Zoology www guide

In almost every branch of zoology the internet is now a vital place for posting up-to-date status reports on all kind of animal groups and research areas. Many websites not only provide the latest on taxonomy, ecology and distribution, but also include valuable background information and details of experimental procedures as well as discussion forums. For the zoologist the online world seems to hold everything from acarology to otoliths. To show what impressive things can be done in communicating and facilitating research in zoology, given a little initiative and perseverance, we will introduce websites that find fresh ways to approach their subjects and that may, in some way or another, inspire zoologists. Readers are welcome to join in this process for future editions of Zoology www guides and should send their website suggestions to tbosch@zoologie.uni-kiel.de. In this issue the focus is on molluscs.     

The associations between social-media use and academic performance among undergraduate students in biology

Recent studies have been conducted in regards to the use of social- media by students and how it can impact his/her academic performance. However, much of this research has been focused on how to use social-media websites in the classroom to facilitate student learning. Therefore, we aimed to address how the use of social-media can be either beneficial or detrimental to undergraduate students, with respect to their academic performance. We distributed a survey to 234 participants, all attending the same four-year university. Throughout the survey, the students self-reported their grade point average (GPA), study habits, and social-media use. We established that female students use social-media websites more often than their male peers, and using a Pearson’s correlation, we found that GPA negatively correlated with the number of social-media websites to which students subscribe (p < 0.05). Furthermore, we found that using more social-media websites correlated positively with the amount of time students spend using social-media platforms on a daily basis. Although previous studies indicate that social-media websites should be incorporated into the classroom, our results suggest that this addition may have negative effects on the study habits and academic performance of undergraduate students, particularly those within the field of biological sciences.     

A comparative study of students' achievement in botany and zoology

Repeated studies all over the world have consistently revealed that pupils have a higher preference for the study of zoology over botany. Preliminary attempts to find out the relationship between preferences and achievement showed that in Israel various groups of pupils in spite of their higher preference of zoology had achieved better in botany. The purpose of the present study is to see whether the trends found in Israel exist in other countries as well.

Based on the data of ten studies conducted in twenty countries and involving about 300,000 pupils in the age of 9 to 18, it was found that pupils in their early elementary school level up to the age of 13 to 14, achieve, on the average, better in zoology. At the age of 14 to 15, a clear shift in the opposite direction occurs, and the average achievement in botany exceeds. At the age of 16 to 18 there are no differences between the achievement in botany and zoology. Yet, the gain in botany is considerably higher even for this last age group. Thus, it appears that students learn in school a lot more botany than zoology. In spite of the relative higher preference of botany by girls there is no significant difference between boys and girls in their achievement either in botany or in zoology.

The results of a more detailed analysis related to specific topics including human biology as well as to different cognitive levels are also reported. Based on the analysis of the findings in the discussion, seven implications are suggested regarding curriculum planning, laboratory work and the need for specific efforts towards the affective domain. A special reference is made to the potential benefits of comparative international studies of which the present study is an example.     

