Life history and phenology of the eucalyptus psyllid, Ctenarytaina eucalypti in Ireland

During the early 1990s, the eucalyptus psyllid, Ctenarytaina eucalypti Maskell, was accidentally introduced into Ireland and began to threaten economically a newly developing ornamental foliage production industry based in the south west. The life cycle of the psyllid was studied at three field sites in Co. Kerry. The psyllid exhibited a complex seasonal population dynamic suggesting that two, largely overlapping population cohorts over‐winter as eggs and nymphs, respectively, in a state of reduced development or temporary dormancy. The duration of this dormancy is short. Evidence of a resumption of activity was monitored at all sites in early February with increasing adult numbers and renewed egg laying being seen before any significant rise in temperatures. This strongly suggests that retarded development, and resumption of psyllid activity in early spring, are at least partially consequences of the changing nutritional quality of the food plant, probably mediated by changing day length. As a consequence of seasonally inhibited development, individual egg and nymphal over‐wintering cohorts probably alternate in the completion of two or three generations per growing season. Analysis of psyllid numbers on shoot samples showed that greater population densities were found on shoots at the top of the food plant compared with lower‐placed shoots. Evidence was also found that the distribution of nymphal instars changed seasonally, probably in response to population density and increased competition for preferred feeding sites. Overall psyllid abundance, and the finer details of seasonal population dynamics, varied between plantations. In the absence of effective predation or parasitism by indigenous natural enemies, these differences were also likely to be due to variation in nutritional quality of the host plant and may be influenced by crop husbandry factors such as the timing and severity of crop pruning.     

华南地区柑橘木虱与柑橘粉虱内共生菌检测及其Wolbachia共生菌的系统发育关系分析

【目的】探明不同地理种群的柑橘木虱Diaphorina citri Kuwayama和柑橘粉虱Dialeurodes citri Ashmead体内昆虫内共生菌的种类及其感染率,并以Wolbachia共生菌为代表,对其系统发育关系进行分析,为今后自共生菌角度研发柑橘木虱和柑橘粉虱的新型防控技术奠定基础。【方法】以16S r DNA、23S r DNA以及wsp为目标基因,利用PCR技术检测采自于广州、湛江、南宁、桂林、厦门的柑橘木虱以及采自广州的柑橘粉虱体内共生菌的种类及其感染率;利用多位点序列分型(MLST)技术和MEGA 5.0软件对不同昆虫样本中的Wolbachia进行系统发育关系分析。【结果】本研究采集的柑橘木虱和柑橘粉虱均含有原生共生菌Portiera和次生共生菌Wolbachia、Cardinium、Rickettsia,但该3种次生共生菌在不同木虱与粉虱种群的感染率有所不同;Arsenophonus只在广州和湛江种群的柑橘木虱中检出。基于wsp基因及MLST基因序列的Wolbachia系统发育分析表明,华南地区柑橘木虱和柑橘粉虱体内的Wolbachia均属于Wolbachia的B大组Con亚组。【结论】不同地理种群的柑橘木虱与柑橘粉虱体内感染的共生菌种类及其感染率不同;Wolabchia共生菌与柑橘木虱寄主不存在协同进化关系,在同一采集点存在Wolbachia通过柑橘寄主在柑橘木虱之间、柑橘木虱与柑橘粉虱之间水平传播的可能性。     

生于Equisetum上的日本新记录种Stamnaria americana(英文)

对日本新记录种Stamnaria americana进行了描述和图示。尽管低温适宜该种子囊孢子的萌发,它在20℃生长最好。DNA序列分析的结果表明,其分类地位应该从柔膜菌科转入锤舌菌科。     

Is the oostegite structure of amphipods determined by their phylogeny or is it an adaptation to their environment?

The oostegites of amphipods attached to peraeopods 2–5 are of two main types — broad with relatively short marginal setae and narrow with long marginal setae. Broad oostegites are found in other peracarids and are considered the primitive type. Amphipods with broad oostegites tend to have smaller eggs than those with narrow oostegites. It is concluded that following the evolution of the major amphipod groups, the oostegites were modified as egg sizes have changed as part of the reproductive strategies of the species within these groups.     

Peeling the yeast protein network

A set of highly connected proteins (or hubs) plays an important role for the integrity of the protein interaction network of Saccharomyces cerevisae by connecting the network's intrinsic modules. The importance of the hubs' central placement is further confirmed by their propensity to be lethal. However, although highly emphasized, little is known about the topological coherence among the hubs. Applying a core decomposition method which allows us to identify the inherent layer structure of the protein interaction network, we find that the probability of nodes both being essential and evolutionary conserved successively increases toward the innermost cores. While connectivity alone is often not a sufficient criterion to assess a protein's functional, evolutionary and topological relevance, we classify nodes as globally and locally central depending on their appearance in the inner or outer cores. The observation that globally central proteins participate in a substantial number of protein complexes which display an elevated degree of evolutionary conservation allows us to hypothesize that globally central proteins serve as the evolutionary backbone of the proteome. Even though protein interaction data are extensively flawed, we find that our results are very robust against inaccurately determined protein interactions.     

Keystone species and food webs

Different species are of different importance in maintaining ecosystem functions in natural communities. Quantitative approaches are needed to identify unusually important or influential, ‘keystone’ species particularly for conservation purposes. Since the importance of some species may largely be the consequence of their rich interaction structure, one possible quantitative approach to identify the most influential species is to study their position in the network of interspecific interactions. In this paper, I discuss the role of network analysis (and centrality indices in particular) in this process and present a new and simple approach to characterizing the interaction structures of each species in a complex network. Understanding the linkage between structure and dynamics is a condition to test the results of topological studies, I briefly overview our current knowledge on this issue. The study of key nodes in networks has become an increasingly general interest in several disciplines: I will discuss some parallels. Finally, I will argue that conservation biology needs to devote more attention to identify and conserve keystone species and relatively less attention to rarity.     

林带和牧草地水量平衡的研究

本文从水量平衡观点对林带、牧草地和裸露地的水量平衡各分量的变化规律进行了探讨。林带、牧草地和裸露地水量平衡各分量的分配比例分别为:降水均为100%;蒸发散96.4%、95.7%和89.5%;坡地径流3.6%、4.3%和10.5%。由于林带有林冠和林地两个作用面组成,分别对它们的水量平衡各分量的组成及其变化规律作了分析。还论述了林带对河川径流的影响。     

生物多样性国际研究态势分析

生物多样性研究是综合性和高度交叉性的跨学科研究领域,是1997年底Science周刊上预测的1998年及近期的6个重大科学热点之一。检索1986—2008年间SCIE文献数据库中关于生物多样性的研究论文(article,proceedings paper和review),利用Thomson Data Analyzer(TDA)分析工具和Aureka分析平台进行数据挖掘。分析表明,该研究涉及多个学科领域,近年来在生态学领域的论文数量增加最多,而生物多样性保护、进化生物学、生物化学与分子生物学方面的论文增长速度较快。生物多样性研究越来越重视全球变化和人类社会对生物多样性的影响,DNA技术和基因工程等先进技术在生物多样性研究和保护中的作用也更加突出。