The regeneration of disturbed forest is an essential part of tropical forest ecology, both with respect to natural disturbance regimes and large-scale human-mediated logging, grazing, and agriculture. Pioneer tree species are critical for facilitating the transition from deforested land to secondary forest because they stabilize terrain and enhance connectivity between forest fragments by incre...

Effects of habitat and acclimation temperature on cholesterol contents were examined in oceanic and inshore species of copepods. The cholesterol content of five species of thermally acclimated copepods was determined, and nine species (representing six families) were sampled to assess the role of habitat temperature. The species selected have maximum habitat temperatures (and temperature tolera...

Chromosome numbers of one species Eranthemum (E. macrophyllum Wall. ex Nees) and five Strobilanthes [S. affinis (Griff.) Terao J. R. I. Wood et Benett., S. biocullata Y. F. Deng & Wood, dimorphotricha Hance, heteroclita D. Fang H. Lo pseudocollina K. He Qin] in the family Acanthaceae from China have been reported for first time. The chromosome were determined as 2n=4x=44 E. macrophyllum, 2n=2x=...

A taxonomic study of the genus Furcilarnaca Gorochov, 2004 is presented. Four new species are described: F. affinis sp. nov., F. hirta sp. nov., F. fractiflexa sp. nov., F. brachyptera sp. nov.. Two new combinations F. fallax (Liu et al., 2010) comb. nov. and F. pulex (Karny, 1928) comb. nov. are given. A key to the species and the distributional data of Furcilarnaca are provided.

Eleven species of Mordellidae are newly recorded for New Brunswick, Canada. Six of these, Falsomordellistena discolor (Melsheimer), Falsomordellistena pubescens (Fabricius), Mordellistena ornata (Melsheimer), Mordellaria undulata (Melsheimer), Tomoxia inclusa LeConte, and Yakuhananomia bidentata (Say)are new for the Maritime provinces. Falsomordellistena pubescens is new to Canada. Pelecotoma f...

Five species previously usually treated as Dicranomyia (Dicranomyia) mitis (Meigen, 1830) are redescribed and named with already existing names, viz. D. (D.) mitis [s. str.], D. (D.) affinis (Schummel, 1829), D. (D.) quadra (Meigen, 1838), sp. restit., D. (D.) lutea (Meigen, 1804), and D. (D.) imbecilla Lackschewitz in Lackschewitz & Pagast, 1941, stat. n. All important characters of the wing, ...

Maintenance of genetic variation at loci under selection has profound implications for adaptation under environmental change. In temporally and spatially varying habitats, non-neutral polymorphism could be maintained by heterozygote advantage across environments (marginal overdominance), which could be greatly increased by beneficial reversal of dominance across conditions. We tested for revers...

A molecular tool, focused on the mitochondrial Control Region (CR), was developed to discriminate the two hawthorn-feeding psyllid species, Cacopsylla melanoneura (Förster) and C. affinis (Löw), and to estimate their frequencies in mixed populations. The test was carried out in paired and single-tube amplifications and validated analysing 52 male specimens previously determined by morphological...

The study of the copepod Eurytemora affinis has provided unprecedented insights into mechanisms of invasive success. In this invited review, I summarize a subset of work from my laboratory to highlight key insights gained from studying E. affinis as a model system. Invasive species with brackish origins are overrepresented in freshwater habitats. The copepod E. affinis is an example of such a b...

We compare the sequences for the mitochondrial cytochrome oxidase II gene of 13 species of the Drosophila obscura group. The survey includes six members of the D. affinis subgroup, four of the D. pseudoobscura subgroup, and three of the D. obscura subgroup. In all species, the gene is 688 nucleotides in length, encoding a protein of 229 amino acids plus the first position T of the stop codon. T...