Libri Novi

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Scale of population synchrony confirms macroecological estimates of minimum viable range size

Global ecosystems are facing a deepening biodiversity crisis, necessitating robust approaches to quantifying species extinction risk. The lower limit of the macroecological relationship between species range and body size has long been hypothesized as an estimate of the relationship between the minimum viable range size (MVRS) needed for species persistence and the organismal traits that affect space and resource requirements. Here, we perform the first explicit test of this assumption by confronting the MVRS predicted by the range-body size relationship with an independent estimate based on the scale of synchrony in abundance among spatially separated populations of riverine fish. We provide clear evidence of a positive relationship between the scale of synchrony and species body size, and strong support for the MVRS set by the lower limit of the range-body size macroecological relationship. This MVRS may help prioritize first evaluations for unassessed or data-deficient taxa in global conservation assessments.     

AVIAN BROOD PARASITISM AND ECTOPARASITE RICHNESS–SCALE‐DEPENDENT DIVERSITY INTERACTIONS IN A THREE‐LEVEL HOST–PARASITE SYSTEM

Brood parasitic birds, their foster species and their ectoparasites form a complex coevolving system composed of three hierarchical levels. However, effects of hosts’ brood parasitic life‐style on the evolution of their louse (Phthiraptera: Amblycera, Ischnocera) lineages have never been tested. We present two phylogenetic analyses of ectoparasite richness of brood parasitic clades. Our hypothesis was that brood parasitic life‐style affects louse richness negatively across all avian clades due to the lack of vertical transmission routes. Then, narrowing our scope to brood parasitic cuckoos, we explored macroevolutionary factors responsible for the variability of their louse richness. Our results show that taxonomic richness of lice is lower on brood parasitic clades than on their nonparasitic sister clades. However, we found a positive covariation between the richness of cuckoos’ Ischnoceran lice and the number of their foster species, possibly due to the complex and dynamic subpopulation structure of cuckoo species that utilize several host species. We documented diversity interactions across a three‐level host parasite system and we found evidence that brood parasitism has opposing effects on louse richness at two slightly differing macroevolutionary scales, namely the species richness and the genera richness.     

Libri novi

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Randomized clinical study on intratumoral BCG-cell wall preparation (CWP) therapy in patients with squamous cell carcinoma in the head and neck region

Summary Based on animal experiments a clinical study with BCG cell wall preparation (CWP) was developed. Patients with head and neck carcinomas stage T_1/2N_0–2M₀ were randomized. One group received surgical treatment only and a second group received preoperative intralesional BCG-CWP. So far 12 patients have been included in each group. After 3 years the CCR (complete cancer remission) in the surgery only group was 39% and that in the preoperative BCG-CWP group, 69% (P=11%). The cumulative proportion of surviving patients was 50% in the surgery only and 73% in the BCG-CWP group (P=21%). BCG-CWP injection was followed by an increase in body temperature and a decrease in peripheral blood lymphocytes. No changes in liver, kidney, or other organ function could be observed after BCG-CWP therapy. Complications and severe secondary effects such as have been described for living BCG were not observed, and significant immunological changes have not been detected so far.     

NOTES ON THE BIOLOGY AND ETHOLOGY OF THE NATAL ROBIN COSSYPHA NATALENSIS

A preference for bushy evergreen undergrowth determines both the local and the general distribution of Cossypha natalensis. The lack of such undergrowth makes equatorial rain-forests unsuitable. Tropical and subtropical evergreen forests provide excellent conditions from this point of view, and they are thus the main habitat type from which C. natalensis has secondarily extended into tropical and subtropical deciduous forests with evergreen undergrowth.
Adult birds remain in or close to their territories throughout the year. First-year birds undertake longer movements during the winter. Breeding territories are relatively small, from 2,500 up to (exceptionally) 10,000 square yards (2,100-8,400 sq. m).
Breeding begins in October. Both sexes build the nest, but only the female incubates. In southern Africa there is one brood a year, and the care of the offspring is protracted. The juvenile moult begins in the third and ends in the sixth month; adults have only one (post-breeding) moult a year.
The begging behaviour of the young is somewhat different from that of most other turdine birds, and is considered to be more primitive. The ontogeny of the adult displays is described as observed in young birds kept in captivity.
The development of vocal behaviour is described. Special attention is given to the different functional forms of the song, and to two of its special features, imitation and a tonal quality termed vox humana.     

Chromosome polymorphism in Avena ventricosa

The same karyotype which was described previously in A. ventricosa plants from Oran, Algeria was found in plants from Cyprus and in most of the plants from the Apsheron Peninsula, U.S.S.R. This karyotype, which consists of subterminal chromosomes, was designated C _v ¹ . In the karyotype of about one-third of the Apsheron plants a single pair of submedian chromosomes replaced a pair of long subterminals. This karyotype was designated C _v ² . The chromosomes formed 7^II at meiosis in both C _v ¹ C _v ¹ and C _v ¹ C _v ² hybrids regardless of geographic origin. A heteromorphic bivalent was apparent in PMCs in the C _v ¹ C _v ² hybrids. A pericentric inversion was postulated as the origin of the submedian pair, the C _v ² C _v ² karyotype being the inversion homozygote. The absence of duplication-deficiency gametes was inferred from the good fertility of the heterozygote. Members of the heteromorphic pair were transmitted in equal proportion and the segregates C _v ¹ C _v ¹ , C _v ¹ C _v ² and C _v ² C _v ² were equally fertile; thus the inversion did not handicap reproduction. The small contemporary colonies of A. ventricosa, with peripheral locations and vast distances between them, because of the full homology and interfertility, are considered remnants of a formerly large central population.Contribution No 282 from the Research Station, Central Experimental Farm, Ottawa, Ontario.This paper is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Barna Györffy, whose untimely death on August 5, 1970 ended a distinguished career that was an example of integrity and scholarship to a troubled generation of Hungarian geneticists.