Northern spotted owls (Strix occidentalis caurina) have been studied intensively since their listing as a threatened species by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in 1990. Studies of spotted owl site occupancy have used various binary response measures, but most of these studies have made the assumption that detectability is perfect, or at least high and not variable. Further, previous studies ...

While describing the fishes of Ganges, Hamilton described Cyprinus ticto (now allocated to Pethia) from south-eastern parts of Bengal. The unavailability of type material and insufficient diagnostic characters in the original description resulted in ambiguities in the identity of this species. In this paper, we clarify the identity of P. ticto through an integrative-taxonomic approach. Pethia t...

The formation of penniform BaWO4 nanostructures made of nanowires or nanobelts under the direction of a block copolymer in catanionic reverse micelles has been studied in detail. On the basis of the experimental results obtained from the BaWO4 crystallization in aqueous polymer solutions and careful transmission electron microscopy (TEM) observations of BaWO4 nanostructures formed in reverse mi...

The ephrin receptor (Eph) tyrosine kinases and their ephrin ligands are involved in morphogenesis during organ formation. We studied their role in feather morphogenesis, focusing on ephrin-B1 and its receptor EphB3. Early in feather development, ephrin-B1 mRNA and protein were found to be expressed in the dermal condensation, but not in the inter-bud mesenchyme. Later, in feather buds, expres...

Eurasian Jay (Garrulus glandarius) feathers display periodic variations in the reflected colour from white through light blue, dark blue and black. We find the structures responsible for the colour are continuous in their size and spatially controlled by the degree of spinodal phase separation in the corresponding region of the feather barb. Blue structures have a well-defined broadband ultra-v...

The Northern Spotted Owl (Strix occidentalis caurina) is an emblematic, threatened raptor associated with dense, late-successional forests in the Pacific Northwest, USA. Concerns over high-severity fire and reduced timber harvesting have led to programs to commercially thin forests, and this may occur within habitat designated as “critical” for spotted owls. However, thinning is only allowed un...

Over the last 20 years, significant habitat shifts have been documented in some populations of cetaceans. On Little Bahama Bank (LBB) there are sympatric communities of resident Atlantic spotted dolphins (Stenella frontalis) and bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus), monitored since 1985. The size and social structure (three clusters: Northern, Central, Southern) have been stable among the s...

Indian flying barb (Esomus danricus) was exposed to sublethal concentrations of 636.3, 63.6 and 6.3 μgl-1 Cadmium for 28 days and intestinal histopathology was observed by light microscopy after staining with Haematoxylin-Eosine. Exposed fishes showed severe to mild superficial erosion of mucosa, dense lamina propria, chronic inflammatory cell infiltration as well as vacuolation. With the incre...

In several EU member states, bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) cases have been identified in cattle born after the reinforced ban (BARB cases), for reasons that are not entirely clear. Epidemiological investigation of these cases has proved challenging. The European Food Safety Authority recently recommended the collection of a predefined set of epidemiological data from BSE suspects and c...