Feeding habits of Caspian marine shad Alosa braschnikowii (Borodin, 1904), inhabiting in the western part of Caspian Sea such as prey spectrum and seasonal dynamics have been studied. As in other parts of Caspian Sea, throughout the year, the main hunt of Caspian marine shad constituted kilkas, gobies and shrimps while other groups of zoobenthos were represented in a lesser extent. Importance o...

Seasonal reproduction in birds is the adaptation to breed at the time of the greatest survival of young. This exact moment is mainly imposed by the photoperiod which stimulates the hypothalamo-pituitary-gonadal axis and starts breeding season. This article summarizes present knowledge concerning: 1/ perception and transduction of light into the biological signal; 2/ model of the avian photoperi...

This study compares two new seasonal adjustment methods designed to handle outliers and structural changes: X-IZARIMA and GAUSUM-STM. X12-ARIMA is a successor to the X-ll-ARIMA seasonal adjustment method, and is being developed at the U.S. Bureau of the Census (Findley et al. (1988)). GAUSUM-STM is a non-Gaussian method using time series structural models, and was developed for this study based...

Seasonal plasticity of structure and function is a fundamental feature of nervous systems in a wide variety of animals that occupy seasonal environments. Excellent examples of seasonal brain changes are found in the avian song control system, which has become a leading model of morphological and functional plasticity in the adult CNS. The volumes of entire brain regions that control song increa...