PROBING PROBOSCIS LEADS MOTH TO NECTAR

Pieris rapae – a nectar feeding butterfly: Composition of the cuticle of the proboscis

Inhospitable sweetness: nectar filtering of pollinator-borne inocula leads to impoverished, phylogenetically clustered yeast communities.

Identifying the rules and mechanisms that determine the composition and diversity of naturally co-occurring species assemblages is a central topic in community ecology. Although micro-organisms represent the 'unseen majority' of species, individuals and biomass in many ecosystems and play pivotal roles in community development and function, the study of the factors influencing the assembly of m...

A cuckoo-like parasitic moth leads African weaver ant colonies to their ruin.

In myrmecophilous Lepidoptera, mostly lycaenids and riodinids, caterpillars trick ants into transporting them to the ant nest where they feed on the brood or, in the more derived "cuckoo strategy", trigger regurgitations (trophallaxis) from the ants and obtain trophic eggs. We show for the first time that the caterpillars of a moth (Eublemma albifascia; Noctuidae; Acontiinae) also use this stra...

Hawkmoth Pollinators Decrease Seed Set of a Low-Nectar Petunia axillaris Line through Reduced Probing Time

Although deception of floral pollinators is well known among orchids, the majority of animal-pollinated plants secure pollination by nectar rewards. The costs and benefits of nectar production remain poorly understood. Here, we developed a crossing design to introgress a low-nectar-volume locus of Petunia integrifolia into the genetic background of P. axillaris. The resulting introgression line...

Novel Bi-allelic PDE6C Variant Leads to Congenital Achromatopsia

Background: The clinical phenotyping of patients with achromatopsia harboring variants in phosphordiesterase 6C (PDE6C) has poorly been described in the literature. PDE6C encodes the catalytic subunit of the cone phosphodiesterase, which hydrolyzes the cyclic guanosine monophosphate that proceeds with the hyperpolarization of photoreceptor cell membranes, as the final step of the phototransduct...