The behavioural demands of group living and foraging have been implicated in both evolutionary and plastic changes in brain size. Desert locusts show extreme phenotypic plasticity, allowing brain morphology to be related to very different lifestyles in one species. At low population densities, locusts occur in a solitarious phase that avoids other locusts and is cryptic in appearance and behavi...

We investigated whether the concept II indoor rowing ergometer accurately reflects rowing on water. Forty-nine junior elite male rowers from a Great Britain training camp completed a 2000 m concept II model C indoor rowing ergometer test and a water-based 2000 m single-scull rowing test. Rowing speed in water (3.66 m/s) was significantly slower than laboratory-based rowing performance (4.96 m/s...

We investigate the effects of algal cell size on the competition for nutrients and light in an incompletely mixed water column, employing a spatially explicit variable internal stores approach and previously published allometric scaling relationships for modeling phytoplankton growth. We analyze the interplay between the size-dependent vertical assimilation and uptake profiles and the role of e...

Precise exponential scaling with size is a fundamental aspect of phenotypic variation. These allometric power laws are often invariant across taxa and have long been hypothesized to reflect developmental constraints. Here we test this hypothesis by investigating the evolutionary potential of an allometric scaling relationship in drosophilid wing shape that is nearly invariant across 111 species...

this research develops an allometric model for estimation of biomass based on the height and dbh of trees in the hyrcanian forests of iran. an accurate allometric model reduces the uncertainty of allometric equation in biomass estimation using radar images. in this study, 317 trees were selected randomly from the 4 different dominant tree species for the development of an allometric model cover...

The mitotic spindle is a diamond-shaped molecular apparatus crucial for chromosomal segregation. The regulation of spindle length is well studied, but little is known about spindle width. Previous studies suggested that the spindle can self-organize to maintain a constant aspect ratio between its length and width against physical perturbations. Here we determine the widths of metaphase spindles...

The perianth persists after flowering in many plants, yet its post-floral functionality has been little investigated, and the few studies available provide ambiguous evidence. This paper tests the hypothesis that the green persistent sepals of the perennial herb, Helleborus foetidus, contribute to the plant's fitness by enhancing seed number and/or size. Post-floral contribution of the calyx to...

Alkaline phosphatase activity (APA), tissue P, N and C were determined for 23 species of benthic marine macrophytes (22 macroalgae, 1 seagrass). In addition, estimates of the surface area /volume ratio (SA:V) of these species were derived from experimental work and from the literature. The tissue nutrient content (especially P) does not explain differences in APA among the species of marine mac...

we collected silver bream blicca bjoerkna from march to july 2013 from aras dam lake (north-west of iran) and investigated its age, size, and some biological characteristics. the maximum age was 5 + years. the total length and weight of specimens ranged 137-278 mm and 26-247 g for male and 134-282 mm and 26-289 g for female, respectively. length-weight relationship was estimated as w = 1e-06tl ...

The widespread and complex ecogeographical diversity of macaques may have caused adaptive morphological convergence among four phylogenetic subgroups, making their phylogenetic relationships unclear. We used geometric morphometrics and multivariate analyses to test the null hypothesis that craniofacial morphology does not vary with ecogeographical and phylogenetic factors. As predicted by Bergm...