The present study focused on the movements that owls perform before they swoop down on their prey. The working hypothesis was that owl head movements reflect the capacity to efficiently follow visually and auditory a moving prey. To test this hypothesis, five tame barn owls (Tyto alba) were each exposed 10 times to a live vole in a laboratory setting that enabled us to simultaneously record the...

The levels of resistance in the wild species of cassava, Manihot tristis Muell-Arg. (Malpighiales: Euphorbiaceae), to the whitefly, Aleurotrachelus socialis Bondar (Hemiptera: Alelyrodidae), the most important economic pest in cassava, Manihot esculenta Crantz (Malpighiales: Euphorbiaceae) crops in South America, were estimated under glasshouse conditions. The parameters of the life history of ...

Bartonella infections are widespread and highly prevalent in rodents. Several rodent-associated Bartonella species have been related to human diseases. Recently, Bartonella species was reported as the etiology of a human case in the country of Georgia (Caucasus). However, information on Bartonella in rodents in Georgia is absent. Rodent hearts were collected from Georgia to investigate the pres...

Rodents usually respond to the presence of owls by reducing overall activity, in particular foraging. In this study, a playback of recorded tawny owl, Strix aluco, calls was sufficient to induce a marked effect in the social (Gunther's) vole, Microtus socialis. Some of the voles exposed to owl calls reduced their activity ('freeze' pattern) unlike control voles exposed to a human voice. Other v...

Entomoparasitic nematodes are natural control agents for many insect pests, including fleas that transmit Yersinia pestis, a causative agent of plague, in the natural foci of this extremely dangerous zoonosis. We examined the flea samples from the Volga-Ural natural focus of plague for their infestation with nematodes. Among the six flea species feeding on different rodent hosts (Citellus pygma...

Volvocine green algae represent the "evolutionary time machine" model lineage for studying multicellularity, because they encompass the whole range of evolutionary transition of multicellularity from unicellular Chlamydomonas to >500-celled Volvox. Multicellular volvocalean species including Gonium pectorale and Volvox carteri generally have several common morphological features to survive as i...