Plant phylogeny drives arboreal caterpillar assemblages across the Holarctic

1. Assemblages of insect herbivores are structured by plant traits such as nutrient content, secondary metabolites, physical traits, and phenology. Many of these traits are phylogenetically conserved, implying a decrease in trait similarity with increasing phylogenetic distance of the host plant taxa. Thus, a metric of phylogenetic distances and relationships can be considered a proxy for phylogenetically conserved plant traits and used to predict variation in herbivorous insect assemblages among co‐occurring plant species.
2. Using a Holarctic dataset of exposed‐feeding and shelter‐building caterpillars, we aimed at showing how phylogenetic relationships among host plants explain compositional changes and characteristics of herbivore assemblages.
3. Our plant–caterpillar network data derived from plot‐based samplings at three different continents included >28,000 individual caterpillar–plant interactions. We tested whether increasing phylogenetic distance of the host plants leads to a decrease in caterpillar assemblage overlap. We further investigated to what degree phylogenetic isolation of a host tree species within the local community explains abundance, density, richness, and mean specialization of its associated caterpillar assemblage.
4. The overlap of caterpillar assemblages decreased with increasing phylogenetic distance among the host tree species. Phylogenetic isolation of a host plant within the local plant community was correlated with lower richness and mean specialization of the associated caterpillar assemblages. Phylogenetic isolation had no effect on caterpillar abundance or density. The effects of plant phylogeny were consistent across exposed‐feeding and shelter‐building caterpillars.
5. Our study reveals that distance metrics obtained from host plant phylogeny are useful predictors to explain compositional turnover among hosts and host‐specific variations in richness and mean specialization of associated insect herbivore assemblages in temperate broadleaf forests. As phylogenetic information of plant communities is becoming increasingly available, further large‐scale studies are needed to investigate to what degree plant phylogeny structures herbivore assemblages in other biomes and ecosystems.

     

Skipper impoverishment on large West Mediterranean islands (Lepidoptera Hesperioidea): deterministic,historical and stochastic factors

Biogeographical analyses are applied to skipper (Hesperioidea) presence/absence data from the Western Mediterranean mainland and the three largest islands (Sardinia, Corsica and Sicily) in order to identify potential conservation issues. The analyses performed on species, both collectively and individually, indicate that regional species richness and occurrence in the Mediterranean zone are largely predicted by latitude and area but that islands have impoverished faunas. Several species, predicted to be present on these islands from logistic regression of their continental distributions, are actually absent. The number of species predicted to be present from logistic regression analyses for each island, closely matched the number of species predicted to occur in regional-focused multiple regression analysis. This suggests that missing species have been identified. When compared with species that occur in Sicily and Corsica, the missing species are shown to differ for ecological traits, mainly those linked to altitudinal tolerance. No ecological distinctions were disclosed for Sardinian skippers suggesting a mainly stochastic colonisation. These results, and those from an analogous study carried out on Papilionoidea, point to Hesperioidea having (i) overall more impoverished faunas on islands and (ii) being subject to stochastic or historical colonisation events more than Papilionoidea. Species not predicted to occur on islands based on their mainland distributions and ecological traits, are foci for conservation attention. However, as many species becoming extinct on the islands may be irreplaceable, all species, in particular the Sardinian ones, deserve to be conserved.     

Virtual brain endocast of Antifer (Mammalia: Cervidae), an extinct large cervid from South America

A diverse fossil record of Cervidae (Mammalia) has been documented in the South American Pleistocene, when these animals arrived during the Great American Biotic Interchange. Using computed tomography-scanning techniques, it is possible to access the endocranial morphology of extinct species. Here, we studied the brain endocast of the extinct late Pleistocene cervid Antifer ensenadensis from southern Brazil, one of the largest forms that lived on this continent, using comparative morphology, geometric morphometrics, and encephalization quotients. The analyzed endocasts demonstrate that A. ensenadensis had a gyrencephalic brain, showing a prominent longitudinal sinus (=sagittal superior sinus), which is also observed in the large South American cervid Blastocerus dichotomus. The encephalization quotient is within the variation of extant cervids, suggesting maintenance of the pattern of encephalization from at least the late Pleistocene. Geometric morphometric analysis suggested a clear and linear allometric trend between brain endocast size and shape, and highlights A. ensenadensis as an extreme form within the analyzed cervids regarding brain morphology.     