Preface

Since the recent growth of molecular and genetic methods, and their implementation into organismic biology, zoology has been slowly regaining the importance it enjoyed until the late 1970's. Biologists are becoming increasingly aware that dynamic processes between molecules and proteins, the products of expressed genes, are relevant in the context of the whole organism's physiological status and behaviour. This modernization of organismic biology, however, has also resulted in more differentiation and diversity of methods within the disciplines that apply to the animal sciences. This increasing diversity within zoological disciplines was highlighted in the series of lectures held at our annual meeting in Halle in 2002.The highlight of the Halle meeting was undoubtedly the awarding of the Karl von Frisch Prize to F. G. Barth from Vienna University. Since Karl von Frisch's work few have so successfully exemplified the wealth of knowledge and insights that may be gained by applying modern methods, and convergent approaches from different disciplines to one single species. Barth's work focused on the wandering spiders Cupiennius. His lecture, “spider senses – technical perfection and biology” demonstrated to us the scientific power of a holistic approach.In the context of the behavioural studies of our colleagues at Halle University, Charlotte Helfrich-Förster presented a survey of “The circadian system of Drosphila melanogaster and its light input pattern”. Behavioural research on rhythms has its roots in Germany and enjoys a long tradition in zoology. As in many other disciplines, modern genetics opened up new and very fruitful insights into the subject.A greater understanding of the mechanisms of learning and memory is another field of research that has benefitted greatly from molecular biology. It has become a flourishing and expanding area of research, especially in invertebrate zoology. The current state of research, from a neurobiological and molecular point of view, was presented in three lectures, including one by Uli Müller, of the Berlin School. Cognition in audition, a still emerging field, was introduced to us in Bernhard Gaese's lecture on “Precognitive and cognitive elements in sound localization”. In the future, auditory cognition will surely become a Dorado for neurobiologists and acoustic psychologists. Susan D. Healy connected cognition with ecological constraints in her talk “Animal learning and memory: an integration of cognition and ecology”. She argued that cognitive performances can only be explained in the context of species-specific behaviours and ecology. “Cognitive ecology”, as it may be termed, is an emerging and genuinely zoological field of research that will have an important impact on our understanding of evolution. It's challenges will require highly motivated young zoologists.Research on species diversity takes a different approach to the subject of evolution and diversity, investigating the preconditions for speciation processes, and evolutionary trends and mechanisms. Unfortunately the fauna of soils is rarely considered, in spite of its great importance to ecological conditions. Richard Bagdett made up for this neglect in his lecture on the “Causes and consequences of biological diversity in soil”, and Bernhard Misof reported on speciation processes in Anisoptera.“Classical” physiology is still the backbone of organismic research. Modern versions of two very different topics were presented in Halle. Stephan Huber reported on the “Development of renal function”, and Fritz-Olaf Lehmann presented a new and convincing concept of aerodynamics and energetics in insect flight. His research continues the worthwhile tradition of flight analysis founded by Werner Nachtigall.The topics of our annual meeting in Halle could hardly have been more diverse. However, it is this the very diversity of modern and productive research field in zoology that characterizes a promising and fascinating future. In zoology, more than in any other biological discipline, exciting problems relevant to the understanding of evolution and its mechanisms are waiting to be solved by young scientists. Zoology has again become a start-up enterprise with promising rewards.     

The history of comparative anatomy in Jena — an overview

Summary Comparative anatomy and zoology both have long academic traditions in Jena. At first, the two subjects developed in parallel and had many similarites in research topics. This development is covered in the first part of the paper. The close relationship between the two subjects started to break apart when Carl Gegenbaur and Ernst Haeckel were active at Jena University. In 1865 Haeckel became the first full professor of zoology in Jena, and zoology became more independent from comparative anatomy. In the second part of our paper, we follow the developments in comparative anatomy in Jena from Gegenbaur’s immediate students up until the end of Hans B?ker’s tenure in Jena in the mid-1930s. Certain subjects are in focus throughout this period, for example vertebrate head morphology and development, (the “head problem”), the relationship between anatomy and biology, and evolutionary questions. Some of these subjects have remained important research topics in zoology and comparative anatomy in Jena until the present day.     

Use of online resources in the taxonomy and ecology of harmful phytoplankton

The internet is becoming increasingly important for the dissemination of biological information. Large target audiences are reached rapidly, large amounts of information can be assembled and distributed, sites can include search facilities, and information might be handled online or as printable output. Many websites are now producing libraries of phytoplankton images including toxic dinoflagellates. But while some provide valuable resources others lack focus and do not address any specific problems, for example the morphological variability in many major groups such as Dinophysis and Alexandrium. Yet it is this morphological variation which often hinders taxonomic and ecologic research of harmful dinoflagellates. Taxonomic information as well as information about sample origin and preservation methods is also often lacking. This makes comparisons between taxonomic websites difficult. Therefore, while documenting the presence of certain taxa, some sites cannot be used as a taxonomic training or research tool. Yet, if online resources were to reflect these complexities they could become valuable tools in the dissemination of data as well as actual research and training tools. One reason for the lack of consistency between sites could be that these sites, as a teaching and research tool, are a relatively recent development and no criteria have therefore been established as to the contents and structure of such sites, as are commonplace for conventional publications. This comment will discuss different approaches to, and tools for, the production of online taxonomic resources (depending on the site's objectives, e.g. research or teaching) using the Harmful Plankton Project ( http://www.liv.ac.uk/hab ) designed at the University of Liverpool as one example of a user‐friendly and adaptable tool.     

