Balancing food availability and hydrodynamic constraint: phenotypic plasticity and growth in Simulium noelleri blackfly larvae

Organisms through phenotypic plasticity can cope with multiple changed environmental conditions. Theory predicts that animals in streams and rivers should be able to balance demands of the needs to obtain food efficiently and to adjust response to hydrodynamic variability. This study examined effects of variations in food availability and current velocity on the feeding structure and growth rate of Simulium noelleri blackfly larvae. The larvae developed larger labral fans and more rays under slow current and low food regimes than in fast current and high food conditions. In both fast and slow current regimes, growth rates were higher and development periods to the final-instar stage were shorter in high food treatments. The estimated flux rates of food particles through labral fans under high food treatments for both fast and slow current regimes were higher than those under low food treatments. Although both food and current velocity appeared to have selected for flexibility of feeding structure and growth rate, food availability was a more important factor for phenotypic and developmental plasticity than current velocity. The results indicate a strong link between environmental changes in food availability and current velocity, phenotypic plasticity, and growth rate of S. noelleri. This study suggests that plasticity of ecomorphs with macroevolutionary significance may play a role in the early evolutionary stages of blackfly larvae.     

The relationship between pelagic larval duration and range size in tropical reef fishes: a synthetic analysis

We address the conflict in earlier results regarding the relationship between dispersal potential and range size. We examine all published pelagic larval duration data for tropical reef fishes. Larval duration is a convenient surrogate for dispersal potential in marine species that are sedentary as adults and that therefore only experience significant dispersal during their larval phase. Such extensive quantitative dispersal data are only available for fishes and thus we use a unique dataset to examine the relationship between dispersal potential and range size. We find that dispersal potential and range size are positively correlated only in the largest ocean basin, the Indo-Pacific, and that this pattern is driven primarily by the spatial distribution of habitat and dispersal barriers. Furthermore, the relationship strengthens at higher taxonomic levels, suggesting an evolutionary mechanism. We document a negative correlation between species richness and larval duration at the family level in the Indo-Pacific, implying that speciation rate may be negatively related to dispersal potential. If increased speciation rate within a taxonomic group results in smaller range sizes within that group, speciation rate could regulate the association between range size and dispersal potential.     

The relationship among egg size,density and food level on larval development in the wood frog (Rana sylvatica)

Summary Although inter- and intraspecific variation in egg size among amphibians has been well documented, the relationship between egg size and fitness remains unclear. Recent attempts to correlate egg size intraspecifically with larval developmental patterns have been equivocal. In this study the development of larvae derived from large eggs and small eggs, from a single population in Maryland were compared under a range of food levels and larval population densities. Both food level and density had significant effects on the length of the larval period and size at metamorphosis. However, the response among larvae derived from different egg sizes was not additive. At low densities and high food levels, larvae from small eggs had longer larval periods and a larger size at metamorphosis than larvae derived from large eggs. In contrast, at high densities larvae from small eggs had longer developmental periods but were smaller at metamorphosis than larvae from large eggs. In addition, larvae from small eggs were more sensitive to density irrespective of food level. These results suggest that optimal egg size is correlated with environmental factors, which may explain the maintenance of both geographic and within population variation in egg size commonly observed in amphibians.     

On the relationship between chitin particle size and digestibility in the primate Galago senegalensis

Experiments were performed to examine the relationship between the particle size of chitin and its digestibility in the small insectivorous prosimian Galago senegalensis. In the first set of experiments, four animals were fed a 25% chitin diet with the chitin particles less than or equal to 60-mesh (0.250 mm maximum diameter). On average, the animals digested 22.5 ± 2.2 percent of the ingested chitin. In the second set of experiments, the four animals were fed a 25% chitin diet with the chitin particles ground to ≤ 40- and ≥ 45-mesh (between 0.425 and 0.325 mm). On average, the animals digested 2.75 ± 1.38 percent of the ingested chitin. There was no significant variation between the performance of any of the animals on either the 60- or 40–45-mesh trials. In all instances, however, each animal digested significantly more of the 60-mesh chitin and the 40–45-mesh chitin. These experiments demonstrate the importance of masticatory efficiency among small mammals for improving the digestibility of foods such as insects which contain high proportions of chitin. They also suggest why insectivorous and folivorous primates have certain convergent dental specializations for finely grinding their foods. Both leaves and insects contain relatively indigestible structural carbohydrates. These substances are much more completely digested when the surface area to volume ratio of the swallowed material is increased. The masticatory efficiency of frugivorous primates is much lower since the constituents of these foods are relatively completely digested irrespective of the fineness of grinding.     

