The effect of grazing on winter survival of midday gerbil (Meriones meridianus) of different genders

The objective of this study was to investigate the effects of grazing on midday gerbil (Meriones meridianus) population characteristics and survival of animals of different genders. The experiment used a randomized complete block design and was conducted in Alxa Left Banner, Inner Mongolia, China, in 2002 (The agricultural reclamation plots set up in 1994). From April 2006 to October 2010, midday gerbils were live‐trapped in 3 light grazing plots, 3 overgrazed plots, and 3 grazing exclusion plots. The quantity of vegetation was investigated in the two different grazing intensity areas and grazing exclusion area to determine the relationship between gerbils and plant food availability. The results suggested that there was higher gerbil density, individual body mass, and daily body mass growth rate in the grazing exclusion sites than the other sites across the whole year. Females had higher survival in grazing exclusion areas than in other treatments, but the males’ survival showed the opposite pattern. Our results indicated that grazing negatively influenced the midday gerbil population by reducing food availability. Grazing influenced the survival rates of male midday gerbils positively, but had negative effects on females. The reason for gendered differences in survival rates of midday gerbils requires further investigation.     

Acid lactic lactobacilli as a biotechnological toll to improve food quality and human health

The genus Lactobacillus has been widely used in food industry as starter or adjunct culture due to its probiotic features. Its biotechnological features improve the spectrum of uses of lactobacilli, which can affect its applicability directly. In this sense, this literature review gathers information and discusses the biotechnological potential of technological/probiotic lactobacilli aiming to improve food quality and human health. The primary and secondary metabolism generates specific substances, such as organic acids, carbon dioxide, hydrogen peroxide, diacetyl, fatty acids, and bacteriocins, which are determinant due to their probiotic potential, antimicrobial activity, and the development of new food flavors. In order to become industrially and commercially attractive, it is necessary develop a large-scale process with lower production costs.     

西双版纳入侵长足捷蚁与土著黄猄蚁的种间竞争

【目的】入侵物种能够通过竞争影响本地物种的种群,从而影响入侵地的生物多样性。长足光捷蚁Anoplolepis gracilipes是全球最具破坏力的入侵蚂蚁之一。本研究旨在明确西双版纳地区入侵长足捷蚁与土著优势种蚂蚁黄猄蚁Oecophylla smaragdina之间的竞争关系。【方法】通过野外调查和室内控制试验相结合的方法,观察和对比分析长足捷蚁和黄猄蚁的体型大小,雾凉季和雨季的巢穴外觅食活动规律,觅食能力(搜寻食物的时间、在觅食时间内召集的最大工蚁数),打斗行为(不同打斗组合的攻击强度和死亡率)以及对饥渴的耐受性(无食物和水分供应时平均存活时间和存活率随时间的变化)。【结果】长足捷蚁工蚁体长(3.66±0.06 mm)显著小于黄猄蚁工蚁(8.27±0.16 mm)。在雾凉季时,长足捷蚁具有比黄猄蚁更长的觅食活动时间;而在雨季时,两种蚂蚁均在下午温度较高时段觅食活动的个体数量减少。苹果、蜂蜜和火腿肠3种食物作为诱饵时,长足捷蚁具有更快搜寻食物的能力,4~8 min便能找寻到食物,而黄猄蚁需要8~21 min才能找寻到食物,此外在寻找到食物后,长足捷蚁也有更快召集同伴的能力。在人工控制试验中,1头长足捷蚁和1头黄猄蚁同时存在时主要以不攻击和低强度攻击为主,而当两种蚂蚁中的任意其中一种的个体数量增加到5头时,攻击强度会显著增加,两种蚂蚁均存在种间协作行为。在饥渴状态下,两种蚂蚁工蚁的平均存活时间差异不显著,但长足捷蚁最长存活120 h,黄猄蚁最长存活96 h。【结论】在西双版纳地区,长足捷蚁相较于土著黄猄蚁具有更强的觅食的能力,雾凉季觅食活动时间更长,暗示长足捷蚁可能具有较强的温度适应能力。有必要加强对这一入侵蚂蚁的研究,并密切关注其种群在该地区的发展。     