Internet marketing directed at children on food and restaurant websites in two policy environments

Objective:

Food and beverage marketing has been associated with childhood obesity yet little research has examined the influence of advertising policy on children's exposure to food/beverage marketing on the Internet. The purpose of this study was to assess the influence of Quebec's Consumer Protection Act and the self‐regulatory Canadian Children's Food and Beverage Advertising Initiative (CAI) on food manufacturer and restaurant websites in Canada.

Design and Methods:

A content analysis of 147 French and English language food and restaurant websites was undertaken. The presence of child‐directed content was assessed and an analysis of marketing features, games and activities, child protection features, and the promotion of healthy lifestyle messages was then examined on those sites with child‐directed content.

Results:

There were statistically no fewer French language websites (n = 22) with child‐directed content compared to English language websites (n = 27). There were no statistically significant differences in the number of the various marketing features, or in the average number of marketing features between the English and French websites. There were no fewer CAI websites (n = 14) with child‐directed content compared to non‐CAI websites (n = 13). The CAI sites had more healthy lifestyle messages and child protection features compared to the non‐CAI sites.

Conclusion:

Systematic surveillance of the Consumer Protection Act in Quebec is recommended. In the rest of Canada, the CAI needs to be significantly expanded or replaced by regulatory measures to adequately protect children from the marketing of foods/beverages high in fat, sugar, and sodium on the Internet.     

Application of magnetic resonance imaging in zoology

Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is a noninvasive imaging technique that today constitutes one of the main pillars of preclinical and clinical imaging. MRI’s capacity to depict soft tissue in whole specimens ex vivo as well as in vivo, achievable voxel resolutions well below (100 μm)³, and the absence of ionizing radiation have resulted in the broad application of this technique both in human diagnostics and studies involving small animal model organisms. Unfortunately, MRI systems are expensive devices and have so far only sporadically been used to resolve questions in zoology and in particular in zoomorphology. However, the results from two recent studies involving systematic scanning of representative species from a vertebrate group (fishes) as well as an invertebrate taxon (sea urchins) suggest that MRI could in fact be used more widely in zoology. Using novel image data derived from representative species of numerous higher metazoan clades in combination with a comprehensive literature survey, we review and evaluate the potential of MRI for systematic taxon scanning. According to our results, numerous animal groups are suitable for systematic MRI scanning, among them various cnidarian and arthropod taxa, brachiopods, various molluscan taxa, echinoderms, as well as all vertebrate clades. However, various phyla in their entirety cannot be considered suitable for this approach mainly due to their small size (e.g., Kinorhyncha) or their unfavorable shape (e.g., Nematomorpha), while other taxa are prone to produce artifacts associated either with their biology (e.g., Echiura) or their anatomy (e.g., Polyplacophora). In order to initiate further uses of MRI in zoology, we outline the principles underlying various applications of this technique such as the use of contrast agents, in vivo MRI, functional MRI, as well as magnetic resonance spectroscopy. Finally, we discuss how future technical developments might shape the use of MRI for the study of zoological specimens.     

How theories became knowledge: Morgan's chromosome theory of heredity in America and Britain