The relationship between female body size and egg size in pipefishes

Comparing five species of pipefish, egg size was significantly larger in species with brood pouches (Syngnathus typhle, Syngnathus acus and Syngnathus rostellatus) than in species without brood pouches (Entelurus aequoreus and Nerophis ophidion). Egg size correlated positively with female body size in species with brood pouches, but was similar across female sizes in the species lacking pouches. These results may reflect differences in offspring competition as a consequence of variable offspring relatedness within a brood, due to the mating systems adopted by the different species and the presence or absence of a brood pouch.     

Filter mesh size and food particle uptake by Daphnia

Food size selection of four Daphnia, species (D. magna, D. hyalina, D. galeata, D. pulicaria) was investigated using spherical plastic beads as artificial food and with small bacteria. The size of the particles ranged from 0.1 to 35 m with special emphasis to the particle diameters between 0.1 and 1 m. In one set of experiments a mixture of differently sized particles was offered as food suspension and the selectivity of filtering was determined by comparing the size spectrum of the particles found in the gut contents with the spectrum in the food suspension. In a second series of experiments suspensions of uniformly sized particles were offered to single animals and their feeding activity was observed directly. In both types of experiments the mesh sizes of the filtering apparatus of the respective animals studied were measured after the experiments by, scanning electron microscopy. The mean sizes of the filter meshes were about 0.4–0.7 m. In all experiments the size of the particles found in the gut or those which caused high feeding activities were larger than the smallest mesh sizes of the filters. As a consequence simple mechanical sieving provides a sufficient explanation for the mechanism of particle retention of the filtering process in Daphnia. D. magna was found to feed with high efficiency on suspended freshwater bacteria, the residual species investigated showed low filtering efficiencies when bacteria were offered as food.The present study was supported by Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdients     

The relationship between body size and population size in bromeliad tank faunas

Relationships between body size and abundance in collections of animals from the tanks of 73 bromeliads belonging to five species were analysed. Unlike data in previously published studies on this relationship, these collections of species are not taxonomically restricted and represent complete communities over the macroscopic range of organisms. There is no overall tendency for there to be a positive or negative relationship between population abundance and body size of morphospecies. We can find no evidence that body size-abundance patterns are triangular in complete communities. However, there is weak evidence that the relationship in the aquatic subsets of those communities may have some underlying triangularity, with medium-sized species having the largest populations.     

生物钟信号调控的营养学

近日节律是生物界普遍存在的一种生理现象,而内源性生物钟是产生近日节律的物质基础,它能使生物体感知并适应环境中的光、温度和食物等周期信号,从而使生物体与外界环境保持周期同步。研究表明,葡萄糖、胆固醇、腺苷、咖啡因、维生素A和视黄酸等营养物质能通过各自不同的方式调控哺乳动物的生物钟,影响其近日节律的信号输出。本文概述了至今为止研究发现的各类与生物钟信号调控相关的营养物质及功能的相关研究进展。     

The size relationship between insects and their hosts

Abstract.

• 1 Regressions of adult insect size on host size were tested. The analysis was restricted to highly host-specific insects that had thus been exposed to a narrow range of host size.
• 2 The phylogenetic regression method was used to analyse the data, so as to allow for the possible phylogenetic effects in cross-species data.
• 3 Significant positive regressions were found in all the groups tested: female flower thrips, Meligethes species of pollen beetle, tephritid flies, and male and female fleas. They were also found by standard regressions within. and between Actornithophilus species of bird louse.
• 4 The regression of thrips size on pollen size was not significant, providing evidence against a hypothesis involving food size.
• 5 The regression of flea body size on host hair/feather length was significant, which is consistent with a hypothesis involving the size of spaces on the host.
• 6 The relationships may have implications for the understanding of evolutionary host shifts.

