Recent studies of the routes of worldwide introductions of alien organisms suggest that many widespread invasions could have stemmed not from the native range, but from a particularly successful invasive population, which serves as the source of colonists for remote new territories. We call here this phenomenon the invasive bridgehead effect. Evaluating the likelihood of such a scenario is heur...

Ichthyosis is a very heterogeneous family of skin disorders with harlequin ichthyosis being the most severe genetic form. It is a rare autosomal recessive condition, characterized by dry, severely thickened skin with large plates of hyperkeratotic scale, separated by deep fissures. Infants are very susceptible to metabolic abnormalities and infections. They usually do not survive for very long,...

We have established ex situ assurance colonies of two endangered Panamanian harlequin frogs, Atelopus certus and Atelopus glyphus, but observed that males fought with each other when housed as a group. Housing frogs individually eliminated this problem, but created space constraints. To evaluate the potential stress effects from aggressive interactions when grouping frogs, we housed male frogs ...

When participants are asked to attend to two target stimuli in a rapid serial visual presentation sequence, the successful identification of the 1st target (T1) leads to transient impairment in reporting the 2nd target (T2)--this effect is known as the attentional blink (AB). In healthy individuals, this AB effect is either diminished or accentuated when emotional stimuli are presented in the T...

Reproductive environments are variable and the resources available for reproduction are finite. If reliable cues about the environment exist, mothers can alter offspring phenotype in a way that increases both offspring and maternal fitness ('anticipatory maternal effects'-AMEs). Strategic use of AMEs is likely to be important in chemically defended species, where the risk of offspring predation...

Protein-protein interactions (PPIs) are involved in many cellular processes. Experimentally obtained protein quaternary structures provide the location of protein-protein interfaces, the surface region of a given protein that interacts with another. These regions are termed half-interfaces (HIs). Canonical HIs cover roughly one third of a protein's surface and were found to have more hydrophobi...

1 Laboratory of Functional and Evolutionary Entomology, Gembloux Agro-Bio Tech, University of Liege, Gembloux, Belgium, Department of Entomology, Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology, Jena, Germany, 3 Institute for Insect Biotechnology, Justus Liebig University of Giessen, Giessen, Germany, Department Bioresources, Fraunhofer Institute for Molecular Biology and Applied Ecology, Giessen, Ge...

Harlequin bug (HB), Murgantia histrionica (Hahn), is a pest of cole crops. Alternative control strategies were investigated for control of HB, including trap cropping and systemic neonicotinoid insecticide applications. Potential trap crops, mustard (Brassica juncea ‘Southern Giant Curled’), rapeseed (B. napus ‘Athena’), rapini (B. rapa) and arugula (Eruca sativa) were preferred over collard (B...