云南昆明发现印度池鹭

正2015年5月25日,在云南省昆明市滇池草海湖滨湿地(25°0′49.05″N,102°38′47.47″E,海拔1 888 m)发现并拍摄到1只池鹭属(Ardeola)鸟类。该鸟体型大小与云南常见物种池鹭(A.bacchus,Chinese Pond Heron)相似,体长约45 cm;头和颈皮黄色,枕部具数枚白色带状长羽,悬垂于后颈;翕部被栗赤色发状蓑羽;下背、腰至尾上覆羽、尾羽及两翅白色;颊、颏、喉及前颈灰白色;胸皮黄色,被灰黄色矛状长羽;下体余部白色。虹膜     

Fluctuations in chick diet of the Squacco Heron Ardeola ralloides in southern France: changes over the last 30 years

Capsule The composition varied between colony site, month and year.

Aims To determine the diet composition of chicks and its variations in 2000 and 2001. To look for any changes over the last 30 years.

Methods Chick regurgitates were analysed to determine which Order contributed most to the diet, by frequency and by biomass.

Results During 2000 and 2001 chick diet was dominated by insects (92% and 70% by biomass, respectively), mainly Coleoptera (60% and 41%) and Orthoptera (27% in both years). The dry mass of Orthoptera, Coleoptera adults, Odonata and amphibians differed significantly between breeding sites, months and years.The proportion of invertebrates (in biomass) increased from 36.5% in 1970 and 31% in 1971 to 95% in 2000 and 90% in 2001 whereas the proportion of amphibians decreased in the same time from 49% and 33% in 1970 and 1971 to 5.0% and 9.5% in 2000 and 2001, respectively.

Conclusion The proportion of prey types differed bewteen colony sites and months. Major changes were found in the diet composition between the early 1970s and 2000s. The possible hypotheses for the observed differences are discussed.     

Individual differences in chronotypes associated with academic performance among Chilean University students

A chronotype is an individual trait that determines circadian rhythm (dark/light cycle) characteristics, associated with bedtime, waking, and other daily activities. A chronotype is classified as morning, intermediate, and evening. The objective is to associate chronotypes with academic performance in university students. A cross-sectional study was performed to evaluate the chronotype of university students (n = 703) by Horne-Ostberg questionnaire and associated with academic performance. The group with higher GPAs had higher chronotype scores (p = 0.002). Morning and intermediate chronotypes exhibited better academic performance; however, more studies are necessary to determine the underlying causes, which could influence cognitive aspects.     

Individual differences in the ability to recognise facial identity are associated with social anxiety

Previous research has been concerned with the relationship between social anxiety and the recognition of face expression but the question of whether there is a relationship between social anxiety and the recognition of face identity has been neglected. Here, we report the first evidence that social anxiety is associated with recognition of face identity, across the population range of individual differences in recognition abilities. Results showed poorer face identity recognition (on the Cambridge Face Memory Test) was correlated with a small but significant increase in social anxiety (Social Interaction Anxiety Scale) but not general anxiety (State-Trait Anxiety Inventory). The correlation was also independent of general visual memory (Cambridge Car Memory Test) and IQ. Theoretically, the correlation could arise because correct identification of people, typically achieved via faces, is important for successful social interactions, extending evidence that individuals with clinical-level deficits in face identity recognition (prosopagnosia) often report social stress due to their inability to recognise others. Equally, the relationship could arise if social anxiety causes reduced exposure or attention to people's faces, and thus to poor development of face recognition mechanisms.     

Individual differences in estrogen receptor alpha in select brain nuclei are associated with individual differences in aggression

Steroid hormones play an important role in modulating social behavior in many species. Estrogens are thought to act on an interconnected network of hypothalamic and limbic brain areas to affect aggressive behavior, although the specific nuclei unknown remain unspecified. We show that individual variation in estrogen receptor alpha (ERalpha) immunoreactivity in the lateral septum (LS), ventral bed nucleus of the stria terminalis (vBNST), and anterior hypothalamus (AHA) of CD-1 mice is positively correlated with aggressive behavior. When males were treated with fadrozole (an aromatase inhibitor), aggressive behavior was reduced, although castration did not reduce aggression. These results suggest that estrogens modulate aggressive behavior by acting on a circuit that includes the LS, vBNST, and AHA and that the source of estrogens is non-gonadal. Fadrozole also decreased c-fos expression in the lateral septum following aggressive encounters. Although the effects of estrogen on aggression appear to involve regulation of neuronal activity in the LS, additional processes are likely involved. These results suggest that estrogen acts in a specific subset of a complex network of nuclei to affect aggressive behavior.     