Respiratory response to chemical stimuli and exercise capacity under conditions of acute hypoxia in elite mountain climbers]

To investigate the factors that modulate exercise performance at extreme altitude, the role of the following variables was analyzed in 16 climbers: 1) ventilatory response to chemical stimuli (hypoxia and hypercapnia); and, 2) maximum exercise performance while breathing room air and during acute hypoxia (F1O2, 0.11). Seven climbers (elite climbers, AE) had previously ascended to 8,000 m or more above sea level, and 9 (A) had never achieved such extreme altitude. Then healthy sedentary subjects (C) of similar age (31.1 +/- 6.0 SD years) were used as control group. Elite climbers showed higher ventilatory responses to both transient hypoxia (-0.49 +/- 0.13 L x min-1 x %-1) (p less than 0.05) and progressive hypoxia (-0.47 +/- 0.13 L x min-1 x %-1) than C (-0.33 +/- 0.14 and -0.30 +/- 0.15 L x min-1 x %-1, respectively). By contrast, no differences were observed between the two groups of climbers. The ventilatory response to hypercapnia was higher in AE (3.04 +/- 1.03 L x min-1 mmHg-1) compared to A (1.85 +/- 0.73 L x min-1 mmHg-1) (p less than 0.05) but similar to that observed in C. Breathing 11% O2, maximum workload and oxyhemoglobin desaturation during maximum exercise were similar in both groups of climbers. Additionally, the ventilatory response to hypoxia did not correlate with maximum workload (F1O2, 0.11), maximal ventilation during exercise (F1O2, 0.11), nor with the altitude score. The present study supports previous reports that inform about the role of the ventilatory response to hypoxia in the exercise performance at high altitude.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)     

Fecal Microflora in Healthy Persons in a Preindustrial Region

Procedures for quantitating the fecal microflora of man were described. Special attention was given to criteria for characterizing the culturable aerobic, Micro-aerophilic, and anaerobic bacteria. Three groups of healthy persons were studied: wholly breast-fed infants (2 to 4 month-olds), weanlings (1 to 2 year-olds), and adults. In breast-fed children, bifidobacteria predominate and outnumber by one or several logs all other culturable bacteria. The fecal flora of wholly breast-fed infants is "simpler" and more numerous [10(11) to 10(12) per g (wet weight) of feces than that of the adult 10(2) to 10(11) per g]. In the adult, gram-negative anaerobic bacilli (bacteroides) outnumber all other groups by a factor of 1 log or more. Weanlings receiving an adult-type diet, but still breast-fed, showed a flora intermediate between that of the wholly breast-fed infant and that of the adult, but more similar to the latter. Anaerobes always constitute the predominant component of the culturable flora of children and adults and are always found in large numbers under conditions of health. The aerobes are significantly less numerous, and vary widely in their number and in the frequency with which they appear in feces.     

Order-disorder phenomena in myelinated nerve sheaths. II. The structure of myelin in native and swollen rat sciatic nerves and in the course of myelinogenesis

The algorithm described in the accompanying paper was applied to X-ray scattering experiments performed with rat sciatic nerves, either as a function of the age of the animal (4 to 30 days), or with adult nerves swollen in non-isotonic media. The results were all consistent with the model of disorder used in the theoretical treatment. The algorithm leads, in one step, from the data to the numerical values of the parameters, avoiding all intermediate manipulation. For each experiment a variety of parameters was determined: the average D and the variance sigma 2D of the repeat distance, the average number [N] of motifs per crystallite, the set [idiff(h/D)], which defines the diffuse scattering, the fraction alphaloose of myelin that does not belong to the compact sheaths, and the set [imotif (k/2D)], which suffices to define the continuous intensity curve of the motif imotif(s). Note the remarkable wealth of information, especially by contrast with conventional analyses which, as a rule, only yield the values of D and of the set [imotif(h/D)] (insufficient to determine the function imotif(s]. The function imotif(s) and the parameters D and sigma D (and thus the local structure of the myelin sheaths) were shown to be almost invariant in the course of myelinogenesis; what varies is mainly the total amount of myelin in the nerve and the number of membranes per sheath. Swelling agents have a dramatic influence on the X-ray scattering spectra, but in spite of the conspicuous variation of D, sigma D and [N] the structure of the motif is invariant. The structure of the motif was shown to be quite different in the native and in the swollen samples; the stacking disorder appears to involve mainly the cytoplasmic space in native myelin, the external space in swollen nerves. The very notion of electron density profile, when disorder is present, is discussed. Two criteria were proposed to select the "best" signs of the reflections: two sets came out at almost the same rank, one corresponding to Caspar & Kirschner's the other to Worthington & McIntosh's proposals, neither of which can be ruled out according to the criteria used in this work.     

Measurement of nutrient spiralling during a period of continuous surface flow in a Mediterranean temporary stream (Arroyo de La Montesina, Spain)

Uptake rate of calcium, potassium, nitrate-N and phosphorus were measured in a second order Mediterranean temporary stream, in February and March 1992. This study analyzed a period of continuous surface flow between two hydrologic disturbance events (flood and drought) of an annual hydrological cycle (1991–92).The lowest values of uptake length were recorded for nitrate-N in February 92 and calcium in March 92. Nitrate had the highest uptake rate in both release performances, and potassium showed the lowest uptake rate values. The increase of calcium and nitrate uptake rate between February 92 and March 92 suggested a higher ecosystem efficiency in nutrient retention with a higher temperature and light intensity and slower water velocity, discharge and water depth. These results obtained were similar to those reported in permanent streams, indicating that in periods of continuous surface flow (without extreme hydrologic disturbance), abiotic factors can influence nutrient retention in temporary streams.