A new species of Erebonectes (Copepoda,Calanoida) from marine caves on Caicos Islands,West Indies

The insects of a small and cold aestival stream in northern Sweden were studied from semiquantitative kick-samples taken every ten days throughout the ice-free season in 1987. The stream froze solid at least in some sections in some winters. In addition to dipterans that were only identified to the family level, five ephemeropteran, four plecopteran, 11 coleopteran (Dytiscidae), and four trichopteran (Limnephilidae) species were found. Baetis bundyae Lemkuhl, Heptagenia orbiticola Kluge (Ephemeroptera), Nemoura cinerea (Retzius) (Plecoptera), Hydroporus palustris (L), Agabus setulosus (J. Sahlberg) (Coleoptera), Anabolia concentrica (Zetterstedt), Limnephilus coenosus Curtis, and Micopterna sequax McLachlan (Trichoptera) were all common. Malaise trap data are given for Plecoptera. The two ephemeropteran species Heptagenia orbiticola and Metretopus alter Bengtsson, and the plecopteran species Nemoura viki Lillehammer were recorded for the first time in Sweden. The remarkable species composition was attributed to the harsh abiotic and poorly studied environment. We predicted that the larval composition of this stream was representative for aestival streams in northernmost Fennoscandia.     

Cutting-edge technology: burrows lined with sponge bioclasts from the Upper Cretaceous of Denmark

Abstract

Many tracemakers use different materials to line their burrows. Koptichnus rasmussenae n. igen. n. isp. is lined with cuboid fragments of siliceous sponges, interpreted as evidence of harvesting and trimming material to reinforce the burrow wall. The act of trimming, as evidenced in the polyhedral faces, is considered to be behaviourally significant. The tracemaker was evidently a lobster-like crustacean.     

Conditioned moments of time to fixation

Summary A derivation is made of all existing central moments of the time until absorption in one of the boundaries, given that absorption in the other boundary will not take place. No use is made of the conditioned diffusion equation.     

Food limitation in asynchronous bluethroat broods: effects on food distribution, nestling begging, and parental provisioning rules

Scramble competition models of begging predict that junior nestlingswill be more affected by food limitation than seniors. Thesemodels assume that food allocation is under offspring controland, hence, predict that this change in food distribution iscaused by a differential behavioral response by seniors andjuniors. By using the bluethroat (Luscinia svecica svecica)as our model species, we induced food limitation by removingthe male parent temporarily. We found that, as predicted, fooddistribution became more biased in disfavor of juniors whenfood was limited. However, there was no significant differencein the behavioral responses of seniors and juniors (i.e., positioningin the nest or begging postures) to food limitation that couldexplain the change in food distribution. Hence, there was noevidence that seniors controlled food distribution. As predictedif parents preferentially fed seniors, nestling rank affectedfood distribution when controlling for variation in nestlingbehaviors. Furthermore, as expected if the increased skew infood distribution under food limitation was caused by activefood allocation by parents, nestling rank had a greater effecton food distribution under food limitation than under normalconditions. The present study suggests that food distributionin passerine birds is determined not only by nestling behaviors(begging posture and positioning) alone but also by parentalpreferences for seniors based on nonsignaling cues, such asbody size.     

Effect of scavenging on predation in a food web

Scavenging can have important consequences for food web dynamics, for example, it may support additional consumer species and affect predation on live prey. Still, few food web models include scavenging. We develop a dynamic model that includes two facultative scavenger species, which we refer to as the predator or scavenger species according to their natural scavenging propensity, as well as live prey, and a carrion pool to show ramifications of scavenging for predation in simple food webs. Our modeling suggests that the presence of scavengers can both increase and decrease predator kill rates and overall predation in model food webs and the impact varies (in magnitude and direction) with context. In particular, we explore the impact of the amount of dynamics (exploitative competition) allowed in the predator, scavenger, and prey populations as well as the direction and magnitude of interference competition between predators and scavengers. One fundamental prediction is that scavengers most likely increase predator kill rates, especially if there are exploitative feedback effects on the prey or carrion resources like is normally observed in natural systems. Scavengers only have minimal effects on predator kill rate when predator, scavenger, and prey abundances are kept constant by management. In such controlled systems, interference competition can greatly affect the interactions in contrast to more natural systems, with an increase in interference competition leading to a decrease in predator kill rate. Our study adds to studies that show that the presence of predators affects scavenger behavior, vital rates, and food web structure, by showing that scavengers impact predator kill rates through multiple mechanisms, and therefore indicating that scavenging and predation patterns are tightly intertwined. We provide a road map to the different theoretical outcomes and their support from different empirical studies on vertebrate guilds to provide guidance in wildlife management.     

Growth and reproduction of Scytosiphon lomentaria (Fucophyceae) in relation to temperature in two populations from Denmark

Two strains of Scytosiphon lomentaria from Denmark have been grown under long-day conditions on a temperature-gradient plate. The material from north-west Jutland (strain No. 46) has a reduced prostrate system (a few-celled lump) whereas the other material from the Sound (strain No. S41) has a well-developed crust. This difference plays a significant role in growth and reproductive patterns. Strain No. 46 rapidly produces a great number of cylindrical macrothalli. Within a four-week experimental period, formation of swarmers from plurilocular sporangia on the macrothalli takes place and results in a maximum dry weight of 32.9 mg at 18.2°C.
Swarmers from the macrothalli of strain S41 always develop into knot-filamentous or crust-shaped thalli. The development of the macrothalli, therefore, takes a longer time than in strain 46 and the maximum dry weight is only 16.5 mg at 16°C even within an experimental period of six weeks. The reproductive pattern is more complex than in strain 46. The crusts produce unilocular sporangia at temperatures between 16°C and 23.8°C, and function, therefore, as the reproductive system during the summer as macrothalli disappear at temperatures above 18°C both in nature and in culture. Formation of plurilocular sporangia on macrothalli starts when they are from 6–9 weeks old at temperatures between 11°C and 18°C.
The temperature range for growth in the two strains also differs: Strain 46 grows from 7.3–24.4°C while strain S41 grows at least from 4–5.1°C to an upper limit of 27.1°C, but lower limit has not been determined precisely in the present experiment. These results indicate that temperature ecotypes exist, even within a limited geographic area.