T. H. Morgan, A. H. Sturtevant, H. J. Muller and C. B. Bridges published their comprehensive treatise The Mechanism of Mendelian Heredity in 1915. By 1920 Morgan's ``Chromosome Theory of Heredity' was generally accepted by geneticists in the United States, and by British geneticists by 1925. By 1930 it had been incorporated into most general biology, botany, and zoology textbooks as established knowledge. In this paper, I examine the reasons why it was accepted as part of a series of comparative studies of theory-acceptance in the sciences. In this context it is of interest to look at the persuasiveness of confirmed novel predictions, a factor often regarded by philosophers of science as the most important way to justify a theory. Here it turns out to play a role in the decision of some geneticists to accept the theory, but is generally less important than the CTH's ability to explain Mendelian inheritance, sex-linked inheritance, non-disjunction, and the connection between linkage groups and the number of chromosome pairs; in other words, to establish a firm connection between genetics and cytology. It is remarkable that geneticists were willing to accept the CTH as applicable to all organisms at a time when it had been confirmed only for Drosophila. The construction of maps showing the location on the chromosomes of genes for specific characters was especially convincing for non-geneticists.     

开放实验室条件下的动物学实验教学改革新探

探讨了充分利用开放实验室进一步改革动物学实验教学的新方法：把开展大学生课题研究融入动物学实验教学、充分利用动物标本室加强动物学实验教学、以学生为主体调整动物学实验的教学内容以及结合相关产学研课题提高动物学实验教学的效率。结合实际条件激发学生学习的兴趣和参加实验的积极性,提高了实验效果,培养了学生的创新精神和实践能力。     

UniEuk: Time to Speak a Common Language in Protistology!

Universal taxonomic frameworks have been critical tools to structure the fields of botany, zoology, mycology, and bacteriology as well as their large research communities. Animals, plants, and fungi have relatively solid, stable morpho‐taxonomies built over the last three centuries, while bacteria have been classified for the last three decades under a coherent molecular taxonomic framework. By contrast, no such common language exists for microbial eukaryotes, even though environmental ‘‐omics’ surveys suggest that protists make up most of the organismal and genetic complexity of our planet's ecosystems! With the current deluge of eukaryotic meta‐omics data, we urgently need to build up a universal eukaryotic taxonomy bridging the protist ‐omics age to the fragile, centuries‐old body of classical knowledge that has effectively linked protist taxa to morphological, physiological, and ecological information. UniEuk is an open, inclusive, community‐based and expert‐driven international initiative to build a flexible, adaptive universal taxonomic framework for eukaryotes. It unites three complementary modules, EukRef, EukBank, and EukMap, which use phylogenetic markers, environmental metabarcoding surveys, and expert knowledge to inform the taxonomic framework. The UniEuk taxonomy is directly implemented in the European Nucleotide Archive at EMBL‐EBI, ensuring its broad use and long‐term preservation as a reference taxonomy for eukaryotes.     

Introducing "Frontiers in Zoology"

As a biological discipline, zoology has one of the longest histories. Today it occasionally appears as though, due to the rapid expansion of life sciences, zoology has been replaced by more or less independent sub-disciplines amongst which exchange is often sparse. However, the recent advance of molecular methodology into "classical" fields of biology, and the development of theories that can explain phenomena on different levels of organisation, has led to a re-integration of zoological disciplines promoting a broader than usual approach to zoological questions. Zoology has re-emerged as an integrative discipline encompassing the most diverse aspects of animal life, from the level of the gene to the level of the ecosystem.The new journal Frontiers in Zoology is the first Open Access journal focussing on zoology as a whole. It aims to represent and re-unite the various disciplines that look at animal life from different perspectives and at providing the basis for a comprehensive understanding of zoological phenomena on all levels of analysis. Frontiers in Zoology provides a unique opportunity to publish high quality research and reviews on zoological issues that will be internationally accessible to any reader at no cost.     

Various competitive interactions explain niche separation in crop‐dwelling web spiders

