Reproductive life history of Thornicroft’s giraffe in Zambia

Knowledge of the reproductive life history of giraffe in the wild is sparse. Giraffe have two fairly unusual reproductive patterns among large mammals: they can become pregnant while lactating, and calf mortality is extremely high. Longitudinal records are largely absent, so tracking reproductive parameters tends to combine information from captive and field studies. In this study, we examine longitudinal data obtained over a 33‐year period in one population of Thornicroft’s giraffe in order to chart their reproductive careers. We found that age at first parturition was 6.4 years, or slightly later than in captivity. Giraffe bred throughout the year, with cows producing offspring on average every 677.7 days. About half of the calves died before one year of age, but death of a calf did not reduce interbirth interval. We conclude that the lifetime reproductive success of giraffe is more dependent on longevity and calf survivorship than on reproductive rate.     

Cathodoluminescence applied to immunofluorenscence: present state and improved technical prospects by prism spectrometer light selection.

For studies on cathodoluminescence, we equipped a scanning electron microscope with a prism spectrometer and sensitive photomultiplier. The apparatus is described and our initial results are presented on the analyse of cathodoluminescence. The material observed promarily involved studies of immunofluorescent specimens. Humal lymphocytes were labelled with a fluorescent antibody and cryosections of rat kidney with Masugi nephritis were labelled with a fluorescent specific antibody. Our apparatus permitted monochromatic imaging of cathodoluminescence emissions and resulted in much improved micrographs. Some possible improvements of the technique are discussed.     

Vertex analysis of Purkinje cell dendritic trees in the cerebellum of the rat

All networks are made up of vertices (points interconnected by segments), which include terminals interconnected by terminal segments, nodes interconnected by link segments and the root point connected to the tree by the root segment. All nodes may be classified into unique types according to the number of terminal and link segments they drain. For example, there are three distinct dichotomous nodes, a 'primary' node draining two terminal segments, a 'secondary' node draining one terminal segment and a link segment, and a 'tertiary' node draining two link segments. The numbers of primary and tertiary nodes approximate to equality in large networks and thus the ratio of primary to secondary nodes defines topology. All higher order nodes ( trichotomous and beyond) may be resolved into dichotomous forms and incorporated into the analysis. Different forms of growth may thus be analysed by comparing the frequency distributions of nodes with those generated by computer simulated growth models. Moreover, all vertices can be ordered so that metrical parameters are easily incorporated and the hierarchical arrangements of vertices of different order discerned. The dendritic trees of 48 Purkinje cells, taken from folia along the primary fissure, were analysed using vertex analysis. The mean number of segments in Purkinje cell trees was 881 +/- 23 (s.e.) and mean total dendritic length 7959 +/- 233 (s.e.) micrometers. Segment lengths were longest over proximal segments but over most of the tree segment lengths were constant at 10 +/- 0.2 (s.e.) micrometers. Vertex, segment and terminal frequency distributions of equivalent orders were all normal with a slight positive skew. Peak frequencies were recorded at the 12th equivalent order. The mean primary/secondary nodal vertex ratio was 0.93 and the proportion of trichotomous branch points in the tree was 5%. Comparison of the frequency distribution of all vertices with computer generated models showed that growth of the Purkinje cell was most closely simulated by a random terminal growth model, incorporating 5% trichotomy , in which the branching of high order terminals was more likely than low order terminals. It was concluded that growth of the Purkinje cell tree could proceed by random terminal branching with growth occurring preferentially over a front composed of terminals that are ascending through a corridor in the molecular layer whose margins are defined by neighbouring trees.