<Emphasis Type="Italic">Fopius arisanus</Emphasis> oviposition in four <Emphasis Type="Italic">Anastrepha</Emphasis> fruit fly species of economic importance in Mexico

We studied the oviposition performance of Fopius arisanus (Sonan) (Hymenoptera: Braconidae) attacking eggs of four fruit flies of the genus Anastrepha Schiner (Diptera: Tephritidae) under laboratory conditions. The complete process of oviposition on an individual egg of Anastrepha ludens (Loew) lasts in average 85.4 ± 2.9 s, including a tremor (25.8 ± 1.03 s) observed in the middle of this process related to the egg’s descent. The average parasitism of A. ludens egg was 60.9 ± 7.5%, with only 1.2% of superparasitized eggs. During individual acts of oviposition, we noted that F. arisanus possesses a highly flexible ovipositor that curves easily as it searches for additional suitable eggs, which may be of particular benefit when a female finds large clutches of eggs. The individual oviposition of F. arisanus in host fruits attacked by Anastrepha spp. varies with the egg clutch size of each fruit fly species: A. serpentina laid the biggest egg clutches (21.3 ± 1.4), followed by A. ludens (14.2 ± 0.9), and A. striata (1.0 ± 0.0) (=A. obliqua). The time spent by F. arisanus in individual ovipositions was parallel to these findings, reinforcing the idea that F. arisanus attacks several eggs in each individual insertion of its ovipositor. Neither formal oviposition acts, nor adult emergences of F. arisanus were registered in A. obliqua. We discuss the potential of F. arisanus as natural enemy of fruit flies of the genus Anastrepha, and explore the eventual developing of its mass rearing. Handling Editor: Torsten Meiners.     

Predicting the unexpected: using a qualitative model of a New Zealand dryland ecosystem to anticipate pest management outcomes

Pest management is expensive and there is often uncertainty about the benefits for the resources being protected. There can also be unintended consequences for other parts of the ecosystem, especially in complex food webs. In making decisions managers generally have to rely on qualitative information collected in a piecemeal fashion. A method to assist decision making is a qualitative modelling approach using fuzzy cognitive maps, a directed graphical model related to neural networks that can take account of interactions between pests and conservation assets in complex food webs. Using all available information on relationships between native and exotic resources and consumers, we generated hypotheses about potential consequences of single‐species and multi‐species pest control on the long‐term equilibrium abundances of other biotic components of an ecosystem. We applied the model to a dryland ecosystem in New Zealand because we had good information on its trophic structure, but the information on the strength of species interactions was imprecise. Our model suggested that pest control is unlikely to significantly boost native invertebrates and lizards in this ecosystem, suggesting that other forms of management may be required for these groups. Most of the pest control regimes tested resulted in greater abundances of at least one other pest species, which could potentially lead to other management problems. Some of the predictions were unexpected, such as more birds resulting from possum and mouse control. We also modelled the effects of an increase in invasive rabbits, which led to unexpected declines of stoats, weasels, mice and possums. These unexpected outcomes resulted from complex indirect pathways in the food web. Fuzzy cognitive maps allow rapid construction of prototype models of complex food webs using a wide range of data and expert opinion. Their utility lies in providing direction for future monitoring efforts and generating hypotheses that can be tested with field experiments.     

Control of Cell Volume in Skeletal Muscle

Regulation of cell volume is a fundamental property of all animal cells and is of particular importance in skeletal muscle where exercise is associated with a wide range of cellular changes that would be expected to influence cell volume. These complex electrical, metabolic and osmotic changes, however, make rigorous study of the consequences of individual factors on muscle volume difficult despite their likely importance during exercise. Recent charge-difference modelling of cell volume distinguishes three major aspects to processes underlying cell volume control: (i) determination by intracellular impermeant solute; (ii) maintenance by metabolically dependent processes directly balancing passive solute and water fluxes that would otherwise cause cell swelling under the influence of intracellular membrane-impermeant solutes; and (iii) volume regulation often involving reversible short-term transmembrane solute transport processes correcting cell volumes towards their normal baselines in response to imposed discrete perturbations. This review covers, in turn, the main predictions from such quantitative analysis and the experimental consequences of comparable alterations in extracellular pH, lactate concentration, membrane potential and extracellular tonicity. The effects of such alterations in the extracellular environment in resting amphibian muscles are then used to reproduce the intracellular changes that occur in each case in exercising muscle. The relative contributions of these various factors to the control of cell volume in resting and exercising skeletal muscle are thus described.     

