Anthropogenic Biomes describe globally significant ecological patterns within the terrestrial biosphere caused by sustained direct human interaction with ecosystem, including agriculture, urbanization, forestry and other land uses. The present study focused on the invertebrate diversity in Marudhamalai Hills which is highly disturbed by human activities. Different techniques to identify the dis...

Unlike many other ion channels, unrelated gene families encode gap junctions in different animal phyla. Connexin and pannexin genes are found in deuterostomes, while protostomal species use innexin genes. Connexins are often described as vertebrate genes, despite the existence of invertebrate deuterostomes. We have cloned connexin sequences from an invertebrate chordate, Halocynthia pyriformis....

Invertebrate diversity is important for a multitude of ecosystem services and as a component of the larger ecological food web. A better understanding of the factors influencing invertebrate taxonomic richness and diversity at both local and landscape scales is important for conserving biodiversity within the agricultural landscape. The aim of this study was to determine if invertebrate richnes...

Marine invertebrates have proven to be a rich source of secondary metabolites. The growing recognition that marine microorganisms associated with invertebrate hosts are involved in the biosynthesis of secondary metabolites offers new alternatives for the discovery and development of marine natural products. However, the discovery of microorganisms producing secondary metabolites previously attr...

Steroids play fundamental roles regulating mammalian reproduction and development. Although sex steroids and their receptors are well characterized in vertebrates and several arthropod invertebrates, little is known about the hormones and receptors regulating reproduction in other invertebrate species. Evolutionary insights into ancient endocrine pathways can be gained by elucidating the hormon...

Memories exist in multiple forms and have multiple functions. They may be categorized according to their cell-physiological substrates along a timescale defined as short-term, mid-term, and long-term memory (STM, MTM, and LTM, respectively). Ongoing neural activity serves as the storage device for STM; intracellular signaling cascades lead to MTM; and gene activation, protein synthesis, and new...