First record of colour polymorphism in the Neotropical apple snail Asolene platae: inheritance mechanism and evidence for multiple paternity

Asolene platae (Ampullariidae) is a dioecious freshwater snail with subaquatic gelatinous egg masses that dwells in the Río de la Plata basin (Argentina). The aim of this study was to describe the inheritance mechanism of the colour variations of the shell and soft parts of this snail, and to study their potential use as a genetic marker. The wild-type phenotype presents dark pigments in the soft parts and in shell bands, whereas the yellow phenotype lacks dark pigments in the soft parts and also most dark bands in the shell, except for a subsutural and a periumbilical band. The data showed that the lack of pigments in A. platae is a recessive homozygotic condition with a simple Mendelian inheritance mechanism. Females of the wild-type phenotype had a higher number of bands than the males. The pigment of the bands of both phenotypes is located in the calcareous matrix of the shell. Using the lack of pigments as a genetic marker we demonstrated the existence of biparental egg masses in A. platae, hitherto known in only one species within the Ampullariidae.     

Brood size manipulations reveal relationships among physiological performance,body condition and plumage colour in Northern Flicker Colaptes auratus nestlings

Visual signals of quality in offspring, such as plumage colour, should honestly advertise need and/or body condition, but links between nutritional status, physiological performance and the expression of colours are complex and poorly understood. We assess how food stress during rearing affected two physiological measures (T‐cell‐mediated immune function and corticosterone level in feathers: CORT_f) and how these two variables were related to carotenoid and melanin coloration in Northern Flicker Colaptes auratus nestlings. We were also interested in how these two physiological measures were influenced by the sex of the nestling. We experimentally manipulated brood size to alter levels of food availability to nestlings during development. We measured carotenoid‐based colour (chroma and brightness) in wing feathers and the size of melanin spots on breast feathers. In agreement with our prediction, nestlings in the reduced brood treatment had better body condition and stronger immune responses than those in the control and brood enlargement treatments. This supports the hypothesis that immune responses are energetically costly. In contrast, CORT_f was not related to nestling body condition or sex and was unaffected by brood size manipulation. Nestlings of both sexes with stronger T‐cell‐mediated immune responses had larger melanin spots but only males with higher immune responses also had brighter flight feathers. Feather brightness decreased with increasing CORT_f levels. Our study is one of the few to examine the relationship between multiple physiological and plumage measures in nestlings and shows that plumage colour and immune function signalled body condition of nestlings, but that feather corticosterone levels did not.     

Molluscan shell colour

The phylum Mollusca is highly speciose, and is the largest phylum in the marine realm. The great majority of molluscs are shelled, including nearly all bivalves, most gastropods and some cephalopods. The fabulous and diverse colours and patterns of molluscan shells are widely recognised and have been appreciated for hundreds of years by collectors and scientists alike. They serve taxonomists as characters that can be used to recognise and distinguish species, however their function for the animal is sometimes less clear and has been the focus of many ecological and evolutionary studies. Despite these studies, almost nothing is known about the evolution of colour in molluscan shells. This review summarises for the first time major findings of disparate studies relevant to the evolution of shell colour in Mollusca and discusses the importance of colour, including the effects of visual and non‐visual selection, diet and abiotic factors. I also summarise the evidence for the heritability of shell colour in some taxa and recent efforts to understand the molecular mechanisms underpinning synthesis of shell colours. I describe some of the main shell pigments found in Mollusca (carotenoids, melanin and tetrapyrroles, including porphyrins and bile pigments), and their durability in the fossil record. Finally I suggest that pigments appear to be distributed in a phylogenetically relevant manner and that the synthesis of colour is likely to be energetically costly.     

Coloration signals the ability to cope with elevated stress hormones: effects of corticosterone on growth of barn owls are associated with melanism

Stressful situations during development can shape the phenotype for life by provoking a trade-off between development and survival. Stress hormones, mainly glucocorticoids, play an important orchestrating role in this trade-off. Hence, how stress sensitive an animal is critically determines the phenotype and ultimately fitness. In several species, darker eumelanic individuals are less sensitive to stressful conditions than less eumelanic conspecifics, which may be due to the pleiotropic effects of genes affecting both coloration and physiological traits. We experimentally tested whether the degree of melanin-based coloration is associated with the sensitivity to an endocrine response to stressful situations in the barn owl. We artificially administered the mediator of a hormonal stress response, corticosterone, to nestlings to examine the prediction that corticosterone-induced reduction in growth rate is more pronounced in light eumelanic nestlings than in darker nest mates. To examine whether such an effect may be genetically determined, we swapped hatchlings between randomly chosen pairs of nests. We first showed that corticosterone affects growth and, thus, shapes the phenotype. Second, we found that under corticosterone administration, nestlings with large black spots grew better than nestlings with small black spots. As in the barn owl the expression of eumelanin-based coloration is heritable and not sensitive to environmental conditions, it is therefore a reliable, genetically based sign of the ability to cope with an increase in blood corticosterone level.     

