Water balance in Collembola and its relation to habitat selection: Water content,haemolymph osmotic pressure and transpiration during an instar

In the two collembolan species Orchesella cincta and Tomocerus minor the water content, haemolymph osmotic pressure and transpiration rate fluctuate with the feeding rhythm during each instar. The changes in water content, however, are due to changes in dry weight, because the absolute water weight stays constant during the instar.The intake of food is probably the cause of the increase in haemolymph osmotic pressure. Increase of osmotically active substances in the blood and/or blood volume reduction may be responsible for the rise in osmotic pressure. This change in osmotic pressure in turn may affect the responsiveness of the animals to water as well as their feeding behaviour.Changes in the epicuticle and in epidermal cell membranes may cause changes in the rate of transpiration. The high rate observed during ecdysis and during the mid-instar may explain the behaviour of the animals in varied water conditions.Dehydration during the instar causes an equivalent rise in osmotic pressure for both Tomocerus minor and Orchesella cincta. The water loss appears to involve the haemolymph. The physiological state of the animal does not influence the rise in osmotic pressure. There are no signs of any osmoregulation in the two species.     

Open ground individuals and population structure in Drosophila subobscura Collin

The distribution of Drosophila subobscura adults within, and their movement through, open ground habitats has been investigated, along with the status of such individuals within populations as a whole. Movement occurs between open ground and woodland, to some extent as a result of passive transport by air currents, but flies can remain in open ground for at least several days at a time. There are no detectable differences in either the reproductive age-structure or the body-size distributions of flies collected from woodland and open ground habitats, although a significantly higher proportion of females are found in open ground than in woodland. The large number of gravid females in open ground provide the potential for breeding there, but circumstantial evidence suggests that this is unlikely to occur. Rather, their presence appears to reflect the foraging strategy adopted by females in response to their high nutritional requirements. The flux of flies through open ground between woodlands suggests that previous estimates of the genetically-important parameter, effective population size, have been seriously underestimated for natural D. subobscura populations.     

Detection of the associated state of membrane proteins by polyacrylamide gradient gel electrophoresis with non-denaturing detergents Application to band 3 protein from erythrocyte membranes

Polyacrylamide gradient gel electrophoresis was carried out in micellar solutions of various detergents which differ in degree of potency to denature proteins. From the application of this method to band 3 protein from erythrocyte membranes, it was suggested that the procedure was useful in studying the molecular state of membrane proteins.The electrophoretic behaviors of human and bovine band 3 protein did not show any species specificity in either a denature state and a state resembling the native state. As well as in nonionic detergent solutions, the dimeric and tetrameric structures of bovine band 3 protein were preserved in sodium deoxycholate solution, in which protein complexes maintained in nonionic detergent solutions are frequently dissociated. Even in dodecyltrimethylammonium bromide solution, which is a denaturant for water-soluble proteins, part of the band 3 protein was still present as the oligomer. The results suggest that the oligomeric form of band 3 protein is the stable structure and that the dimer and tetramer possibly coexist in membranes.     

Population ecology of Ephydra cinerea Jones (Diptera: Ephydridae), the only benthic metazoan of the Great Salt Lake,U.S.A.

The population of Ephydra cinerea was studied during three summers when dissolved solids levels were about 130 g/l. All life stages are present year-round, but there is apparently some coordination of the initial pulse of adult emergence in June. There are probably 1–2 generations per year.Eggs are deposited on the water surface; inputs to three locations were similar. Larvae successfully avoid the large benthic area covered by an anaerobic monimolimnion. They tend to immigrate from substrates where they grow relatively poorly, and to remain on substrates where they grow better. Consequently, larval densities are more than ten times higher on reef and shallow water mud substrates than on sand. This marked spatial specialization in the absence of substrate-specific predators or competitors illustrates the power of habitat quality by itself in determining spatial patterns of abundance in a lake.Experiments showed larval growth on the reef was inversely related to density, and the lake as a whole produced relatively larger flies in a year when larval and pupal densities were relatively low. Yearly production by E. cinerea is roughly 50 g/m², about 88% of which comes from reefs and shallow water mud areas covering only 18% of the bottom area.Past studies indicate that blue-green algae dominate the lake's benthic flora when salt concentrations are high (due to low lake levels), and diatoms take over when salt concentrations are low. Fly abundance appears to be inversely related to salinity.The lake's present high planktonic primary production is equal to that of eutrophic freshwater lakes, yet it has water clarity more characteristic of an oligotrophic lake. The high water clarity (which makes possible the high benthic production) probably depends on the absence of phytoplankters that can both tolerate the high salinity and avoid being eaten by Artemia salina. Continued dilution of the lake will probably upset this situation and result in reorganization of the lake's energy flow pattern.     