     

The relationship between biodiversity and ecosystem functioning in food webs

Recent theoretical and experimental work provides clear evidence that biodiversity loss can have profound impacts on functioning of natural and managed ecosystems and the ability of ecosystems to deliver ecological services to human societies. Work on simplified ecosystems in which the diversity of a single trophic level is manipulated shows that diversity can enhance ecosystem processes such as primary productivity and nutrient retention. Theory also strongly suggests that biodiversity can act as biological insurance against potential disruptions caused by environmental changes. However, these studies generally concern a single trophic level, primary producers for the most part. Changes in biodiversity also affect ecosystem functioning through trophic interactions. Here we review, through the analysis of a simple ecosystem model, several key aspects inherent in multitrophic systems that may strongly affect the relationship between diversity and ecosystem processes. Our analysis shows that trophic interactions have a strong impact on the relationships between diversity and ecosystem functioning, whether the ecosystem property considered is total biomass or temporal variability of biomass at the various trophic levels. In both cases, food-web structure and trade-offs that affect interaction strength have major effects on these relationships. Multitrophic interactions are expected to make biodiversity–ecosystem functioning relationships more complex and non-linear, in contrast to the monotonic changes predicted for simplified systems with a single trophic level.     

The relationship between offspring size and performance in the sea

The historical focus on offspring size has been to explain variation among populations, but there have been few attempts to determine whether variation is greatest at population scale. Offspring size variation is typically viewed as an adaptive response to changes in the relationship between offspring size and performance, yet direct tests remain elusive. We partitioned natural variation in offspring size for a marine invertebrate, Watersipora subtorquata, at a range of spatial and temporal scales across southeastern Australia, and we estimated the relationship between offspring size and performance at each population and time. There was significant variation in offspring size among populations, but regional differences explained only approximately 25% of the observed variation, suggesting that there should be a greater focus on small-scale variation in offspring size. We used our data to parameterize an optimality model to generate predictions of offspring size among different populations and times. Differences in the relationship between offspring size and postmetamorphic performance (and therefore changes in size of offspring that were predicted to maximize maternal fitness) among populations and times were associated with differences in offspring sizes among those populations and times. We suggest that interpopulation variation in offspring size can be an adaptive response to local conditions, but the optimal offspring size is surprisingly dynamic.     

The relationship between body size and population abundance in animals

On average, large-bodied species live at lower densities than small-bodied ones. Early studies suggested that population densities might scale so that the energy use of a population is independent of body size. However, recent work shows that, at the scale of local communities, this is rarely true and that the pattern varies among taxonomic or ecological subsets of those communities. Energetic considerations may only be relevant to the densities of more abundant species. In fact, within natural assemblages o f organisms, the underlying relationship is very variable; in subsets of those assemblages, ecological processes such as competition may structure abundance patterns.     

The non-linear relationship between body size and function in parrotfishes

Parrotfishes are a group of herbivores that play an important functional role in structuring benthic communities on coral reefs. Increasingly, these fish are being targeted by fishermen, and resultant declines in biomass and abundance may have severe consequences for the dynamics and regeneration of coral reefs. However, the impact of overfishing extends beyond declining fish stocks. It can also lead to demographic changes within species populations where mean body size is reduced. The effect of reduced mean body size on population dynamics is well described in literature but virtually no information exists on how this may influence important ecological functions. The study investigated how one important function, scraping (i.e., the capacity to remove algae and open up bare substratum for coral larval settlement), by three common species of parrotfishes (Scarus niger, Chlorurus sordidus, and Chlorurus strongylocephalus) on coral reefs at Zanzibar (Tanzania) was influenced by the size of individual fishes. There was a non-linear relationship between body size and scraping function for all species examined, and impact through scraping was also found to increase markedly when fish reached a size of 15–20 cm. Thus, coral reefs which have a high abundance and biomass of parrotfish may nonetheless be functionally impaired if dominated by small-sized individuals. Reductions in mean body size within parrotfish populations could, therefore, have functional impacts on coral reefs that previously have been overlooked.     