弗里熊蜂蜜罐中糖液成分分析

【目的】熊蜂是众多植物的重要传粉昆虫,以采集并贮藏花蜜和花粉为主要食物。本研究旨在探究熊蜂的营养需求及明确其对采集的食物是否存在酿制过程。【方法】利用白砂糖溶液(糖浓度50%)饲喂弗里熊蜂Bombus friseanus蜂群,收集并检测其贮藏在蜜罐中1~7 d的糖液,作为处理组样品;同时将上述白砂糖溶液置于灭菌离心管中,排除熊蜂取食,作为对照组样品,测定贮藏期间处理组和对照组糖液的pH值、糖浓度、糖组分及α-淀粉酶和转化酶活性。【结果】弗里熊蜂B. friseanus贮藏在蜜中1~7d的糖液pH值平均为3.74±0.13,显著低于对照组(6.55±0.15);糖浓度与贮藏时间显著正相关,贮藏6d后糖浓度显著高于贮藏1~3 d时的;糖液组分更加丰富,除蔗糖外利用HPLC还检出果糖、葡萄糖、麦芽糖和海藻糖,贮藏4~5 d的糖液中己糖含量极显著高于贮藏1~3 d和6~7 d时的,己糖和麦芽糖含量分别与蔗糖含量极显著负相关,总糖中果糖和麦芽糖含量与贮藏时间极显著负相关,葡萄糖、蔗糖和海藻糖的含量分别与贮藏时间极显著正相关。贮藏6 d的糖液中α-淀粉酶活性显著高于其他时间,其他贮藏时间样品间α-淀粉酶活性差异不显著,而所有样本的转化酶活性在21.17~38.05 U/g FW之间,随贮藏时间的延长差异不显著。【结论】弗里熊蜂B. friseanus采集人工饲喂的糖溶液贮藏在蜜罐中,经其加工后发生了物理和生物化学变化,揭示熊蜂存在酿蜜能力。本研究的结果为熊蜂生物学及繁育研究提供了参考。     

Parental care in the Small Tree Finch Camarhynchus parvulus in relation to parasitism and environmental factors

The parental food compensation hypothesis suggests that parents may compensate for the negative effects of parasites on chicks by increased food provisioning. However, this ability differs widely among host species and may also depend on ecological factors such as adverse weather conditions and habitat quality. Although weed management can improve habitat quality, management measures can bring about a temporary decrease in food availability and thus may reduce parents’ ability to provide their nestlings with enough energy. In our study we investigated the interaction of parasitism and weed management, and the influence of climate on feeding rates in a Darwin’s tree finch species, which is negatively impacted by two invasive species. The larvae of the invasive parasitic fly Philornis downsi ingest the blood and body tissues of tree finch nestlings, and the invasive Blackberry Rubus niveus affects one of the main habitats of Darwin’s tree finches. We compared parental food provisioning of the Small Tree Finch Camarhynchus parvulus in parasitized and parasite‐free nests in three different areas, which differed in invasive weed management (no management, short‐term and long‐term management). In a parasite reduction experiment, we investigated whether the Small Tree Finch increases food provisioning rates to nestlings when parasitized and whether this ability depends on weed management conditions and precipitation. Our results provide no evidence that Small Tree Finches can compensate with additional food provisioning when parasitized with P. downsi. However, we found an increase in male effort in the short‐term management area, which might indicate that males compensate for lower food quality with increased provisioning effort. Furthermore, parental food provisioning was lower during rainfall, which provides an explanation for the negative influence of rain on breeding success found in earlier studies. Like other Darwin’s finches, the Small Tree Finch seems to lack the ability to compensate for the negative effects of P. downsi parasitism, which is one explanation for why this invasive parasite has such a devastating effect on this host species.     

Small invertebrate consumers produce consistent size spectra across reef habitats and climatic zones

