Herein, we update the diagnosis and description of the genus Krantzolaspina Datta & Bhattacharjee and provide a list of the three valid species including new combinations and synonyms, as follows: 1) ...Krantzolaspina angustatus (Ishikawa, 1987) comb. nov. (= Indutolaelaps jiroftensis Hajizadeh et al., 2017syn. nov .), 2) K. rebatii Datta & Bhattacharjee, 1989 and 3) K. solimani (Metwali, 1983) comb. nov. Finally, we re-describe K. angustatus (Ishikawa, 1987) comb. nov. based on the holotype from Japan, voucher specimens from Iran and additional females that we found in soil samples from oil palm plantations in Sumatra, Indonesia. Keywords: Gamasina , monotype, morphology, oriental region, rainforest, tropical lowland
The key role of behaviour in animal camouflage Stevens, Martin; Ruxton, Graeme D.
Biological reviews of the Cambridge Philosophical Society,
February 2019, Volume:
94, Issue:
1
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Open access
ABSTRACT
Animal camouflage represents one of the most important ways of preventing (or facilitating) predation. It attracted the attention of the earliest evolutionary biologists, and today remains a ...focus of investigation in areas ranging from evolutionary ecology, animal decision‐making, optimal strategies, visual psychology, computer science, to materials science. Most work focuses on the role of animal morphology per se, and its interactions with the background in affecting detection and recognition. However, the behaviour of organisms is likely to be crucial in affecting camouflage too, through background choice, body orientation and positioning; and strategies of camouflage that require movement. A wealth of potential mechanisms may affect such behaviours, from imprinting and self‐assessment to genetics, and operate at several levels (species, morph, and individual). Over many years there have been numerous studies investigating the role of behaviour in camouflage, but to date, no effort to synthesise these studies and ideas into a coherent framework. Here, we review key work on behaviour and camouflage, highlight the mechanisms involved and implications of behaviour, discuss the importance of this in a changing world, and offer suggestions for addressing the many important gaps in our understanding of this subject.
Sponges have recently been recognized to contain complex communities of bacteriophages; however, little is known about how they interact with their bacterial hosts. Here, we isolated a novel phage, ...called Ruegeria phage Tedan, and characterized its impact on the bacterial sponge symbiont Ruegeria AU67 on a morphological and molecular level. Phage Tedan was structurally, genomically and phylogenetically characterized to be affiliated with the genus Xiamenvirus of the family Siphoviridae. Through microscopic observations and transcriptomic analysis, we show that phage Tedan upon infection induces a process leading to metabolic and morphological changes in its host. These changes would render Ruegeria AU67 better adapted to inhabit the sponge holobiont due to an improved utilization of ecologically relevant energy and carbon sources as well as a potential impediment of phagocytosis by the sponge through cellular enlargement. An increased survival or better growth of the bacterium in the sponge environment will likely benefit the phage reproduction. Our results point towards the possibility that phages from host‐associated environments require, and have thus evolved, different strategies to interact with their host when compared to those phages from free‐living or planktonic environments.
Hurricanes are catastrophically destructive. Beyond their toll on human life and livelihoods, hurricanes have tremendous and often long-lasting effects on ecological systems
. Despite many examples ...of mass mortality events following hurricanes
, hurricane-induced natural selection has not previously been demonstrated. Immediately after we finished a survey of Anolis scriptus-a common, small-bodied lizard found throughout the Turks and Caicos archipelago-our study populations were battered by Hurricanes Irma and Maria. Shortly thereafter, we revisited the populations to determine whether morphological traits related to clinging capacity had shifted in the intervening six weeks and found that populations of surviving lizards differed in body size, relative limb length and toepad size from those present before the storm. Our serendipitous study, which to our knowledge is the first to use an immediately before and after comparison
to investigate selection caused by hurricanes, demonstrates that hurricanes can induce phenotypic change in a population and strongly implicates natural selection as the cause. In the decades ahead, as extreme climate events are predicted to become more intense and prevalent
, our understanding of evolutionary dynamics needs to incorporate the effects of these potentially severe selective episodes
.