Microautoradiographic studies on host-parasite interactions II. The exchange of 3H-lysine between Uromyces phaseoli and Phaseolus vulgaris

A new species of anaerobic bacterium that degrades the even-numbered carbon fatty acids, butyrate, caproate and caprylate, to acetate and H₂ and the odd-numbered carbon fatty acids, valerate and heptanoate, to acetate, propionate and H₂ was obtained in coculture with either an H₂-utilizing methanogen or H₂-utilizing desulfovibrio. The organism could be grown only in syntrophic association with the H₂-utilizer and no other energy sources or combination of electron donor and acceptors were utilized. It was a Gram-negative helical rod with 2 to 8 flagella, about 20 nm in diameter, inserted in a linear fashion about 130 nm or more apart along the concave side of the cell. It grew with a generation time of 84 h in co-culture with Methanospirillum hungatii and was present in numbers of at least 4.5×10^-6 per g of anaerobic digestor sludge.     

Between‐year variations in Little Bustard Tetrax tetrax population densities are influenced by agricultural intensification and rainfall

The Little Bustard is suffering a widespread population decline mainly due to agricultural intensification. This study evaluates the effects of intensification level, habitat availability and rainfall on the population dynamics of this species. The population density of males was monitored for 7 years (2002–2008) at 184 points located within three sites with contrasting levels of agricultural intensification in southern Portugal. Densities decreased along the intensification gradient from 8.2 to 2.3 males / km². Overall, there was an approximately 50% population decline during the period 2002–2008, driven by a decline observed in one of the less intensive sites, whereas in the other two sites densities remained fairly constant. Yearly variations in male densities were influenced by intensification level, amount of grassland habitat and rainfall patterns. Thus, agricultural intensification is having a negative effect on population densities of this threatened species, particularly through the loss of grasslands (fallow fields and pastures) suitable for displaying males. The results also suggest a positive impact of rainfall on male densities, although this is more likely in grasslands within less intensive agricultural regions of poorer soil quality, where higher breeding male densities occur. Grassland habitat quality, driven by both climate and human management, probably plays a major role in the population dynamics of this threatened steppe bird in its strongholds.     

Field test of an automated radio‐telemetry system: tracking local space use of aerial insectivores

Documenting local space use of birds that move rapidly, but are too small to carry GPS tags, such as swallows and swifts, can be challenging. For these species, tracking methods such as manual radio‐telemetry and visual observation are either inadequate or labor‐ and time‐intensive. Another option is use of an automated telemetry system, but equipment for such systems can be costly when many receivers are used. Our objective, therefore, was to determine if an automated radio‐telemetry system, consisting of just two receivers, could provide an alternative to manual tracking for gathering data on local space use of six individuals of three species of aerial insectivores, including one Cliff Swallow (Petrochelidon pyrrhonota), one Eastern Phoebe (Sayornis phoebe), and four Barn Swallows (Hirundo rustica). We established automated radio‐telemetry systems at three sites near the city of Peterborough in eastern Ontario, Canada, from May to August 2015. We evaluated the location error of our two‐receiver system using data from moving and stationary test transmitters at known locations, and used telemetry data from the aerial insectivores as a test of the system's ability to track rapidly moving birds under field conditions. Median location error was ~250 m for automated telemetry test locations after filtering. More than 90% of estimated locations had large location errors and were removed from analysis, including all locations > 1 km from receiver stations. Our automated telemetry receivers recorded 17,634 detections of the six radio‐tagged birds. However, filtering removed an average of 89% of bird location estimates, leaving only the Cliff Swallow with enough locations for analysis of space use. Our results demonstrate that a minimal automated radio‐telemetry system can be used to assess local space use by small, highly mobile birds, but the resolution of the data collected using only two receiver stations was coarse and had a limited range. To improve both location accuracy and increase the percentage of usable location estimates collected, we suggest that, in future studies, investigators use receivers that simultaneously record signals detected by all antennas, and use of a minimum of three receiver stations with more antennas at each station.