The relationship between egg size and embryonic and larval development in the freshwater shrimp Paratya australiensis Kemp (Decapoda: Atyidae)

1. Paratya australiensis egg and clutch sizes vary between lower and upper altitude sites within headwater streams of the Conondale Range, Queensland, Australia. The adaptive significance of this variation is examined by comparing the development of large eggs from upper sites with small eggs from lower sites at ambient temperatures in the laboratory. 2. Embryonic duration was not dependent on egg size, but was a function of temperature (28 days at 18 °C, but only 22 days at 21 °C). However, larvae developing from large eggs were significantly larger at all stages of development, larval duration was shorter and growth rate was faster than that of larvae from small eggs. 3. It is suggested that the larger, more rapidly developing larvae at upper altitude sites have a greater chance of maintaining position within headwater sections of the stream. This is important as physical barriers such as waterfalls may severely restrict upstream movement. At lower altitude sites, maintaining position may not be as critical as there are no major barriers to upstream movement following downstream displacement. The influence of temperature may also be important as larger eggs may be an adaptation to compensate for slower development of eggs and larvae at cooler, upper altitude sites. The advantage in completing larval development quickly is that larvae would have less risk of removal by spates occurring late in the breeding season.     

亚洲玉米螟性体型二型性及幼虫发育历期与蛹重的关系

【目的】探明亚洲玉米螟不同地理种群性体型二型性及幼虫发育历期与蛹重的关系。【方法】在26℃,L︰D=16︰8条件下,详细记录了来自热带地区的海南省三亚种群,来自亚热带地区的广东省广州和江西省永修种群,及来自温带地区的河北廊坊种群的雌雄幼虫发育历期、蛹重、成虫重,并计算幼虫发育速率。【结果】不同地理种群的雌性个体均显著大于雄性个体。三亚种群雌雄个体的发育历期没有差异,但雌性的生长速率显著大于雄性个体;广州种群、永修种群及廊坊种群,雌雄的生长速率没有差异,但雌性幼虫的发育历期显著长于雄性幼虫。各地理种群蛹重随幼虫发育历期的延长呈下降趋势。【结论】亚洲玉米螟存在明显的性体型二型性,雌雄个体发育历期和生长速率存在地理差异。     

The relationship between ostracod distribution and sediment grain size

Sediment samples from an area seaward of the River Crouch in the Thames estuary have been analysed for their particle size distribution and later picked over for ostracods. The sediments were classified into sediment types and three depositional sub-environments were recognised, viz. Intertidal Flat, Sandbank and Tidal Channel. Study of the ostracods showed that three distinct faunas characterise the same three environments. Log grain size/probability plots have been used to show a relationship between ostracod distribution and sediment grain size.     

The relationship between genome size, development rate, and body size in copepods

Freshwater cyclopoid copepods exhibit at least a fivefold range in somatic genome size and a mechanism, chromatin diminution, which could account for much of this interspecific variation. These attributes suggest that copepods are well suited to studies of genome size evolution. We tested the nucleotypic hypothesis of genome size evolution, which poses that variation in genome size is adaptive due to the bulk effects of both coding and noncoding DNA on cell size and division rates, and their correlates. We found a significant inverse correlation between genome size and developmental (growth) rate in five freshwater cyclopoid species at three temperatures. That is, species with smaller genomes developed faster. Species with smaller genomes had significantly smaller bodies at 22 °C, but not at cooler and warmer temperatures. Species with smaller genomes developed faster at all three temperatures, but had smaller bodies only at 22 °C. We propose a model of life history evolution that adds genome size and cell cycle dynamics to the suite of characters on which selection may act to mold life histories and to influence the distribution of traits among different habitats.