interpreted in relation to its critical role in feeding. However, the beak also plays an important role in preening, which is the first line of defence against harmful ectoparasites such as feather lice, fleas, bugs, flies, ticks and feather mites. Here, we show a fe...

Does sunlight enhance the effectiveness of avian preening for ectoparasite control?

Preening is a bird's first line of defense against harmful ectoparasites. Ectoparasites, in turn, have evolved adaptations for avoiding preening such as hardened exoskeletons and escape behavior. Earlier work suggests that some groups of ectoparasites, such as feather lice, leave hiding places in feathers that are exposed to direct sunlight, making them more vulnerable to preening. It is, there...

Avian circannual clocks: adaptive significance and possible involvement of energy turnover in their proximate control.

Endogenous circannual clocks are found in many long-lived organisms, but are best studied in mammal and bird species. Circannual clocks are synchronized with the environment by changes in photoperiod, light intensity and possibly temperature and seasonal rainfall patterns. Annual timing mechanisms are presumed to have important ultimate functions in seasonally regulating reproduction, moult, hi...

Adaptive RBF network control for robot manipulators

TThe uncertainty estimation and compensation are challenging problems for the robust control of robot manipulators which are complex systems. This paper presents a novel decentralized model-free robust controller for electrically driven robot manipulators. As a novelty, the proposed controller employs a simple Gaussian Radial-Basis-Function Network as an uncertainty estimator. The proposed netw...

Ectoparasite Control in Public Health