The Eurasian badgers (Meles spp.) are widespread in the Palaearctic Region, occurring from the British Islands in the west to the Japanese Islands in the east, including the Scandinavia, Southwest Asia and southern China. The morphometric variation in 30 cranial characters of 692 skulls of Meles from across the Palaearctic was here analyzed. This craniometric analysis revealed a significant dif...

Novel carbasugars derived from cyclohexane-1,2-dicarboxylic acid were synthesized and tested for inhibitory activity towards fungal glycosidases from Aspergillus oryzae and Penicillium canescens. Significant inhibition was observed, which magnitude depended on configuration of substituents.

Both arrhenotokous and thelytokous reproduction are known to occur in the parasitoid wasp Venturia canescens. The cytological mechanism of thelytoky was previously reported to involve the formation of a restitution metaphase after the reduction division, but the exact nature of the subsequent divisions, whether reductional or equational, remained unclear. We reinvestigated the cytological mecha...

In bryophytes a morphological species concept is still most commonly employed, but delimitation of closely related species based on morphological characters is often difficult. Here we test morphological species circumscriptions in a species complex of the moss genus Racomitrium, the R. canescens complex, based on variable DNA sequence markers from the plastid (rps4-trnT-trnL region) and nuclea...

1. Sib mating avoidance is a pervasive behaviour, which likely evolves in species that sare subject to inbreeding depression. Laboratory studies have provided elegant demonstrations, but small-scale bioassays often minimize the costs associated with mate finding and mate-choice and may for this reason produce spurious findings. 2. We inferred the mating behaviour of the parasitoid wasp Venturia...

High temperature can induce the production of 2n gametes and aborted pollen during microsporogenesis in Populus canescens. However, mechanism by which high induces abortion remains unknown. Here, was induced exposing male flower buds P. canescens to 38 41 °C; morphology, meiotic abnormalities, defects microtubular cytoskeleton, tapetum development were characterized. We found that dominant stag...

BACKGROUND AND AIMS In contrast to seeds, high sensitivity of vegetative fragments to unfavourable environments may limit the expansion of clonal invasive plants. However, clonal integration promotes the establishment of propagules in less suitable habitats and may facilitate the expansion of clonal invaders into intact native communities. Here, we examine the influence of clonal integration on...