Laboratory bioassays using Culex quinquefasciatus larvae evaluated the effect of tadpole shrimp on the persistence of Bacillus thuringiensis var. israelensis (B.t.i.) in water collected from the surface of field microcosms. Time elapsed since B.t.i. treatment, as well as presence or absence of soil and tadpole shrimp, affected B.t.i. persistence at the water surface in 15- and 30-cm total depth...

> Abstract Phylogeny of Branchiopoda (Crustacea) has received intensive attention the last decade and a widely accepted full resolution of the relationships between the major branchiopod taxa is close. Various well-preserved fossil branchiopods (e.g., Castracollis, Lepidocaris, Kazacharthra, Leptodorosida) combine characters from major recent taxa and are therefore necessary for a full understa...

Daphnia O.F. Müller (Crustacea: Cladocera: Daphniidae) is an important model in biology. It was concluded earlier that subgenus Daphnia s.str. occurs mainly in the northern hemisphere, subgenus Daphnia (Ctenodaphnia) in the southern hemisphere, which could suggest that: (1) the subgeneric differentiation is correlated with the Laurasia-Gondwanaland subdivision and (2) D. (Ctenodaphnia) is a tax...

In a blind and randomised study, early postlarval stages of the tadpole shrimp Triops cancriformis, the fairy shrimp Branchipus schaefferi, and the clam shrimp Leptestheria dahalacensis were exposed to different concentrations of a commonly available Bti suspension, equivalent to 0, 4.5 (recommended treatment concentration), 45, 450, and 4500 AA/l. No statistically significant correlations were...

This paper describes the tadpole and advertisement call of Phyllodytes acuminatus, based on specimens from the Parque Nacional do Catimbau, in the municipality of Buíque, State of Pernambuco, Northeastern Brazil. The overall morphology of P. acuminatus tadpole is similar to that of most species of the genus. The presence of a double row of marginal papillae surrounding all the oral apparatus (e...

We sequenced the V4 and V7 regions of the small-subunit ribosomal RNA (SSU rRNA) from 38 species of branchiopod crustaceans (e.g., Artemia, Daphnia, Triops) representing all eight extant orders. Ancestral large-bodied taxa in the orders Anostraca, Notostraca, Laevicaudata, and Spinicaudata (limnadiids and cyzicids) possess the typical secondary structure in these regions, whereas the spinicauda...

Anurans (frogs and toads) are unique among land vertebrates in possessing a free-living larval stage that, parallel to adult frogs, diversified into an impressive range of ecomorphs. The tempo and mode at which tadpole morphology evolved through anuran history as well as its relationship to lineage diversification remain elusive. We used a molecular phylogenetic framework to examine patterns of...

Endemic Ponto-Caspian gobies include a flock of 24 "neogobiin" species (containing the nominal genera and subgenera Apollonia, Babka, Neogobius, Mesogobius, Ponticola, and Proterorhinus; Teleostei: Gobiidae), of which a large proportion (5 species; 21%) recently escaped to invade other freshwater Eurasian systems and the North American Great Lakes. We provide its first comprehensive phylogeneti...

The large branchiopod fauna of Sardinia is reviewed based both on literature and newly collected data. Based the available evidence, 13 taxa are present island (8 Anostraca, 2 Notostraca, 3 Spinicaudata). Among them, finding spinicaudatan Leptestheria dahalacensis new for Sardinia, while spinicaudatans Cyzicus bucheti Eulimnadia sp. were overlooked in most recent synopses due to misidentificati...