Competition for resources is a major organizing principle in communities of organisms that share similar ecological niches. Niche separation by means of exploitation or interference competition was investigated in two taxa of crop‐inhabiting spiders that overlap in microhabitat use and have similar web design. Competition for prey and web sites was tested in microcosm experiments with the most common species that build sheet‐webs: Enoplognatha gemina (Theridiidae) and Alioranus pastoralis (Linyphiidae). A field survey over the crop season provided data on spatial and temporal dispersion of Enoplognatha spp. (Theridiidae) and linyphiid spiders (Linyphiidae) and on availability of prey over the season. In the microcosm experiments, both taxa took springtails as prey, but only Enoplognatha fed on aphids. Differences in diet, however, could not be attributed to either exploitative or interference competition. Spatial separation of websites was attained by vertical displacement of webs in the vegetation (Enoplognatha) and by avoidance of patches occupied by conspecific or heterospecific individuals (linyphiids). In the field, densities of linyphiids and Enoplognatha were correlated negatively and webs were over‐dispersed relative to a random distribution. Both taxa colonized the field at the start of the season; linyphiids colonized as adults, quickly reproduced, and had a second adult peak; Enoplognatha matured in the middle of the season and their numbers remained fairly constant over the season. The combined experimental manipulations and field data suggest that niche separation occurs at different scales. The hypothesis of competition for websites was partially supported, while prey preference (or tolerance) and temporal differences in life history stages also may explain the negative correlations between densities of the two taxa.     

How whale and dolphin barnacles attach to their hosts and the paradox of remarkably versatile attachment structures in cypris larvae

How larvae of whale and dolphin epibionts settle on their fast-swimming and migrating hosts is a puzzling question in zoology. We successfully reared the larvae of the whale and dolphin barnacle Xenobalanus globicipitis to the cyprid stage. We studied the larval developmental ecology and antennular morphology in an attempt to assess whether an epibiotic lifestyle on this extreme substratum entails any unique larval specializations. Morphological parameters were compared with five other barnacle species that also inhabit extreme substrata. We found no larval specializations to a lifestyle associated with marine mammals. The external morphology of the antennules in Xenobalanus cyprids is morphologically similar to species from strikingly different substrata. We found variation only in the structures that are in physical contact with the substratum, i.e., the third segments carrying the villi-covered attachment disc. The third segments of the Xenobalanus cyprid antennules are not spear-shaped as in the stony coral barnacles, which are here used to penetrate the live tissue of their hosts. The presence of a cyprid cement gland implies that Xenobalanus uses cement protein when attaching to its cetacean host. Naupliar instars developed outside of the mantle cavity, indicating dispersal is planktonic. Our results militate against the idea that the cyprids settle during ocean migrations of their hosts. We suggest cyprids settle during coastal aggregations of the cetacean hosts. We conclude that the ecological success of barnacles has ultimately depended on a larva that with little structural alteration possesses the ability to settle on an amazingly wide array of substrata, including cetaceans.

     

The Plymouth Laboratory and the Institutionalization of Experimental Zoology in Britain in the 1920s

The Plymouth Laboratory of the Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom (1884) was founded in 1888. In addition to conducting morphological and other biological research, the founders of the laboratory aimed at promoting research in experimental zoology which will be used in this paper as a synonym for e.g. experimental embryology, comparative physiology or general physiology. This dream was not fully realized until 1920. The Great War and its immediate aftermath had a positive impact on the development of the Plymouth Laboratory. The war greatly upset the operation of the Zoological Station in Naples and the ensuing crisis in its operations was closely related to the establishment of the physiological department in Plymouth in 1920. Two other key factors in the Plymouth story were the establishment of the Development Fund in 1909, which began contributing funds to the Plymouth Laboratory in 1912, and the patronage of the Cambridge zoologist George P. Bidder (1863–1954). This paper will focus on the combined influence of the Development Fund and Bidder on the development of the Plymouth Laboratory from around 1902 through the early 1920s, and the important role the laboratory played in promoting experimental zoology in Britain in the 1920s.     

A Space of One’s Own: Barbosa du Bocage,the Foundation of the National Museum of Lisbon,and the Construction of a Career in Zoology (1851–1907)

