As bighead carp Hypophthalmichthysnobilis and silver carp H. molitrix (the bigheaded carps) are poised to enter the Laurentian Great Lakes and potentially damage the region's economically important fishery, information on developmental rates and behaviors of carps is critical to assessing their ability to establish sustainable populations within the Great Lakes basin. In laboratory experiments,...

Changes in the levels of haemolymph metal ions of two binoltine races of the silkworm, Bombyx mori (NB4D2 and CSR2) and the multivoltine race (Pure Mysore ) was studied at different stages of larval and pupal development. The haemolymph metal ions showed significant changes during different stages of larval development like moult, post-moult, feeding and spinning and pupal stages like pre-pupa,...

To understand the potential functions of Wnt7b in different developmental stages and adult tissues of the mussel Mytilus coruscus, the Wnt7b gene was cloned using the rapid amplification of cDNA ends technique. The full-length Wnt7b gene was 1910 bp long, with a 1059-bp open reading frame encoding 352 amino acids. The amino acid sequence of the M. coruscus Wnt7b gene shared high homology with t...

Eurhinus magnificus Gyllenhal has been collected in south Florida, presumably introduced through trade with countries in its native range. Very little information has been published on the biology or taxonomy of this insect. We conducted studies to investigate various aspects of its life history and host plant associations. The pre-imaginal life stages of E. magnificus are described for the fir...

In Caenorhabditis elegans, the heterochronic pathway controls the timing of developmental events during the larval stages. A component of this pathway, the let-7 small regulatory RNA, is expressed at the late stages of development and promotes the transition from larval to adult (L/A) stages. The stage-specificity of let-7 expression, which is crucial for the proper timing of the worm L/A trans...

Little is known about how hatch phenology (e.g., the start, peak, and duration of hatching) could influence subsequent recruitment of freshwater fishes into a population. We used two commonly sympatric fish species that exhibit different hatching phenologies to examine recruitment across multiple life stages. Nine yellow perch (Perca flavescens) and bluegill (Lepomis macrochirus) annual cohorts...

Organisms with complex life cycles can differ markedly in their biology across developmental life stages. Consequently, distinct life stages can represent drastically different environments for parasites. This difference is especially striking with holometabolous insects, which have dramatically different larval and adult life stages, bridged by a complete metamorphosis. There is no a priori gu...

Application of organophosphorus (OP) insecticides to agricultural fields during the spring often overlaps the period of spawning, egg incubation, and larval stages of fish species such as walleye (Stizostedion vitreum). Because life stage can affect uptake, distribution, and effects of contaminants, our objective was to identify the most sensitive life stage of walleye tochlorpyrifos, a broad-s...

Midgut tissue undergoes remodeling during metamorphosis in insects belonging to orders Lepidoptera and Diptera. We investigated the developmental and hormonal regulation of these remodeling events in lepidopteran insect, Heliothis virescens. In H. virescens, programmed cell death (PCD) of larval midgut cells as well as proliferation and differentiation of imaginal cells began at 108 h after ecd...

Competition between corals and macroalgae is often assumed to occur on reefs, especially those that have undergone shifts from coral to algal dominance; however, data examining these competitive interactions, especially during the early life-history stages of corals, are scarce. We conducted a series of field and outdoor seawater-table experiments to test the hypothesis that allelopathy (chemic...