The village weaverbird, Ploceus cucullatus, lays eggs of an extremely broad range of appearance between individuals. This variation is thought to have evolved as a counteradaptation to brood parasitism by the diederik cuckoo Chrysococcyx caprius. The primary objective of our study was to characterize the relationship between egg appearance and egg rejection in the African village weaverbird. We...

Pao-Shen Huang, Hui-Chen Lin, I-Min Tso, and Chung-Ping Lin (2011) Effects of thinning on spider diversity in an East Asian subtropical plantation forest. Zoological Studies 50(6): 705-717. Studies examining the effects of forest management on biodiversity in Asia are scarce and conducted mostly in temperate areas. In this study, the effects of the management on the biodiversity of a subtropica...

OBJECTIVES Work-related musculoskeletal disorders in the neck and shoulder regions are common among carpet weavers. Working for prolonged hours in a static and awkward posture could result in an increased muscle activity and may lead to musculoskeletal disorders. Ergonomic workstation improvements can reduce muscle fatigue and the risk of musculoskeletal disorders. MATERIAL AND METHODS The ai...

Orb-weaving spiders (Araneidae) are commonly regarded as generalist insect predators but resources provided by plants such as pollen may be an important dietary supplementation. Their webs snare insect prey, but can also trap aerial plankton like pollen and fungal spores. When recycling their orb webs, the spiders may therefore also feed on adhering pollen grains or fungal spores via extraoral ...

Oriental carpets have been recognized as prestigious furnishing in the West since the Middle Ages. In many ways, they represent the epitome of Western concern with alien things especially utilitarian alien things. Carpets entered the Western cultural arena as a rare alien item of interest and eventually became a commodity. But commoditization does not adequately explain their continuing success...

ion Layers for Aspect Languages A difficulty in using term rewriting systems is the inherent nature of the transforms, which requires knowledge about parsing and the underlying grammar to write complex rewrite functions. This raises unintentional accidental complexities and impedes the adoption of such systems in mainstream software development. Because of these idiosyncrasies, developers may p...

Orb-web weaving spiders depend upon the mechanical performance of capture threads to absorb the energy of flying prey. Most orb-weavers spin wet capture threads with core fibers of flagelliform silk. These threads are extremely compliant and extensible due to the folding of their constituent proteins into molecular nanosprings and hydration by a surrounding coating of aqueous glue. In contrast,...

In order to study the tempo and the mode of spider orb web evolution and diversification, we conducted a phylogenetic analysis using six genetic markers along with a comprehensive taxon sample. The present analyses are the first to recover the monophyly of orb-weaving spiders based solely on DNA sequence data and an extensive taxon sample. We present the first dated orb weaver phylogeny. Our re...