The nature of fitness interactions is an important, yet unsolved, question in population genetics. We compare the egg-to-adult viability of individuals homozygous for either a second or a third chromosome with the viability of individuals homozygous for both chromosomes simultaneously. On the average, the viability of the two-chromosome homozygotes is somewhat greater than expected assuming tha...

Zooplankton are an important link between primary producers and fish. Therefore, it is crucial to address their responses when predicting effects of climate change on pelagic ecosystems. For realistic community-level predictions, several biotic and abiotic climate-related variables should be examined in combination. We studied the combined effects of ocean acidification and global warming predi...

BACKGROUND Schistosomiasis, one of the neglected tropical diseases, is endemic in more than 70 countries. However, the clinical diagnosis of patients with a low degree of infection is an unsolved technical problem. In areas endemic for schistosomiasis japonica, proctoscopy detection of eggs has been one method used for clinical diagnosis. However, it is often a challenge to find typical live eg...

Filtrates from nematode-parasitic fungi have been reported to be toxic to plant-parasitic nematodes. Our objective was to determine the effects of fungal filtrates on second-stage juveniles and eggs of Heterodera glycines. Eleven fungal species that were isolated from cysts extracted from a soybean field in Florida were tested on J2, and five species were tested on eggs in vitro. Each fungal sp...

1. Climate change impacts organismal performance via both shifts in mean conditions and acute thermal stress events. Yet, we know little about the relative fitness impacts of climate means and extremes, and how phenotypes mediate these effects. 2. Here, we incorporate demography in a biophysical model of two alpine butterflies with distinct phenotypes to examine the impacts of recent climate ch...

Optimal outbreeding theory predicts fitness benefits to intermediate levels of inbreeding. In the present study, we test for linear (consistent with inbreeding depression) and nonlinear (consistent with optimal outbreeding) effects of inbreeding on reproductive fitness in male and female Drosophila melanogaster. We found linear declines in fitness associated with increased inbreeding for egg-to...