Density-dependence by habitat heterogeneity: individual quality versus territory quality

The aim of this comment is to review the ecological issues concerning the role of individual and habitat heterogeneity as possible mechanisms explaining density-dependent fecundity in animal populations. Our intention is to discuss different approaches to determine whether or not studied populations are subjected to density-dependent processes and which mechanisms are involved. We show that because individual quality (e.g. measured in terms of age of breeding individuals) and territory quality can be correlated, untangling both effects on fecundity is frequently a difficult task. We discuss the misuse of statistical methods and other problems related to the specific characteristics of the studied populations that can have a strong influence on the conclusions reached by researchers working in this field.     

海南临高和澄迈池鹭种群的卵色光谱分析

2009年4-7月,利用光纤光谱仪和鸟类视觉模型对海南临高和澄迈2个池鹭(Ardeola bacchus)种群的卵色进行量化分析.结果表明:池鹭卵的反射光谱波峰位于中波区域,最高峰位于绿色光区域,卵色为以绿色为主的蓝绿色,这种卵色可能是对捕食、营巢生境或雄鸟性选择的适应.基于鸟类视觉模型的分析表明,2个种群池鹭的卵在色度、亮度和色调UV上无显著差异,但在色调RGB上存在极显著差异.罗宾逊(Robinson)投射分析表明,澄迈种群的池鹭,其卵的色调RGB变异明显大于临高种群,这种变异可能与2个种群的巢寄生压力或营巢生境的差异有关.     

白及根部内生真菌多样性研究

白及是地生兰科多年生草本植物,是常见的中草药之一。白及根是白及植株吸收养分和水分的主要场所,开展其根部内生真菌的群落组成及多样性分析,对了解云南原生境白及与根部内生真菌间的共生关系具有重要意义。本研究采用形态学和ITS rDNA分子系统发育分析相结合的方法进行菌株鉴定。结果表明,3个采样点的白及根部分离到可培养内生真菌32株,包括9个目、13个科、16个属。其中木霉属Trichoderma、镰刀菌属Fusarium、拟盘多毛孢属Pestalotiopsis为优势类群,分别占总物种数的21.88%、18.75%、9.38%;中碳垫菌属Nemania、丛赤壳属Nectria、炭角菌属Xylaria、紫霉属Purpureocillium、刺盘孢属Colletotrichum、黑孢子菌属Nigrospora、Biscogniauxia、腐质霉属Humicola、脉孢菌属Neurospora、拟茎点霉属Phomopsis、植物腐霉Phytopythium、毛霉属Mucor、伞状霉属Umbelopsis为常见内生真菌类群。α多样性指数分析表明：各采样点的白及根部内生真菌物种多样性最高的是昆明市水源保护区采样点（D=0.799,H’=1.698）,保山市龙陵县采样点物种多样性最低（D=0.787,H’=1.580）。β多样性分析采样点之间的Jaccard（0.912-0.993）、Bray-Curtis（0.838-0.986）和UniFrac（加权0.618-0.631;不加权0.770-0.799）距离,结果表明3个采样点之间的内生真菌群落组成存在差异。3个采样点的不同地理环境和土壤类型给白及提供了不同的生境条件,是影响白及根部内生真菌物种丰度和群落组成差异的主要因素之一。     

Male quality and territory quality in the great tit parus major

In this study there was no positive significant relationship between the quality of male great tits, as measured by average strophe length (a strophe is a short burst of song), and territory quality. (1) Males singing longer strophes did not defend territories in areas of higher recruitment, and (2) naturally settling males were better singers than replacement birds were. The second result was probably caused by a difference in age composition of the two groups, because naturally settling yearlings and replacement yearlings did not differ significantly in average strophe length. These observations on a non-migratory species are in contrast to those of several other studies on passerine birds, which were mostly concerned with migratory species. The relationship between male quality and territory quality is predicted to be closer in species that migrate than in non-migratory species.     

