Small animals living in soils, called soil invertebrates, represent a very diverse group of inhabitants. They include earthworms, woodlice, spiders, springtails, mites, and some insects. Soil invertebrates feed on dead plants, fungi bacteria, or other invertebrates. The many ways interact with each other, the large number different species, make life soils complex difficult to understand. Unfor...

There is increasing interest in the potential impacts that fishing activities have on megafaunal benthic invertebrates occurring in continental shelf and slope ecosystems. We examined how the structure, size, and high-density aggregations of invertebrates provided structural relief for fishes in continental shelf and slope ecosystems off southern California. We made 112 dives in a submersible a...

Mating and immunity are intimately linked to fitness. In both vertebrates and invertebrates, recent investigations into mate choice for immunity, tradeoffs between reproduction and immunity, and the relationships between post-mating processes and immune function have revealed that mating and immunity are also intimately linked to each other. Here, we focus on invertebrates and critically examin...

Members of the dystrophin family of proteins perform a critical but incompletely characterized role in the maintenance of membrane-associated complexes at points of intercellular contact in many vertebrate cell types. They interact with, amongst others, the transmembrane laminin receptor dystroglycan, cytoskeletal actin and, indirectly, the intracellular membrane-associated signalling enzyme ne...

Experiments with invertebrate animals offer valuable opportunities in the teaching of physiology. In some cases, exercises that use these animals may demonstrate physiological principles more clearly than experiments that use vertebrates. Other experiments are easy to perform because of the latitude of conditions in which the tissues of many invertebrates function. Experiments with invertebrate...

While greater research on threatened species alone cannot ensure their protection, understanding taxonomic bias may be helpful to address knowledge gaps in order to identify research directions and inform policy. Using data for over 10 000 animal species listed on the International Union for Conservation of Nature Red List, we investigated taxonomic and geographic biodiversity conservation rese...

Civet diets were examined in a logged and unlogged Bornean rain forest. Malay civets (Viverra tangalunga) consumed invertebrates, fruit, rodents, insectivores, birds, snakes and lizards, and appear to show preference for centipedes and scorpions. Other civet species consumed fruit, such as figs, Connarus sp. and Annona sp., particularly in the unlogged forest, but also consumed invertebrates an...

The objective of this study was to examine the distribution of microorganism, invertebrates, phytomass in grey-brown (chestnut) soils of Garamaryam plateau. Comparative analysis of quantity of microorganisms, soil mezophauna and phytotesting in a phytocenoses and agrocenoses gave us important biodiagnostical results. The complexes (ecogroups) of the invertebrates in the natural and cultivated (...

Freshwater invertebrates are commonly used in biological monitoring, but research of biomarkers at biochemical level is still at the early stage of development. Biomarkers in aquatic species are regarded as important for detecting stressor components, such as presence of pollutants and changes in environmental factors (temperature, pH, oxygen content, etc.). Hyne and Maher (2003) reviewed the a...