The Cambro-Ordovician anomalocaridids are large ecdysozoans commonly regarded as ancestors of the arthropods and apex predators. Predation is indicated partly by the presence of an unusual "peytoia"-type oral cone, which is a tetraradial outer ring of 32 plates, four of which are enlarged and in perpendicular arrangement. This oral cone ...

Chemical defense mechanisms are widespread among insects but have rarely been demonstrated in parasitoid wasps. Here, we show that the Drosophila parasitoid Leptopilina heterotoma (Hymenoptera, Figitidae) produces (-)-iridomyrmecin and (+)-isoiridomyrmecin in a cephalic gland, and that these chemicals have a highly repellent effect on ants. Stereoselective synthesis of 4 stereoisomers ...

Herons and ibis are colonially nesting waders which, owing to their number, mobility and trophic role as top predators, play a key role in aquatic ecosystems. They are also good biological models to investigate interspecific competition between sympatric species and predation; two processes which structure ecological communities. Odonata are also ...

We studied the feeding ecology of 3 sympatric primate species, the lion-tailed macaque (Macaca silenus), bonnet macaque (Macaca radiata) and Hanuman langur (Semnopithecus entellus), in a tropical rain forest of the Central Western Ghats, India. Since the availability of leaves is much higher than that of fruits, we expected that ...

BACKGROUND: Transovarial transport is defined as the passage of chemicals from the maternal body to eggs within the ovaries. Little is known about the effects of transovarial transport on non-target species. This study evaluates etoxazole (a transovarial acaricidal compound) on a terrestrial trophic web consisting of a ubiquitous phytophagous mite, ...

According to kin selection theory, the colony kin structure of eusocial insects motivates workers' altruistic behaviors and therefore their sterility or restricted reproduction [1]. Indeed, theory and cross-species comparison confirm that workers engage in their own reproduction depending on relatedness among colony members [2, 3]. We show that in a ...

The buccal cavity of an herbivorous fish Oreochromis niloticus was investigated by means of scanning electron microscopy. The buccal cavity distinguished into the roof and the floor. Three different types of taste buds (type I, II and III) are distributed in the buccal cavity. The proximal part of the buccal ...

This study investigated the protective effect of poly-β-hydroxybutyrate (PHB) on Chinese mitten crab, Eriocheir sinensis, zoea larvae challenged with pathogenic Vibrio anguillarum. PHB was delivered to the crab larvae through rotifer and Artemia bioencapsulation. Zoea 3 larvae were challenged with V. anguillarum at a final concentration of 10(5 ) CFU mL(-1) . PHB-enriched ...

Food sharing among nonkin-one of the most fascinating cooperative behaviors in humans-is not widespread in nonhuman primates. Over the past few years, a large body of work has investigated the contexts in which primates cooperate and share food with unrelated individuals. This work has successfully demonstrated that species-specific differences in ...

MeHg biomagnification by the phantom midge Chaoborus in relation to MeHg concentrations in their prey and its migratory behavior was investigated in two Canadian Precambrian Shield lakes. Three Chaoborus species with contrasted migratory behavior were collected in a fishless and a fish-inhabited lake. All species accumulated MeHg through their ontogenic ...

Chicken egg yolk immunoglobulin Y (IgY) is a promising alternative for prevention of enteric gliadin absorption, the predisposing factor of celiac disease (CD). IgY antibody was produced from egg yolk of Single Comb White Leghorn chickens during the immunization period for the development of an oral immunotherapeutic agent. Here, we ...

Necrophagous blow fly species (Diptera: Calliphoridae) are the most important agents for estimating the postmortem interval (PMI) in forensic entomology. Nevertheless, the oviposition preferences of blow flies may cause a bias of PMI estimations because of a delay or acceleration of egg laying. Chrysomya megacephala (F.) and C. rufifacies (Macquart) ...

Bacillus cereus is a group of ubiquitous facultative anaerobic sporeforming Gram-positive rods commonly found in soil. The spores frequently contaminate a variety of foods, including produce, meat, eggs, and dairy products. Foodborne illnesses associated with toxins produced by B. cereus can result in self-limiting diarrhea or vomiting. Plate enumeration methods ...

Identifying important species for maintaining ecosystem functions is a challenge in ecology. Since species are components of food webs, one way to conceptualize and quantify species importance is from a network perspective. The importance of a species can be quantified by measuring the centrality of its position in a food ...

Plants and fungi often produce toxic secondary metabolites that limit their consumption, but herbivores and fungivores that evolve resistance gain access to these resources and can also gain protection against nonresistant predators and parasites. Given that Drosophila melanogaster fruit fly larvae consume yeasts growing on rotting fruit and have evolved ...

Mating induces profound physiological changes in a wide range of insects, leading to behavioural adjustments to match the internal state of the animal. Here, we show for the first time, to our knowledge, that a noctuid moth switches its olfactory response from food to egg-laying cues following mating. Unmated females ...