Changes in invertebrate body size-distributions that follow loss of habitat-forming species can potentially affect a range of ecological processes, including predation and competition. In the marine environment, small crustaceans and other mobile invertebrates (‘epifauna') represent a basal component in reef food webs, with a pivotal secondary production role that is strongly influenced by their body size-distribution. Ongoing degradation of reef habitats that affect invertebrate size-distributions, particularly transformation of coral and kelp habitat to algal turf, may thus fundamentally affect secondary production. Here we explored variation in size spectra of shallow epifaunal assemblages (i.e. the slope and intercept of the linear relationship between log abundance and body size at the assemblage level) across 21 reef microhabitats distributed along an extensive eastern Australian climatic gradient from the tropical northern Great Barrier Reef to cool temperate Tasmania. When aggregated across microhabitats at the site scale, invertebrate body size spectra (0.125–8 mm range) were consistently log-linear (R² ranging 0.87–0.98). Size spectra differed between, but not within, major groups of microhabitats, and exhibited little variability between tropical and temperate biomes. Nevertheless, size spectra showed significant tropical/temperate differences in slopes for epifauna sampled on macroalgal habitats, and in elevation for soft coral and sponge habitats. Our results reveal epifaunal size spectra to be a highly predictable macro-ecological feature. Given that variation in epifaunal size spectra among groups of microhabitats was greater than variation between tropical and temperate biomes, we postulate that ocean warming will not greatly alter epifaunal size spectra directly. However, transformation of tropical coral and temperate macroalgal habitats to algal turfs due to warming will alter reef food web dynamics through redistribution of the size of prey available to fishes.     

Identifying conversion efficiency as a key mechanism underlying food webs adaptive evolution: a step forward,or backward?

Body size or mass is one of the main factors underlying food webs structure. A large number of evolutionary models have shown that indeed, the adaptive evolution of body size (or mass) can give rise to hierarchically organised trophic levels with complex between and within trophic interactions. However, these models generally make strong arbitrary assumptions on how traits evolve, casting doubts on their robustness. In particular, biomass conversion efficiency is always considered independent of the predator and prey size, which contradicts with the literature. In this paper, we propose a general model encompassing most previous models which allows to show that relaxing arbitrary assumptions gives rise to unrealistic food webs. We then show that considering biomass conversion efficiency dependent on species size is certainly key for food webs adaptive evolution because realistic food webs can evolve, making obsolete the need of arbitrary constraints on traits' evolution. We finally conclude that, on the one hand, ecologists should pay attention to how biomass flows into food webs in models. On the other hand, we question more generally the robustness of evolutionary models for the study of food webs.     

海蜇-对虾-蛤仔综合养殖池塘的食物网

为了研究海蜇-对虾(中国明对虾、斑节对虾)-菲律宾蛤仔海水综合养殖池塘养殖生物的食性、营养级和池塘食物网结构,在2017年5—9月的养殖周期内,采集并检测池塘内各种饵料和4种养殖生物的碳、氮稳定同位素比值(δ¹³C、δ¹⁵N),并运用IsoSource线性混合模型分析了海蜇、中国明对虾、斑节对虾和菲律宾蛤仔的食物来源。结果表明: 海蜇的主要食物来源为浮游动物;中国明对虾和斑节对虾的主要食物来源为投喂的鯷鱼;菲律宾蛤仔的主要食物来源为浮游植物、底栖硅藻和对虾粪便。综合养殖池塘中菲律宾蛤仔的营养级范围为2.64～2.95,平均值为2.84;海蜇的营养级范围为2.78～3.27,平均值为3.06;斑节对虾的营养级范围为3.03～3.54,平均值为3.25;中国明对虾的营养级范围为3.76～4.40,平均值为3.95。在综合养殖池塘中,菲律宾蛤仔为初级消费者,海蜇为次级消费者,中国明对虾和斑节对虾为捕食者;菲律宾蛤仔在滤食两种对虾粪便的同时一定程度上改善了养殖池塘的水质。     

东太平洋公海茎柔鱼饵料中鱼类和头足类组成初步分析

茎柔鱼(Dosidicus gigas)广泛分布于东太平洋海域,在海洋生态系统中扮演着重要角色。本研究根据2019年6—12月我国鱿钓生产船在东太平洋公海采集的62尾茎柔鱼样本,对其胃含物残留的4131个耳石和75个角质颚样本进行鉴定分析。结果表明: 茎柔鱼主要摄食鱼类10种、头足类4种。从摄食饵料的出现频率和数量百分比来看,主要摄食的鱼类饵料为荧串光鱼、朗明灯鱼和墨西哥尾灯鱼,荧串光鱼在不同胴长组的茎柔鱼胃内均有出现,是茎柔鱼最重要的饵料;摄食的头足类主要有茎柔鱼、鸢乌贼和爪乌贼。随着胴长的增大,茎柔鱼摄食的饵料种类不断增加,头足类和灯笼鱼饵料比例增加,且摄食的饵料尺寸增大,摄食营养结构发生改变,摄食营养水平随之提高。研究结果可为评估不同饵料生物在茎柔鱼食性转变过程中的食物贡献提供基础资料。