野生罂粟COR、BBE基因片段融合及其RNAi载体构建

可待因酮还原酶(COR)与小檗碱桥酶(BBE)是吗啡合成代谢途径的关键酶,其活性大小直接影响着吗啡合成途径中生物碱的代谢合成。采用RT-PCR从罂粟幼叶克隆出COR和BBE基因全序列,同源性比较结果显示,它们与GenBank上已报道的COR和BBE基因高度同源。利用blast及分子生物学软件DNAStar对COR和BBE基因的cDNA序列同源性进行分析比较,分别从各基因中筛选和克隆了一段同源性极低、约400～500 bp的片段;并应用重叠PCR法将其拼接成744 bp的融合基因BC,以中间载体pHANNIBAL和植物表达载体pART27为基础,构建了以CaMV 35S启动子驱动的含有“正向BC融合片段- pdk内含子-反向BC融合片段”的ihRNAi植物表达载体,通过转化野生罂粟,初步研究了以COR和BBE基因为靶标的RNAi对内源吗啡合成的抑制效果,为进一步培育低吗啡高蒂巴因的罂粟种质提供了依据。     

Mesopredators constrain a top predator: competitive release of ravens after culling crows

Although predator control programmes rarely consider complex competitive interactions among predators, it is becoming clear that removal of larger ‘superior’ competitors often releases the ‘inferior’ ones and can precipitate trophic cascades. In contrast, our study indicates that culling hooded crows Corvus cornix appears to release a larger competitor, the common raven Corvus corax. Ravens ranged more widely, and the predation of artificial nests was significantly faster (although total predation was similar), after the removal of crows. Our study provides evidence of a novel reversal of competitive release where a larger species was freed from constraints imposed on its distribution and behaviour by a smaller species, and emphasizes the importance of considering community and ecosystem effects of predator manipulations when undertaken for conservation or game management.     

Model‐free feedback design for a mixed cancer therapy

In this article, a model‐free feedback control design is proposed for the drug administration in mixed cancer therapy. This strategy is very attractive because of the important issue of parameter uncertainties unavoidable when dealing with biological models. The proposed feedback scheme use past measurements to update an on‐line simplified model. The control design is then based on model predictive control in which a suitable switching is performed between two different cost functions. The effectiveness of the proposed model‐free control strategy is validated using a recently developed model (unknown to the controller) governing the cancer growth on a cells population level under combined immune and chemotherapy and using real human data. © 2009 American Institute of Chemical Engineers Biotechnol. Prog., 2009     

Phylogeography of Southern Water Vole (Arvicola sapidus): evidence for refugia within the Iberian glacial refugium?