Fungus-growing ants (Myrmicinae: Attini) live in an obligate symbiotic relationship with a fungus that they rear for food, but they can also use the fungal mycelium to cover their brood. We surveyed colonies from 20 species of fungus-growing ants and show that brood-covering behavior occurs in most species, but to ...

Previous surveys have shown that adult honeybee (Apis mellifera) workers harbor a characteristic gut microbiota that may play a significant role in bee health. For three major phylotypes within this microbiota, we have characterized distributions and abundances across the life cycle and among gut organs. These distinctive phylotypes, called Beta, ...

We investigated dietary intake patterns (DIP) in adolescents (14-18 year-olds) and the association with demographic and socioeconomic characteristics and lifestyle variables. This school-based survey was carried out among high school students from the city of Maringá in the state of Paraná (PR), Brazil (2007). The sample included 991 students (54.5% ...

The toxin content in various life cycle stages of tank-cultivated bullseye puffer (Sphoeroides annulatus) were analyzed by mouse bioassay and ESI-MS spectrometry analysis. The presence of toxin content was determined in extracts of sperm, eggs, embryo, larvae, post-larvae, juvenile, pre-adult, and adult fish, as well as in food items used ...

Two kinds of experiments were conducted with Aethina tumida Murray larvae over four temperatures: "consumption" experiments, in which larvae and diet were weighed to determine food consumption rates under conditions of unlimited food and few conspecifics; and "competition" experiments, in which varying numbers of larvae were presented with the same ...

Male ornaments can evolve through the exploitation of female perceptual biases such as those involved in responding to cues from food. This type of sensory exploitation may lead to confusion between the male signals and the cues that females use to find/recognize food. Such interference would be costly to females ...

This cross-sectional study examined associations of demographic characteristics, weight status, availability of school vending machines, and behavioral factors with sugar-sweetened beverage (SSB) intake, both overall and by type of SSB, among a nationally representative sample of high school students. The 2010 National Youth Physical Activity and Nutrition Study data for ...

In this paper we report about 88 longhorned beetles (Cerambycidae) species found in 6929 hectares and distributed along an altitudinal gradient of 1500 m of an Italian alpine valley (Val Genova, central-eastern Italian Alps). The species richness, result merging data from sixty years (1947-2007) of entomological surveys, corresponds to the ...

The incidence of malaria in the Amazon is seasonal and mosquito vectorial capacity parameters, including abundance and longevity, depend on quantitative and qualitative aspects of the larval diet. Anopheles darlingi is a major malaria vector in the Amazon, representing >95% of total Anopheles population present in the Porto Velho region. ...

The food responses of Drosophila larvae offer an excellent opportunity to study the genetic and neural regulation of feeding behavior. Compared with fed larvae, hungry larvae are more likely to display aggressive foraging, rapid food intake, compensatory feeding, and stress-resistant food procurement. Behavioral assays have been developed to quantitatively assess ...

Schizothoracine fishes distributed in the water system of the Qinghai-Tibetan plateau (QTP) and adjacent areas are characterized by being highly adaptive to the cold and hypoxic environment of the plateau, as well as by a high degree of diversity in trophic morphology due to resource polymorphisms. Although convergent and parallel ...

We investigated the impact of food deprivation on oral and manual haptic size perception of food and non-food objects. From relevant theories (need-proportional perception, motivated perception, frustrative nonreward, perceptual defence, and sensory sensitisation) at least four completely different competing predictions can be derived. Testing these predictions, we found across four ...

In the wild, larvae of several species of Drosophila develop in heterogeneous and rapidly changing environments sharing resources as food and space. In this scenario, sensory systems contribute to detect, localize and recognize congeners and heterospecifics, and provide information about the availability of food and chemical features of environments where ...

BAITED UNDERWATER VIDEO TECHNIQUES ARE INCREASINGLY BEING UTILISED FOR ASSESSING AND MONITORING DEMERSAL FISHES BECAUSE THEY ARE: 1) non extractive, 2) can be used to sample across multiple habitats and depths, 3) are cost effective, 4) sample a broader range of species than many other techniques, 5) and with greater ...

The food responses of Drosophila larvae offer an excellent opportunity to study the genetic and neural regulation of feeding behavior. Compared with fed larvae, hungry larvae are more likely to display aggressive foraging, rapid food intake, compensatory feeding, and stress-resistant food procurement. Behavioral assays have been developed to quantitatively assess ...

There is a need for a reliable and accurate method for quantification of each of the seven individual vitamin B(6) compounds including pyridoxine-β-glucoside in foods. To determine pyridoxal (PL), pyridoxamine (PM), pyridoxine (PN), pyridoxal 5'-phosphate (PLP), pyridoxamine 5'-phosphate (PMP), pyridoxine 5'-phosphate (PNP), and pyridoxine-β-glucoside (PNG) in foods. By specific enzymatic ...

Commercial greenhouse growers in both Japan and China are increasingly using reared orange-tailed bumblebees known previously as Bombus hypocrita Pérez as pollinators. Phylogenetic analysis of the DNA (COI) barcodes with Bayesian methods shows that this "species" is a long-standing confusion of two cryptic species. We find that the orange-tailed bumblebees ...