This is the second in a series of studies that aim to provide a comprehensive overview of the morphological diversity of Mymaridae (Hymenoptera) or fairyflies, a monophyletic family of small ...parasitic wasps postulated to be the sister group of all other Chalcidoidea. The external morphology of the mesosoma of about 6575 taxa, representing 5565% of the 115 currently valid described genera and subgenera, is described and illustrated with almost 269 scanning electron micrographs, including 77 micrographs of the dorsal, 71 micrographs of the lateral, 59 micrographs of the ventral, 53 micrographs of the anterior, and 9 micrographs of the posterior views of the mesosoma. Twenty annotated figures of the external and major internal structures are given. Two appendices list the morphological terms used, and names of the 75 genera and subgenera of Mymaridae illustrated. The variety of characters and their features that could be used to help define morphologically the genera, and possibly also the species, of Mymaridae is discussed.
Sponges of Porifera have powerful regeneration capacity.Among them,the genus Tethyais a special group,which has differentiation in cortex and choanoderm.In this paper,the morphology of Tethyasp.,and ...its wound-healing process were studied by removing specific part of some tissues,to understand the transformation of Tethya sp.and the role of different tissues in the healing process.The results showed that the main transformation in the wound-healing process is the cell rearrangement resulted by the cell migration from the unwounded to the wounded part,the cortex and choanoderm are vital to the survival of Tethya;while the spicule center is less importance in the wound-healing process.
A series of cell morphology and structure changes were displayed during the development of reproductive structure of gametophyte and tetrasporaphyte of Gracilariopsis lemaneiformis.In this study,the ...gametophyte and different strains of tetrasporophyte were used to make continuous free hand section,in order to observe the development of the gametophyte and the formation of tetraspores in different strains of G.lemaneiformis.The result showed that the development of male and female gametophytes undertook seedling phage(SP),hair cell phage(HCP)and sexual mature phage(SMP).There was no significant difference between male and female gametophyte in SP and HCP.The male and female gametophyte were differentiable after entering SMP when the reproductive apparatus formed.The tetraspores were derived from the epidermal cells of tetrasprophyte,the initial tetrasporogonium was scarlet,and 5-10µm in diameter.It later grew to 20-25µm in diameter and became mature.The mature tetrasporogonium divided into four initial tetrasp
Amphibians are in decline worldwide. However, their patterns of diversity, especially in the tropics, are not well understood, mainly because of incomplete information on taxonomy and distribution. ...We assess morphological, bioacoustic, and genetic variation of Madagascar's amphibians, one of the first near-complete taxon samplings from a biodiversity hotspot. Based on DNA sequences of 2,850 specimens sampled from over 170 localities, our analyses reveal an extreme proportion of amphibian diversity, projecting an almost 2-fold increase in species numbers from the currently described 244 species to a minimum of 373 and up to 465. This diversity is widespread geographically and across most major phylogenetic lineages except in a few previously well-studied genera, and is not restricted to morphologically cryptic clades. We classify the genealogical lineages in confirmed and unconfirmed candidate species or deeply divergent conspecific lineages based on concordance of genetic divergences with other characters. This integrative approach may be widely applicable to improve estimates of organismal diversity. Our results suggest that in Madagascar the spatial pattern of amphibian richness and endemism must be revisited, and current habitat destruction may be affecting more species than previously thought, in amphibians as well as in other animal groups. This case study suggests that worldwide tropical amphibian diversity is probably underestimated at an unprecedented level and stresses the need for integrated taxonomic surveys as a basis for prioritizing conservation efforts within biodiversity hotspots.
Domestication fundamentally reshaped animal morphology, physiology and behaviour, offering the opportunity to investigate the molecular processes driving evolutionary change. Here we assess sheep ...domestication and artificial selection by comparing genome sequence from 43 modern breeds (Ovis aries) and their Asian mouflon ancestor (O. orientalis) to identify selection sweeps. Next, we provide a comparative functional annotation of the sheep genome, validated using experimental ChIP-Seq of sheep tissue. Using these annotations, we evaluate the impact of selection and domestication on regulatory sequences and find that sweeps are significantly enriched for protein coding genes, proximal regulatory elements of genes and genome features associated with active transcription. Finally, we find individual sites displaying strong allele frequency divergence are enriched for the same regulatory features. Our data demonstrate that remodelling of gene expression is likely to have been one of the evolutionary forces that drove phenotypic diversification of this common livestock species.
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