Members of the gammaproteobacterial genus Halomonas are common in marine environments. Halomonas and other members of the Oceanospirillales have recently been identified as prominent members of the surface microbiota of reef-building corals. Halomonas meridiana strain R1t3 was isolated from the surface mucus layer of the scleractinian coral Acropora palmata in 2005 from the Florida Keys. This s...

Coral reef conservation requires information about the distance over which healthy reefs can rescue damaged reefs through input of coral larvae. This information is desperately needed in the Caribbean where the 2 dominant shallow water corals Acropora cervicornis and Acropora palmata have suffered unprecedented declines. Here we compare the population genetic structure in the staghorn coral A. ...

To test the hypotheses that U.S. Virgin Islanders' knowledge about local coral reefs is correlated with behavior, and that different sociological groups of residents have different patterns of knowledge and behavior, a mixed approach to surveying residents was used: (1) personal interviews were held in public locations and (2) an online version of the survey was administered to residents of the...

Plant poisoning is not an uncommon problem in Sri Lanka. A hospital based prospective study showed that Jatropha curcas, Ricinus communis, Dieffenbachia, Adenia palmata, Amanita phalloides and Thevetia peruviana are common poisonous plants implicated in poisoning among children in Sri Lanka. [1]. In the past, deliberate ingestion of yellow oleander seeds (Thevetia peruviana) was a common method...

The vine mealybug, Planococcus ficus (Signoret) (Hemiptera: Pseudococcidae), is a pest in grape vine growing areas worldwide. The essential oils from the following aromatic plants were tested for their insecticidal activity against P. ficus: peppermint, Mentha piperita L. (Lamiales: Lamiaceae), thyme-leaved savory, Satureja thymbra L., lavender, Lavandula angustifolia Mill, and basil, Ocimum ba...

∗ Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Mengla, Yunnan 666303, China † Department of Environmental Science and Engineering, North East Normal University, Changchun 130024, China ‡ School of Life Science, East China Normal University, Shanghai 200062, China § Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100080, China # Department of Ecology and Biodi...

Ficus microcarpa is an Asian fig tree that is ornamentally cultivated. The specific pollinator, Eupristina verticillata Waterston, and the non-pollinators Walkerella microcarpae Boucek and Philotrypesis emeryi Grandi, have been reported associated to F. microcarpa in Brazil. In here we report for the first time the occurrence of Odontofroggatia ishii Wiebes and Philotrypesis taiwanensis Chen et...