Species traits explain variation in detectability of UK birds

Capsule Heterogeneous detectability amongst species may impact multi-species bird surveys and if not accounted for, may bias community level conclusions. Estimates of detectability were produced for 195 UK bird species, and detectability was significantly affected by bird size, diet and habitat specialization.

Aims To estimate detectability and understand which species traits may impact detectability.

Methods We estimated the detectability of 195 species of birds in the UK using distance sampling methods and examined the average detectability of genetically related groups. We tested the significance of species traits in describing variation in detectability, whilst controlling for phylogenetic relationships.

Results Passeriformes had the lowest median detectability of 0.37 and Charadriiformes the highest median detectability of 0.65, of the seven largest orders considered. Species most associated with closed habitats such as woodland and urban areas had the lowest detectability. Smaller species had lower detectability than larger species.

Conclusion Heterogeneity in species detectability could lead to biased conclusions, particularly when calculating multi-species indices such as species richness or diversity. Accounting for detectability will be most important in studies that cover a wide range of habitat types or a diverse spread of taxa.     

Parental differences in brood provisioning by Hen Harriers Circus cyaneus

Capsule Females varied their provisioning patterns according to brood age and brood size, whereas males did not.

Aims To quantify how parents balance the needs of their offspring for food and protection.

Methods We studied 13 nests from hides and spent on average 101 hours per nest monitoring prey types, provisioning rate and the time spent at the nest by both sexes in relation to brood size and brood age.

Results Males always provided more food than females. Males brought similar amounts of prey items irrespective of brood size and nestling age, whereas females brought more prey and bigger items to larger and older broods. Females spent less time brooding larger broods, particularly early on.

Conclusions Hen Harrier parents share the provisioning burden, with each parent delivering prey as a function of brood care requirements, hunting capability and the behaviour of the other parent.     

VACCINATION AND REDUCED COHORT DURATION CAN DRIVE VIRULENCE EVOLUTION: MAREK’S DISEASE VIRUS AND INDUSTRIALIZED AGRICULTURE

Marek’s disease virus (MDV), a commercially important disease of poultry, has become substantially more virulent over the last 60 years. This evolution was presumably a consequence of changes in virus ecology associated with the intensification of the poultry industry. Here, we assess whether vaccination or reduced host life span could have generated natural selection, which favored more virulent strains. Using previously published experimental data, we estimated viral fitness under a range of cohort durations and vaccine treatments on broiler farms. We found that viral fitness maximized at intermediate virulence, as a result of a trade‐off between virulence and transmission previously reported. Our results suggest that vaccination, acting on this trade‐off, could have led to the evolution of increased virulence. By keeping the host alive, vaccination prolongs infectious periods of virulent strains. Improvements in host genetics and nutrition, which reduced broiler life spans below 50 days, could have also increased the virulence of the circulating MDV strains because shortened cohort duration reduces the impact of host death on viral fitness. These results illustrate the dramatic impact anthropogenic change can potentially have on pathogen virulence.     

An Anionic Phospholipid Enables the Hydrophobic Surfactant Proteins to Alter Spontaneous Curvature

The hydrophobic surfactant proteins, SP-B and SP-C, greatly accelerate the adsorption of the surfactant lipids to an air/water interface. Previous studies of factors that affect curvature suggest that vesicles may adsorb via a rate-limiting structure with prominent negative curvature, in which the hydrophilic face of the lipid leaflets is concave. To determine if SP-B and SP-C might promote adsorption by inducing negative curvature, we used small-angle x-ray scattering to test whether the physiological mixture of the two proteins affects the radius of cylindrical monolayers in the inverse hexagonal phase. With dioleoyl phosphatidylethanolamine alone, the proteins had no effect on the hexagonal lattice constant, suggesting that the proteins fail to insert into the cylindrical monolayers. The surfactant lipids also contain ∼10% anionic phospholipids, which might allow incorporation of the cationic proteins. With 10% of the anionic dioleoyl phosphatidylglycerol added to dioleoyl phosphatidylethanolamine, the proteins induced a dose-related decrease in the hexagonal lattice constant. At 30°C, the reduction reached a maximum of 8% relative to the lipids alone at ∼1% (w/w) protein. Variation of NaCl concentration tested whether the effect of the protein represented a strictly electrostatic effect that screening by electrolyte would eliminate. With concentrations up to 3 M NaCl, the dose-related change in the hexagonal lattice constant decreased but persisted. Measurements at different hydrations determined the location of the pivotal plane and proved that the change in the lattice constant produced by the proteins resulted from a shift in spontaneous curvature. These results provide the most direct evidence yet that the surfactant proteins can induce negative curvature in lipid leaflets. This finding supports the model in which the proteins promote adsorption by facilitating the formation of a negatively curved, rate-limiting structure.     