The food responses of Drosophila larvae offer an excellent opportunity to study the genetic and neural regulation of feeding behavior. Compared with fed larvae, hungry larvae are more likely to display aggressive foraging, rapid food intake, compensatory feeding, and stress-resistant food procurement. Omnivores, including humans, tend to avoid noxious or ...

Visual and olfactory cues provide important information to foragers, yet we know little about species differences in sensory reliance during food selection. In a series of experimental foraging studies, we examined the relative reliance on vision versus olfaction in three diurnal, primate species with diverse feeding ecologies, including folivorous Coquerel's ...

Nosema ceranae, a newly introduced parasite of the honey bee, Apis mellifera, is contributing to worldwide colony losses. Other Nosema species, such as N. apis, tend to be associated with increased defecation and spread via a fecal-oral pathway, but because N. ceranae does not induce defecation, it may instead be ...

The food responses of Drosophila larvae offer an excellent opportunity to study the genetic and neural regulation of feeding behavior. Compared with fed larvae, hungry larvae are more likely to display aggressive foraging, rapid food intake, compensatory feeding, and stress-resistant food procurement. Behavioral assays have been developed to quantitatively assess ...

In diurnal bird species, individuals breeding at high latitudes have larger broods than at lower latitudes, which has been linked to differences in the daily time available for foraging. However, it remains unclear how latitude is linked with parental investment in nocturnal species. Here, we investigate nestling provisioning rates of ...

Cow's milk and hen's egg are the most frequently encountered food allergens in the pediatric population. Skin prick testing (SPT) with commercial extracts followed by an oral food challenge (OFC) are routinely performed in the diagnostic investigation of these children. Recent evidence suggests that milk-allergic and/or egg-allergic individuals can often ...

Case: We report a 67-year-old man in whom pseudoaldosteronism developed following consumption of the health food Shin-Gojoshin. The patient began consuming Shin-Gojoshin in February 2007. His serum potassium level, which was within the normal range until he began consumption, gradually decreased to 3.0 mEq/L. The administration of potassium supplements and ...

Dispersal is an important nematode behavior. Upon crowding or food depletion, the free living bacteriovorus nematode Caenorhabditis elegans produces stress resistant dispersal larvae, called dauer, which are analogous to second stage juveniles (J2) of plant parasitic Meloidogyne spp. and infective juveniles (IJ)s of entomopathogenic nematodes (EPN), e.g., Steinernema feltiae. Regulation ...

The FISH-BOL campaign was initiated in 2005, and currently has barcoded for the cytochrome c oxidase subunit I (COI) gene about 8,000 of the 31,000 fish species currently recognised. This includes the great majority of the world's most important commercial species. Results thus far show that about 98% and 93% ...

New foods are frequently introduced in Western diets for their healthy properties; however, they may produce adverse effects. After attending a patient who experienced an allergic reaction to Goji berries, we evaluated the allergenic potential of this food in plant food-allergic individuals, a group that is considered to be at ...

The G protein-coupled receptor 39-b (GPR39-1b) is a splice variant of GPR39 which is expressed in the central nervous and gastrointestinal systems. Previously, GPR39-1b was proposed to be the receptor for obestatin, but current evidence does not support this hypothesis. The purpose of the present work was to identify the ...

In the Galápagos Islands, two eulimid snails parasitize the common pencil sea urchin, Eucidaris galapagensis. Past work in the Galápagos suggests that fishing reduces lobster and fish densities and, due to this relaxation of predation pressure, indirectly increases urchin densities, creating the potential for complex indirect interactions between fishing and ...

We investigated whether taxing sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs) would improve the diets of households in Brazil. We used household food consumption data that the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics collected in 2002-2003 from a nationally representative sample of 48,470 Brazilian households. The consumption of SSBs is expressed as the total ...

The European sea bass, a member of the Moronidae family, is a food fish, considered one of the first models for the intensive breeding in salt water. It has nowadays an important and increasing presence in the international fishing markets. Sea basses are carnivorous, feeding on little fishes and invertebrates. ...

The evidence is well established that breastfeeding results in a reduction of certain health risks. Debate has arisen, however, about the optimal duration of exclusive breastfeeding. The general recommendation is to breastfeed newborn babies for 6 months exclusively and then to introduce complementary foods and continue breastfeeding. In industrialized countries, ...

ABSTRACT: BACKGROUND: Trends of increasing obesity are especially pronounced among Mexican-origin women. There is little understanding of dietary patterns among U.S.- and Mexico-born Mexican-origin individuals residing in new-destination immigrant communities in the United States, especially behaviors related to obesity, such as consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages (SSB) and fast-food meals (FFM). ...

To assess the relationship between adolescent perception of time to walk to neighbourhood food retail outlets and purchasing of sugar-sweetened beverages (SSB), fast and convenience food items, and to test for differences by urban v. suburban environment. Cross-sectional observational study. Twin Cities Metropolitan Area, Minnesota, USA. Adolescents from two studies ...