The Drosophila pupal abdomen is an established model system for the study of epithelial morphogenesis and the development of sexually dimorphic morphologies. During pupation, which spans approximately 96 hours (at 25 °C), proliferating populations of imaginal cells replace the larval epidermis to generate the adult abdominal segments. These imaginal cells, born during embryogenesis, exist as la...

We investigated the direct and indirect effects of elevated atmospheric CO(2) on freshwater container habitats and their larval mosquito occupants. We predicted that a doubling of atmospheric CO(2) would (1) alter the chemical properties of water in this system, (2) slow degradation of leaf litter, and (3) decrease larval growth of Aedes albopictus (Skuse) mosquitoes raised on that litter under...

Prey and non-prey foods differ substantially in their suitability for zoophytophagous omnivores, but the relative quality of these foods depends on the stage-specific digestive capabilities of the organism in question. Quantitative (or real-time) PCR was used to amplify food-specific DNA and measure consumption rates and digestion efficiencies of four foods - two prey (Aphis glycines and Leptin...

Coral reproduction is vulnerable to both declining water quality and warming temperatures, with simultaneous exposures likely compounding the negative impact of each stressor. We investigated how early life processes of the coral Acropora tenuis respond to increasing levels of suspended sediments in combination with temperature or organic nutrients. Fertilization success and embryo development ...

The way organisms allocate their resources to growth and reproduction are key attributes differentiating life histories. Many organisms spawn multiple times in a breeding season, but few studies have investigated the impact of serial spawning on reproductive allocation. This study investigated whether resource allocation was influenced by parental characteristics and prior spawning history in a...

An intense epidemic of dengue haemorrhagic fever in 1998 prompted the Thai government to investigate the feasibility of focalized vector (Aedes aegypti) control programmes. We tested for correlations of three indices of Aedes larval abundance (housing index, container index and Breteau index) against 38 socio-economic and four climatic variables. Availability of public water wells, existence of...

Animals integrate external cues with information about internal conditions such as metabolic state to execute the appropriate behavioral and developmental decisions. Information about food quality and quantity is assessed by the intestine and transmitted to modulate neuronal functions via mechanisms that are not fully understood. The conserved Target of Rapamycin complex 2 (TORC2) controls mult...

BACKGROUND Out of total 3,081 assembled expressed sequence tags (ESTs) sequences representing 6,815 high-quality ESTs identified in three cDNA libraries constructed with RNA isolated from the midgut of Spodoptera litura, 1,039 ESTs showed significant hits and 1,107 ESTs did not show significant hits in BLAST searches. It is of interest to clarify whether or not these ESTs that did not show hits...

Nutrition is the important physiological process, which plays a prime role in the growth and in turn it affects the productivity of the silkworm. The supplementation of different materials along with mulberry leaves to silkworm results higher yield because the production of quality silk mainly depends on larval nutrition. The influence of antibiotic on growth and development of silkworm larva a...

Developmental patterns and survival of the cotton bollworm, Helicoverpa armigera Hübner (Lepidoptera: Noctuidae), a polyphagous insect pest, have been studied with reference to the effect of diet on major gut digestive enzymes (amylases, proteases, and lipases). Significant correlations between nutritional quality of the diet and larval and pupal mass were observed when H. armigera larvae were ...