Individual differences in thresholds and quality reports of human subjects to various odors

Sixty-three subjects were selected on the basis of their relativeability (n = 30) or inability (n = 33) to detect the intenseurine–sweaty odor of the diastereoisomeric ketone, cis-4-(4'-t-butylcyclohexyl)-4-methyl-2-pentanone (pemenone). Absolute thresholds were determined,and quality reports and hedonic ratings were obtained for near-thresholdconcentrations of pemenone and five other odorous compounds.Several of these compounds were selected because large individualdifferences in sensitivity (specific anosmias) were known toexist. A principal compound analysis of threshold concentrationsindicated that three orthogonal factors well described the relationshipsbetween sensitivities to the compounds. Threshold concentrationsof pemenone and androstenone were highly correlated and thefirst factor was defined by relationships between those odorantsand isovaleric acid, all modally putrid-smelling compounds.Subjects relatively osmic for pemenone generally reported aputrid odor for pemenone, but anosmics reported mostly otherqualities. These relationships between relative sensitivityand the quality reports elicited by the different compoundsare consistent with a multiple-profile model of odor qualityperception. That model postulates that most odor molecules interactwith more than one perceptual channel (receptor process) andthat any individual alteration in the relative specificity ordeletion in the number of such receptor processes could alterthe pattern of interaction and thus should give rise to alterationsin the quality or intensity of the resulting odor perception.     

Individual differences in behavioural plasticities

Interest in individual differences in animal behavioural plasticities has surged in recent years, but research in this area has been hampered by semantic confusion as different investigators use the same terms (e.g. plasticity, flexibility, responsiveness) to refer to different phenomena. The first goal of this review is to suggest a framework for categorizing the many different types of behavioural plasticities, describe examples of each, and indicate why using reversibility as a criterion for categorizing behavioural plasticities is problematic. This framework is then used to address a number of timely questions about individual differences in behavioural plasticities. One set of questions concerns the experimental designs that can be used to study individual differences in various types of behavioural plasticities. Although within‐individual designs are the default option for empirical studies of many types of behavioural plasticities, in some situations (e.g. when experience at an early age affects the behaviour expressed at subsequent ages), ‘replicate individual’ designs can provide useful insights into individual differences in behavioural plasticities. To date, researchers using within‐individual and replicate individual designs have documented individual differences in all of the major categories of behavioural plasticities described herein. Another important question is whether and how different types of behavioural plasticities are related to one another. Currently there is empirical evidence that many behavioural plasticities [e.g. contextual plasticity, learning rates, IIV (intra‐individual variability), endogenous plasticities, ontogenetic plasticities) can themselves vary as a function of experiences earlier in life, that is, many types of behavioural plasticity are themselves developmentally plastic. These findings support the assumption that differences among individuals in prior experiences may contribute to individual differences in behavioural plasticities observed at a given age. Several authors have predicted correlations across individuals between different types of behavioural plasticities, i.e. that some individuals will be generally more plastic than others. However, empirical support for most of these predictions, including indirect evidence from studies of relationships between personality traits and plasticities, is currently sparse and equivocal. The final section of this review suggests how an appreciation of the similarities and differences between different types of behavioural plasticities may help theoreticians formulate testable models to explain the evolution of individual differences in behavioural plasticities and the evolutionary and ecological consequences of individual differences in behavioural plasticities.     

Individual differences in the perception of probability

In recent studies of humans estimating non-stationary probabilities, estimates appear to be unbiased on average, across the full range of probability values to be estimated. This finding is surprising given that experiments measuring probability estimation in other contexts have often identified conservatism: individuals tend to overestimate low probability events and underestimate high probability events. In other contexts, repulsive biases have also been documented, with individuals producing judgments that tend toward extreme values instead. Using extensive data from a probability estimation task that produces unbiased performance on average, we find substantial biases at the individual level; we document the coexistence of both conservative and repulsive biases in the same experimental context. Individual biases persist despite extensive experience with the task, and are also correlated with other behavioral differences, such as individual variation in response speed and adjustment rates. We conclude that the rich computational demands of our task give rise to a variety of behavioral patterns, and that the apparent unbiasedness of the pooled data is an artifact of the aggregation of heterogeneous biases.     

Individual differences in emotion processing

Recent functional brain imaging studies of the neurobiology of emotion have investigated how individual differences among subjects modulate neural responses during emotion processing. Differences in personality, dispositional affect, biological sex, and genotype can all substantially modulate the neural bases of emotion processing in prefrontal, limbic, and other brain regions, across a variety of domains including emotional reactions, emotional memory, and emotion perception. Analysis of individual differences provides a new window into the neurobiology of emotion processing that complements traditional approaches.