In most southern provinces of Iran, Soil Salinity is a growing problem particularly in the irrigated agricultural areas and has been found to reduce crop yields. In order to investigate the role of pod removal in seed germination, seedling growth and antioxidant enzymes activity in annual medics (Medicago scutella L.) under salinity stress conditions, a factorial experiment was conducted at Col...

European lineages of Apis mellifera were first introduced into America for beekeeping purposes. A subsequent introduction and accidental release A. m. scutellata resulted in hybridization events that gave rise to Africanized populations rapidly spread throughout the continent. In Argentina, honey bees (AHBs) have been mostly detected northern regions territory, represent a valuable genetic reso...

The Chinese citrus fly, Bactrocera minax (Enderlein), is a devastating citrus pest in Asia. This univoltine insect enters obligatory pupal diapause in each generation, while little is known about the course and the molecular mechanisms of diapause. In this study, the course of diapause was determined by measuring the respiratory rate throughout the pupal stage. In addition, the variation of tra...

The Papuan taipan (Oxyuranus scutellatus canni) is widely distributed throughout much of Papua New Guinea. Although neurotoxicity is a major symptom of envenomation, no neurotoxins have been isolated from this venom. Using a series of size exclusion chromatography steps, we report the isolation of cannitoxin, a presynaptic neurotoxin (44,848 Da) that represents approximately 16% of the whole ve...

African honey bees, introduced to Brazil in 1956, rapidly dominated the previously introduced European subspecies. To better understand how hybridization between these different types of bees proceeded, we made geometric morphometric analyses of the wing venation patterns of specimens resulting from crosses made between Africanized honey bees (predominantly Apis mellifera scutellata) and I...

Over-consuming amino acids is associated with reduced survival in many species, including honeybees. The mechanisms responsible for this are unclear but one possibility is that excessive intake of amino acids increases oxidative damage. If this is the case, antioxidant supplementation may help reduce the survival costs of high amino acid intake. We tested this hypothesis in African honeybees (A...