Local adaptation and matching habitat choice in female barn owls with respect to melanic coloration

Local adaptation is a major mechanism underlying the maintenance of phenotypic variation in spatially heterogeneous environments. In the barn owl (Tyto alba), dark and pale reddish-pheomelanic individuals are adapted to conditions prevailing in northern and southern Europe, respectively. Using a long-term dataset from Central Europe, we report results consistent with the hypothesis that the different pheomelanic phenotypes are adapted to specific local conditions in females, but not in males. Compared to whitish females, reddish females bred in sites surrounded by more arable fields and less forests. Colour-dependent habitat choice was apparently beneficial. First, whitish females produced more fledglings when breeding in wooded areas, whereas reddish females when breeding in sites with more arable fields. Second, cross-fostering experiments showed that female nestlings grew wings more rapidly when both their foster and biological mothers were of similar colour. The latter result suggests that mothers should particularly produce daughters in environments that best match their own coloration. Accordingly, whiter females produced fewer daughters in territories with more arable fields. In conclusion, females displaying alternative melanic phenotypes bred in habitats providing them with the highest fitness benefits. Although small in magnitude, matching habitat selection and local adaptation may help maintain variation in pheomelanin coloration in the barn owl.     

短梗霉细胞内黑色素的分离提取

采用单因素试验和正交试验对短梗霉细胞内的黑色素提取条件进行了优化,结果表明:在pH为2～3、温度为70℃、NaOH浓度为1.5mol/L、发酵液与浸提液之比1:1(V)的条件下黑色素的提取量可达2.2g/L。对提取的黑色素进行了纯化,研究了其紫外和红外光谱学性质,紫外光谱图显示随波长的减少其吸收值增大,在215nm处有特征吸收峰;红外光谱图在3和6μm处有吸收峰,证实短梗霉黑色提取物是一种以芳香环为结构主体的异聚体黑色素。     

内皮素-2促进体外培养的绵羊皮肤黑色素细胞增殖及黑色素生成

内皮素（endothelin,ET）及其受体在黑色素细胞成熟分化时起着有效的促进作用.然而,内皮素-2（ET-2）在黑色素生成的作用方面,还处于争论中或报道不一致.在此,我们研究ET-2对体外培养的绵羊皮肤黑色素细胞增殖和黑色素生成的影响.比较实验组ET-2（1,10,100 nmol/L）与空白对照组,通过MTT法和Ando等的方法检测出黑色素细胞的增殖率和黑色素含量显著增加.荧光定量PCR和Western 印迹分别检测出内皮素受体B(Bdnrb);酪氨酸激酶受体(Kit);酪氨酸酶(Tyr);酪氨酸相关蛋白-1(Tyrp-1)基因的mRNA水平及蛋白水平的相对表达量显著增加.这些数据表明,ET-2可能促进绵羊的皮肤黑色素细胞增殖和黑色素生成.     

EDN3在不同毛色小鼠皮肤中的表达与定位

内皮素3（endothelin 3, EDN3）对早期黑色素细胞的迁移及增殖分化有促进作用,并可通过与其受体结合促进黑色素的合成。EDN3在不同毛色小鼠皮肤中的差异及其在毛色形成过程中的作用仍有待研究。实时荧光定量PCR结果显示,灰色小鼠皮肤中EDN3的表达量显著高于黑色及棕色小鼠,约为其2倍(P<0.01)。蛋白免疫印迹结果显示,灰色小鼠皮肤内EDN3的含量为黑色小鼠的5倍,棕色小鼠为黑色小鼠的2倍。ELISA结果表明,灰色小鼠皮肤中EDN3的蛋白质表达量分别是黑色和棕色小鼠的1.8倍和1.4倍(P<0.01)。免疫组织化学显示,EDN3在毛囊的毛基质及内外毛根鞘有明显表达,毛乳头等部位有少量表达。EDN3在不同毛色小鼠皮肤中的表达存在显著差异,是维持黑色素细胞存在不可缺少的因子,可能对两种色素颗粒的相互转化有一定的作用。     

Melanic pigmentation and light preference within and between two Drosophila species

Environmental adaptation and species divergence often involve suites of co‐evolving traits. Pigmentation in insects presents a variable, adaptive, and well‐characterized class of phenotypes for which correlations with multiple other traits have been demonstrated. In Drosophila, the pigmentation genes ebony and tan have pleiotropic effects on flies'' response to light, creating the potential for correlated evolution of pigmentation and vision. Here, we investigate differences in light preference within and between two sister species, Drosophila americana and D. novamexicana, which differ in pigmentation in part because of evolution at ebony and tan and occupy environments that differ in many variables including solar radiation. We hypothesized that lighter pigmentation would be correlated with a greater preference for environmental light and tested this hypothesis using a habitat choice experiment. In a first set of experiments, using males of D. novamexicana line N14 and D. americana line A00, the light‐bodied D. novamexicana was found slightly but significantly more often than D. americana in the light habitat. A second experiment, which included additional lines and females as well as males, failed to find any significant difference between D. novamexicana‐N14 and D. americana‐A00. Additionally, the other dark line of D. americana (A04) was found in the light habitat more often than the light‐bodied D. novamexicana‐N14, in contrast to our predictions. However, the lightest line of D. americana, A01, was found substantially and significantly more often in the light habitat than the two darker lines of D. americana, thus providing partial support for our hypothesis. Finally, across all four lines, females were found more often in the light habitat than their more darkly pigmented male counterparts. Additional replication is needed to corroborate these findings and evaluate conflicting results, with the consistent effect of sex within and between species providing an especially intriguing avenue for further research.