The role of Southern European peninsulas as glacial refugia for temperate species has been widely established, but phylogeographic patterns within refugia are being only recently addressed. Here we describe the phylogeographic patterns for Southern water vole ( Arvicola sapidus ) in its whole distribution across Iberia and France. Control region and cytochrome b sequences were obtained for 228 samples from 130 localities across Iberia and France. Eighty-five haplotypes were found in total yielding a high overall mitochondrial diversity (π = 0.027; H  = 0.974). Phylogeographic structure was relatively shallow (3.1% average intraspecific divergence) with few supported clades and 95% and 90% maximum parsimony unconnected networks, but significant, as reflected in increased pairwise nucleotide divergences with distance ( r  = 0.197, P  = 0.03) and significant autocorrelation up to ∼500 km. Spatial analysis of molecular variance analysis detected seven geographical groups explaining 43.73% of the total mitochondrial variation. We detected demographic expansions in three of these groups. A recent colonization of France from Iberia was suggested and estimated around 62 000 years bp by an isolation-with-migration model. Our results suggest the contribution of episodes of isolation in glacial subrefugia in Iberia, but seem to exclude a long-term isolation over successive glacial cycles. Phylogeographic divergence was probably tempered by relatively large population sizes and rapid and extensive mixing among subrefugia during interglacials, that might have eroded the phylogeographic structure accumulated at glacial peaks. Phenotypic differences in A. sapidus do not delineate historically isolated intraspecific divisions and do not warrant subspecific delimitations. Our results do support the existence of subrefugia within Iberia and their role in promoting intraspecific divergences.     

江西井冈山地区灰胸竹鸡的遗传多样性研究

灰胸竹鸡Bambusicola thoracica是我国特有鸟类.本文采用聚合链式反应和直接测序的方法测定井冈山地区灰胸竹鸡3个种群线粒体DNA(mtDNA)控制区1142 bp的序列,分析其序列变异和种群遗传多样性.30个样本共发现16个变异位点和10种单倍型,其中hapl广泛分布,占所分析样本的23.33%,是其祖先单倍型.3个种群的平均单倍型多样性和核苷酸多样性分别为0.815和0.00243.青原区种群与其它两个种群遗传分化显著,基因交流受限制.受隔离影响,青原区种群遗传多样性最低.在系统发生树上,10种单倍型形成两支,井冈山种群和永新县种群聚在一起,与其地理位置相一致.     

Seasonal stability and spatial variability of parasites in Brazilian sandperch Pinguipes brasilianus from the Northern Argentine Sea: evidence for stock discrimination

The use of parasites as biological tags allowed the identification of two stocks of Brazilian sandperch Pinguipes brasilianus , in the Bonaerense region of the Argentine Sea. A total of 156 adult specimens of P. brasilianus were examined for parasites. Temporal variability in parasite burdens was assessed from fish caught seasonally in coastal waters of two zones, south Bonaerense (during autumn and winter) and north Bonaerense (during summer). Additional data from a previous study, comprising P. brasilianus caught during spring in these two zones, as well as in two populations from north Patagonian gulfs were used for comparative analyses of spatial variability. A total of 14 193 metazoan parasites belonging to 19 species were found. Comparisons of seasonal variability in pooled samples and within each locality showed that locality effects exceeded seasonal ones, suggesting the possible existence of two discrete stocks in the Bonaerense region. These findings were strongly supported by discriminant analyses and comparisons of prevalence and abundance between zones, after pooling seasonal samples within each zone. Further evidence of the discreteness of both stocks was assessed by inclusion of samples from Patagonian gulfs in the discriminant analysis, confirming that their differences were at a inter-population level. The parasite species that contributed most to the separation of the samples were generally those identified as biological markers in previous studies. Differing oceanographic conditions are discussed as potential causes of inter-population variation of parasite burdens.     

在线推定和控制葡萄糖浓度改善谷氨酸发酵性能

谷氨酸发酵过程一般需要定时、人工分批式地添加葡萄糖。该流加操作方式会引起发酵罐内葡萄糖浓度的剧烈波动, 不利于高效、稳定的谷氨酸生产。谷氨酸发酵具有显著的非增殖耦联特征, 产酸期葡萄糖耗量与氨水耗量存在非常明显的关联性。通过在线计量氨水耗量推定糖耗以及葡萄糖浓度, 可比较准确地将谷氨酸发酵产酸期的糖浓度控制在预先设定的水平。当糖浓度控制在5 g/L~10 g/L的低水平时, 最终谷氨酸浓度可以达到80 g/L的较高水平, 高糖浓度下的渗透压效应有望得到缓解, 有利于发酵生产的稳定。