Reducing infectivity of HIV upon exposure to surfaces coated with N,N‐dodecyl,methyl‐polyethylenimine

The infectivity of high‐titer, cell‐free HIV in culture media and human milk is rapidly reduced upon exposure to polyethylene slides painted with the linear hydrophobic polycation N,N‐dodecyl,methyl‐polyethylenimine (DMPEI). Accompanying viral p24 protein and free viral RNA analysis of solutions exposed to DMPEI‐coated surfaces suggests that virion attachment to the polycationic surface and its subsequent inactivation are the likely mechanism of this phenomenon. Biotechnol. Bioeng. 2013; 110: 2058–2062. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

2‐(Undecyloxy)‐ethanol is a major component of the male‐produced aggregation pheromone of Monochamus sutor

The small white‐marmorated longicorn beetle, Monochamus sutor (L.) (Coleoptera: Cerambycidae), is widely distributed throughout Europe and Asia. It is a potential vector of the pine wood nematode, Bursaphelenchus xylophilus (Steiner et Buhrer) Nickle, the causal agent of the devastating pine wilt disease. Volatiles were collected from both male and female beetles after maturation feeding. In analyses of these collections using gas chromatography (GC) coupled to mass spectrometry, a single male‐specific compound was detected and identified as 2‐(undecyloxy)‐ethanol. In analyses by GC coupled to electroantennography the only consistent responses from both female and male antennae were to this compound. Trapping tests were carried out in Spain, Sweden, and China. 2‐(Undecyloxy)‐ethanol was attractive to both male and female M. sutor beetles. A blend of the bark beetle pheromones ipsenol, ipsdienol, and 2‐methyl‐3‐buten‐2‐ol was also attractive to both sexes in Spain and Sweden, and further increased the attractiveness of the 2‐(undecyloxy)‐ethanol. The host plant volatiles α‐pinene, 3‐carene, and ethanol were weakly attractive, if at all, in all three countries and did not significantly increase the attractiveness of the blend of 2‐(undecyloxy)‐ethanol and bark beetle pheromones. 2‐(Undecyloxy)‐ethanol is thus proposed to be the major, if not only, component of the male‐produced aggregation pheromone of M. sutor, and its role is discussed. This compound has been reported as a pheromone of several other Monochamus species and is another example of the parsimony that seems to exist among the pheromones of many of the Cerambycidae. Traps baited with 2‐(undecyloxy)‐ethanol and bark beetle pheromones should be useful for monitoring and control of pine wilt disease, should M. sutor be proven to be a vector of the nematode.     

THE EVOLUTION OF LOCOMOTOR RHYTHMICITY IN TETRAPODS

Differences in rhythmicity (relative variance in cycle period) among mammal, fish, and lizard feeding systems have been hypothesized to be associated with differences in their sensorimotor control systems. We tested this hypothesis by examining whether the locomotion of tachymetabolic tetrapods (birds and mammals) is more rhythmic than that of bradymetabolic tetrapods (lizards, alligators, turtles, salamanders). Species averages of intraindividual coefficients of variation in cycle period were compared while controlling for gait and substrate. Variance in locomotor cycle periods is significantly lower in tachymetabolic than in bradymetabolic animals for datasets that include treadmill locomotion, non‐treadmill locomotion, or both. When phylogenetic relationships are taken into account the pooled analyses remain significant, whereas the non‐treadmill and the treadmill analyses become nonsignificant. The co‐occurrence of relatively high rhythmicity in both feeding and locomotor systems of tachymetabolic tetrapods suggests that the anatomical substrate of rhythmicity is in the motor control system, not in the musculoskeletal components.