The flow of jelly within a honeybee colony

Summary The flow of jelly from 100 nurse bees to the members of two normal-sized colonies was measured during one night. To follow the flow, nurses were injected with ¹⁴C-phenylalanine. They incorporated this label into the protein of their hypopharyngeal (brood food) glands and their own body protein. When they were allowed trophallactic contacts during the investigation period a loss of label and a shift away from the abdomen was observed, indicating protein synthesis in the hypopharyngeal glands from previously stored protein. Very young larvae were fed less frequently than older ones. Younger workers received larger amounts of jelly than older ones, but considerable amounts were given to foragers. Drones behaved similarly. Between one-third and one-half of the distributed jelly was given to imagines; 10% and 16% of all workers received radioactive jelly from 100 nurses in the two colonies during one night. Thus, jelly is a very important food for adult honey bees. There was a remarkable exchange of label within the class of nurses themselves that is interpreted as communication within the social system.Abbreviation dpm decays per minute     

Plasminogen activator: The major secreted neutral protease of cultured skeletal muscle cells

Clonal mouse skeletal muscle cells which differentiate in culture and from synpases with neuronal cells were found to secrete high levels of protease activity as measured with an ¹²⁵I-fibrin assay. The secreted proteolytic activity was more than 90% dependent upon the presence of plasminogen in the medium, and had a pH optimum at 7 to 8. This activity was not inhibited by n-ethylmaleimide, pepstatin, EDTA, or EGTA. At millimolar concentrations, greater than 90% inhibition was obtained with either soybean typsin inhibitor, epsilon aminocaproic acid, Trasylol, or leupeptin. Almost complete inhibition occured with 1 mM diisopropylfluorophosphate suggesting the presence of a serine residue at the catalytic site. In contrast to the high levels of secreted activity, a lower steady-state level of cell-associated protease activity was detected in cell lysates. The high level of plasminogen activator secreted into the medium of cultured muscle cells suggests a role for such extracellular protease activity in myogenesis during development and remodeling following muscle injury. Such information may be useful in understanding the initial degeneration of neuromusclar contacts in experimental and pathologic denervation.     

Der informationsgehalt des intrazellularwassers und die informations-speicherung in der embryo- und Phylogenese

The nucleo-free erythrocyte is presented as the simplest differentiated cell whose energy-exchange has the single purpose of preserving the cell structure; this structure is based on the regular quasi-crystalline state of intracellular water, which is expressed by the negative entropy(-S _W )and the temperature T _W which is higher than the temperature of the extracellular water T. The information content of intracellular water, J _W is proportional to the temperature difference: J _W T=T _W -T. The regular state of intracellular water is maintained by the basal metabolism that takes place in the membrane of the differentiated cell. The energy exchange, i.e., the absorption of free energy and the liberation of an equivalent amount of heat, occurs in the form of work cycles of the enzym-water-complexes in the cell membrane. The differentiated cell of the multicellular animal organism is the result of embryogenetic processes accompanied by heat-liberation. The specific heat-liberation, i.e., the heat produced by a single cell, begins with a quasi-zero value of the fertilized egg cell and grows with acceleration to a maximum value at the end of embryogenesis. This process of acceleration of heat-liberation is caused by the entrance of the water from the outer medium into the embryonic cell; the water undergoes the phasechange fluid crystal with heat-liberation. The intracellular water within the embryonic cell becomes structurated; this is also accompanied by growing heatliberation. The thermodynamic characteristic of embryo genetic development is expressed by the principle of the maximum of velocity of entropy production of the cell at the end state of the process of differentiation. This principle applied to phylogenetics, leads to the formulation of the principle of accumulation of biological information: J(t). In the course of evolution living systems are able not only to store information of past generations, but also to create information: J(t)e^Intl where t is the time of phylogenesis.     

Zur ?kologie jamaikanischer Kolibriarten

Zusammenfassung Auf Jamaika brüten 4 Kolibriarten, wobei die beiden congenerischen ArtenTrochilus polytmus undTrochilus scitulus allopatrisch leben. Jede Art weist jeweils eine eindeutige Präferenz bezüglich Meereshöhe und Vegetationshöhe auf.T. polytmus undT. scitulus stimmen in diesen beiden Parametern ihrer ökologischen Nische überein. Da sich beide Arten auch gewichtsmäßig entsprechen, nehmen sie in der nektarivoren Nahrungsgemeinschaft homologe Planstellen ein.Bei den auf Jamaika untersuchten ornithophilen Blütenpflanzen wurden Zuckerkonzentrationen von 15–22% gemessen, bei einigen auch von Insekten frequentierten Pflanzenarten solche bis 44%. Der Verlauf der Nektarsekretionsrate pro Stunde in Abhängigkeit von der Tageszeit entsprach bei Pflanzen, die ausschließlich von Kolibris bestäubt wurden, dem täglichen Aktivitätsrhythmus der Kolibris. Blütenpflanzen, die sowohl von Kolibris als auch von Insekten besucht wurden, zeigten hingegen eine weitgehend konstante stündliche Nektarproduktionsrate am Tage.Artspezifisch unterschiedliche Blütenpflanzen wurden als Nahrungsquelle ausgewählt. Diese nahrungsökologische Separation ist darauf zurückzuführen, daß die Kolibriarten aufgrund ihrer Gewichtsunterschiede jeweils nur bei bestimmten ornithophilen Blütenpflanzenarten einen Nettoenergiegewinn erzielen können (z. B. Nettoenergiegewinn bei der Nahrungsaufnahme im Schwirrflug aus einer Blüte vonAsclepias currassavica vonMellisuga minima: 0.308 cal,Anthracothorax mango: — 0.661 cal).

---

On the ecology of Jamaican hummingbirds

Summary On Jamaica 4 hummingbird species are resident. The congeneric speciesTrochilus polytmus andTrochilus scitulus are geographically separated (allospecies). Relative abundance depending on altitude and on height of vegetation (proportional occurence of each species in mist-netted samples s. Fig. 1,2) indicate a species-specific preference in both parameters.T. polytmus andT. scitulus correspond in both ecological parameters as well as in morphological characteristics. It is argued that both species occupy homologous niches in their range of distribution.Nectar of all studied ornithophilic plant species varied in sugar concentration from 15% to 22%. Flowering plants visited by insects and hummingbirds reached a sugar concentration in nectar of 44% (s. Tab. 1). The rate of daily nectar production per hour in plant species solely visited by hummingbirds varied according to the daily rhythm of activity of the birds (s. Fig. 3 B). Plant species visited by hummingbirds and insects showed little daily variation in nectar production per hour (s. Fig. 3 A).To gain energy benefits Jamaican hummingbirds selected flowering plants according to their weight-specific energy requirements (s. Tab. 3, 4).