This paper discusses the life and scientific work of José Vicente Barbosa du Bocage (1823–1907), a nineteenth-century Portuguese naturalist who carved a new place for zoological research in Portugal and built up a prestigious scientific career by securing appropriate physical and institutional spaces to the discipline. Although he was appointed professor of zoology at the Lisbon Polytechnic School, an institution mainly devoted to the preparatory training of military officers and engineers, he succeeded in creating the conditions that allowed him to develop consistent research in zoology at this institution. Taking advantage of the reconstruction and further improvement of the building of the Lisbon Polytechnic, following a violent fire in 1843, Bocage transferred a natural history museum formerly located at the Academy of Sciences of Lisbon to his institution, where he conquered a more prestigious place for zoology. Although successive governments were unwilling to meet Bocage’s ambitions for the Zoological Section of the newly created National Museum of Lisbon, the collaborators he found in different parts of the Portuguese continental territory and colonial empire supplied him the specimens he needed to make a career as a naturalist. Bocage ultimately became a renowned specialist in Southwestern African fauna thanks to José de Anchieta, his finest collaborator. Travels to foreign museums, and the establishment of links with the international community of zoologists, proved fundamental to build up Bocage’s national and international scientific reputation, as it will be exemplified by the discussion of his discovery of Hyalonema, a specimen with a controversial identity collected off the Portuguese coast.     

Motivations for the Ownership of Captive Lemurs in Madagascar

The live capture of primates is occurring throughout the tropics and can be a threat to their conservation. Primates are owned as pets for a variety of reasons. Studies of the motivations for primate ownership have been conducted in several countries where they are endemic, but no study has examined this issue in Madagascar. Madagascar is home to the highest number of threatened primate taxa in any one country, and an estimated 28,000 lemurs were kept in illegal captivity from 2010 to mid-2013. We aimed to expand knowledge about the motivations of lemur ownership in Madagascar. Data were collected via a web-based survey (n = 229 respondents) and from the websites and social media pages of 25 hotels. We found that many lemurs (45%) were seen on the premises of a business or in a private home (27%). Many lemurs were perceived to be kept as personal pets (37%) or for money-making or tourism purposes (20%). When lemurs were used for money-making, owners could receive indirect (72% of the time) and direct benefits (28%). Hotels showing photographs of captive lemurs on their websites and social media sites charged USD 25.69 more per night for a standard room than hotels that did not show such photographs. We found little evidence that captive lemurs are kept as a social status symbol, for captive breeding, or as a fallback food. These findings provide evidence that the motivations for the ownership of, usually illegal, captive lemurs is typically linked with money-making or with the desire to have a lemur as a pet. These data can help target new outreach programs.     

Open access to sequence: Browsing the Pichia pastoris genome

The first genome sequences of the important yeast protein production host Pichia pastoris have been released into the public domain this spring. In order to provide the scientific community easy and versatile access to the sequence, two web-sites have been installed as a resource for genomic sequence, gene and protein information for P. pastoris: A GBrowse based genome browser was set up at and a genome portal with gene annotation and browsing functionality at . Both websites are offering information on gene annotation and function, regulation and structure.     

Host Biology in Light of the Microbiome: Ten Principles of Holobionts and Hologenomes

Groundbreaking research on the universality and diversity of microorganisms is now challenging the life sciences to upgrade fundamental theories that once seemed untouchable. To fully appreciate the change that the field is now undergoing, one has to place the epochs and foundational principles of Darwin, Mendel, and the modern synthesis in light of the current advances that are enabling a new vision for the central importance of microbiology. Animals and plants are no longer heralded as autonomous entities but rather as biomolecular networks composed of the host plus its associated microbes, i.e., "holobionts." As such, their collective genomes forge a "hologenome," and models of animal and plant biology that do not account for these intergenomic associations are incomplete. Here, we integrate these concepts into historical and contemporary visions of biology and summarize a predictive and refutable framework for their evaluation. Specifically, we present ten principles that clarify and append what these concepts are and are not, explain how they both support and extend existing theory in the life sciences, and discuss their potential ramifications for the multifaceted approaches of zoology and botany. We anticipate that the conceptual and evidence-based foundation provided in this essay will serve as a roadmap for hypothesis-driven, experimentally validated research on holobionts and their hologenomes, thereby catalyzing the continued fusion of biology''s subdisciplines. At a time when symbiotic microbes are recognized as fundamental to all aspects of animal and plant biology, the holobiont and hologenome concepts afford a holistic view of biological complexity that is consistent with the generally reductionist approaches of biology.