Studies of mate choice evolution tend to focus on how female mating preferences are acquired and how they select for greater elaboration of male traits. By contrast, far less is known about how female preferences might be lost or reversed. In swordtail fish Xiphophorus, female preference for the sword ornament is an ancestral trait. Xiphophorus birchmanni, however, is one species that has secon...

Myxidium biliare sp. n., a new myxosporean species parasitizing the gall bladder of Galaxias maculatus (Jenyns), in Patagonia, is described. Its coelozoic plasmodia were floating free in the bile. Spores are fusiform 13.7 +/- 0.9 microm long and 6.9 +/- 0.6 microm wide, with rounded ends in frontal view and slightly pointed ends in sutural view; shell with ridges and sinuous sutural line. Both ...

Competition for resources including food, physical space, and potential mates is a fundamental ecological process shaping variation in individual phenotype and fitness. The evolution of competitive ability, in particular social dominance, depends on genetic (co)variation among traits causal (e.g., behavior) or consequent (e.g., growth) to competitive outcomes. If dominance is heritable, it will...

More than 80% ofinfants suffering from congenital biliary atresia are found to be inoperable at laparotomy (Grewe and Arius, 1961 ; Grewe and Pape, 1962; Grob, 1957; Gross, 1953; Hasse, 1963, 1964a, b; Hecker and Daum, 1964; Ladd, 1935; Rehbein and Neumann, 1957). The attempts to relieve the bile stasis by hepatogastrostomy (Gohrbandt, 1957), or cholangiojejunostomy (Longmire and Sanford, 1948,...

1. In most animals, females live longer than males, and large individuals live longer than small individuals. We examine both gender and body size effects on adult lifespan in two species of seed beetles ( Callosobruchus maculatus and Stator limbatus ), and test whether body size differences between males and females can explain genderdifferences in mortality rates and lifespan. 2. In both spec...

Insecticidal activity of essential oil extracted from Morinda lucida was tested on pulse beetle Callosobruchus maculatus, which is a pest that causes serious damage to several pulses. The insecticidal activity was compared with two pesticides, Phostoxin and Primo-ban-20. 120 mixed sex adult C. maculatus were introduced, along with 30 g of cowpeas. Four concentrations (0.40, 0.20, 0.10, and 0.05...

Two-day-old male cowpea weevils, Callosobruchus maculatus, fly upwind to a point source of female sex pheromone at three wind speeds. All beetles initiating flight along the pheromone plume make contact with the pheromone source. Analysis of digitized flight tracks indicates that C. maculatus males respond similarly to moths tested at several wind speeds. Beetles’ mean net upwind speeds and spe...

We determined the species diversity, blood-feeding behavior, and host preference of Anopheles mosquitoes in two malaria endemic areas of Tak (Mae Sot District) and Mae Hong Son (Sop Moei District) Provinces, located along the Thai border with Myanmar, during a consecutive two-year period. Anopheline mosquitoes were collected using indoor and outdoor human-landing captures and outdoor cow-baited...

A proteinaceous trypsin inhibitor was purified from Crotalaria pallida seeds by ammonium sulfate precipitation, affinity chromatography on immobilized trypsin–Sepharose and TCA precipitation. The trypsin inhibitor, named CpaTI, had Mr of 32.5 kDa as determined by SDS-PAGE and was composed of two subunits with 27.7 and 5.6 kDa linked by disulfide bridges. CpaTI was stable at 50 °C and lost 40% o...

Investigations have been carried out on the relative preference of U. mukerjii to four common species viz., C. maculatus, C. analis, C. chinensis and Zabrotes subfasciatus of store bruchids. Results show correspondence between the acceptance/contact ratio and the total number of eggs laid by the parasitoid for Callosobruchus species. U. mukerjii shows maximum preference on C. maculatus followed...