1 Root-feeding insects are now considered to play a greater role in ecosystem processes than previously thought, yet little is known about their specific interactions with host plants compared with above-ground insect herbivores. Methodological difficulties associated with studying these insects in the soil, together with the lack of empirical and theoretical frameworks, have conventionally hin...

Multiple studies have addressed the mechanisms maintaining polymorphism within a population. However, several examples exist where species inhabiting diverse habitats exhibit local population-specific polymorphism. Numerous explanations have been proposed for the maintenance of geographic variation in color patterns. For example, spatial variation in patterns of selection or limited gene flow c...

This study investigated the ability of neonatal larvae of the root-feeding weevil, Sitona lepidus Gyllenhal, to locate white clover Trifolium repens L. (Fabaceae) roots growing in soil and to distinguish them from the roots of other species of clover and a co-occurring grass species. Choice experiments used a combination of invasive techniques and the novel technique of high resolution X-ray mi...

Question: Does the relative importance of stochastic and deterministic factors change during primary succession? Location: Small depressions (potholes) located onMount St. Helens, Washington (4611305100N, 12210901000W, 1290m). Methods: Pothole vegetation was described in 1993, 1997 and from 2001 to 2008. Explanatory variables included location and elevation (spatial factors), soil factors and L...

Infections of a population of Crassostrea gigas by the copepod Mytilicola orientalis were examined at an oyster growing site at Dungarvan, County Waterford, Ireland. Twenty-one samples, each consisting of 20 to 30 oysters have been examined over 2 yr. Condition, sex, reproductive stage, length, weight, glycogen content and other parasite burdens of the oysters were examined in relation to the d...

Comprehension of the mechanisms by which ectotherms, such as fish, respond to thermal stress is paramount for understanding the threats that environmental changes may pose to wild populations. Heat shock proteins are molecular chaperones with an important role in several stress conditions such as high temperatures. In the Iberian Peninsula, particularly in Portugal, freshwater fish of the genus...

Bats are unique mammals that are reservoirs of high levels of virus diversity. Although several of these viruses are zoonotic, the majority are not. Astroviruses, transmitted fecal-orally, are commonly detected in a wide diversity of bat species, are prevalent at high rates and are not thought to directly infect humans. These features make astroviruses useful in examining virus evolutionary his...

صخلملا A total of 48 fresh water fishes, belonging to four species of the family Cyprinidae (Capoeta trutta, Chalcalburnus mossulensis, Cyprinion macrostomum and Leuciscus lepidus) were collected from Darbandikhan lake, southwest Sulaimaniya city, Kurdistan region, in the north of Iraq, from March to the end of July 2008. The inspection of gills revealed the infection of these fishes with four ...

osteological features are important to study the taxonomy and phylogenetic relationship of fishes. since there is no information is available about osteological features of squalius orientalis , therefore this study was aimed to provide a detailed description of the osteological features of this species from the urmia lake basin of iran and comparing it with population of s. orientalis from the...