Although the immune functions of insects are known to correlate with body condition and food resources, the association between habitat structure and immune function is still largely unknown. We studied the effects of forest clear-cutting on encapsulation rate in gynes and workers in the forest-dwelling ant Formica aquilonia. Forest logging resulted in disturbed immunity in workers and gynes. L...

In unicolonial populations of ants, individuals can mix freely within large networks of nests that contain many queens. It has been proposed that the absence of aggression in unicolonial populations stems from a loss of nest mate recognition, but few studies have tested this hypothesis. We investigated patterns of aggression and nest mate recognition in the unicolonial wood ant, Formica paralug...

Culture-based methods were employed to recover 3929 isolates of fungi from soils collected in May and July 2014 from mound nests of Formica ulkei and adjacent non-nest sites. The abundance, diversity, and richness of species from nest mounds exceeded those of non-mound soils, particularly in July. Communities of fungi from mounds were more similar to those from mounds than non-mounds; this was ...

A synopsis of the Coreid genus Eldarca Signoret, 1864 is presented. Full species status is given to Eldarca rufa Reed, 1899 n. stat. New distributional data are provided for Eldarca nigra Signoret, 1864. Eldarca haematoloma rufa Reed, 1899 n. stat. is considered as subspecies of E. haematomera. Eldarca nigroscutellata sp. nov. is described from southern Patagonia; which becomes also the souther...

This study was conducted to determine ichthyofauna of the Büyük Karaçay stream of the River Orontes drainage in Turkey (eastern Mediterranaen basin). As the result of examination of the 911 individuals collected between June 2012 and May 2013, eight fish species belonging to five families have been recorded. Of these, African catfish Clarias gariepinus (Burchell, 1822), yellow barbel Carasobarb...

Dwarf bamboo-dominated forests are often subjected to temporary periods of drought due to rising air temperature and decreasing rainfall. Nevertheless, the relationship among CO2 assimilation, photoprotective pathways and metabolism of reactive oxygen species (ROS) remains unexplored in bamboo species. Changes in leaf gas exchange, chlorophyll fluorescence, energy partitioning, antioxidative sy...

Body size in animals is affected by both genes and the environment (e.g., the amount of food resources). In ants, body size is related to several traits in an individual's physiology and life history. For example, a large queen may increase offspring production, thus increasing her overall fitness. In this study, whether sub-optimal environmental conditions affect the body size of queens of the...

This report presents preliminary information on Pachystegia rufa and allied species; the so-called Marlborough rock daisies, here referred to collectively as pachystegias. The report is based on field and experimental information gathered by the author since 1978, and additional data derived from joint studies of seed set and germination, cytology and flavonoid chemistry. Field visits have been...

Mature larvae of the patch butterfly, Chlosyne lacinia (Geyer), exhibit striking color polymorphism. First described by T. D. A. Cockerell in Edwards (1893) and illustrated by Neck et aI. (1971), the three morphs are as follows: rufa, an all orange or orange-red form; nigra, an all black form; and bicolor, a form basically black as in nigra but with a prominent mid-dorsal row of orange to orang...

Several species of social bees exhibit population-level lateralization in learning odors and recalling olfactory memories. Honeybees Apis mellifera and Australian social stingless bees Trigona carbonaria and Austroplebeia australis are better able to recall shortand long-term memory through the right and left antenna respectively, whereas non-social mason bees Osmia rufa are not lateralized in ...