Understanding whether the sperm of older males has a diminished capacity to produce successful offspring is a key challenge in evolutionary biology. We investigate this issue using 10 years of reproductive data on captive long-lived houbara bustards (Chlamydotis undulata), where the use of artificial insemination techniques means parents can only influence offspring quality via their gametes. H...

Inflammatory conditions mediated by activated microglia lead to chronic neuro-degenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, and Huntington's diseases. This study was conducted to determine the effect of floridoside isolated from marine red algae Laurencia undulata on LPS (100 ng/ml) activated inflammatory responses in BV-2 microglia cells. The results show that floridoside has the abi...

Ammonium Preference: Agrostis canina (velvet bentgrass) Amphibolis antarctica (a seagrass) Callitriche hamulata (a water starwort) Ceratophyllum demersum (hornwort) Cymodocea rotundata (a seagrass) Drepanocladus fluitans (an aquatic moss) Eichhornia crassipes (water hyacinth) Elodea densa (Anacharis) Elodea nuttallii (Western waterweed) Fontinalis antipyretica (willow moss) Halodule uninervis (...

The shallow-water (<150m) antipatharian fauna of the Hawaiian Archipelago is described and illustrated based on a systematic examination of skeletal spine morphology, polyp morphology, colony branching pattern and in situ photographs. A total of 172 black coral specimens were examined, including all available type material of species previously reported from shallow waters off Hawai‘i. The exam...

Neodictyoprolenol [(-)-(3S)-(1,5Z,8Z)-undecatrien-3-ol] and dictyoprolenol [(-)-(3S)-(1,5Z,8Z)-undecadien-3-ol]), which had been proposed as possible biosynthetic intermediates of the sex pheromones of marine brown algae such as dictyopterene B [(-)-trans-1-((1'E,3'Z)-hexadienyl)-2-vinylcyclopropane], D' [(+)-6-((1'Z)-butenyl)-1,4-cycloheptadiene] and C' [(+)-6-butyl-1,4-cycloheptadiene], were ...

Aspects of the population dynamics of the undulate ray, Raja undulata (Chondrichthyes: Rajidae), one of the more abundant elasmobranch ¢shes captured along the Portuguese south coast (Algarve), were studied for the ¢rst time. Some traditional elasmobranch vertebral enhancing techniques were compared and the most precise for this species determined to be the cedar wood oil immersion and the aliz...

The placoderm fauna of the upper Famennian tetrapod-bearing locality of Strud, Belgium, includes the antiarch Grossilepis rikiki, the arthrodire groenlandaspidid Turrisaspis strudensis and the phyllolepidid Phyllolepis undulata. Based on morphological and morphometric evidence, the placoderm specimens from Strud are predominantly recognised as immature specimens and this locality as representin...

In field tests in Hungary, Slovenia and Bulgaria, in allyl isothiocyanate-baited traps significantly more beetles of Phyllotreta cruciferae, Ph. vittula, Ph. undulata, Ph. nigripes, Ph. nodicornis, Ph. balcanica, Ph. atra, Ph. procera, Ph. ochripes, Ph. diademata and Psylliodes chrysocephalus (Coleoptera, Chrysomelidae, Halticinae) were captured than in unbaited control traps. With the exceptio...

Dispersal dynamics have significant consequences for ecological and evolutionary processes. Previous work has demonstrated that dispersal can be context-dependent. However, factors affecting dispersal are typically considered in isolation, despite the probability that individuals make dispersal decisions in response to multiple, possibly interacting factors. We examined whether two ecological f...

In this paper we describe four new species of Stethantyx Townes (Ichneumonidae: Tersilochinae) from Ecuador and Peru characterized by the fore wing with first and second abscissae of radius meeting at right angle: S. erwini Khalaim & Sääksjärvi, sp. nov., S. radiata Khalaim & Sääksjärvi, sp. nov., S. rufispa Khalaim & Bordera, sp. nov. and S. undulata Khalaim & Sääksjärvi, sp. nov. Second part ...