scholarly journals Ecological Traits of a Common Japanese Pit Viper, the Mamushi (Gloydius blomhoffii), in Kyoto, with a Brief Geographic Comparison

2021 ◽  
Vol 40 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Akira Mori
Author(s):  
Sandra A. Allan

Manipulation of insect behavior can provide the foundation for effective strategies for control of insect crop pests. A detailed understanding of life cycles and the behavioral repertoires of insect pests is essential for development of this approach. A variety of strategies have been developed based on behavioral manipulation and include mass trapping, attract-and-kill, auto-dissemination, mating and host plant location disruption, and push-pull. Insight into application of these strategies for insect pests within Diptera, Lepidoptera, Coleoptera, and Hemiptera/Thysanoptera are provided, but first with an overview of economic damage and traditional control approaches, and overview of relevant behavioral/ecological traits. Then examples are provided of how these different control strategies are applied for each taxonomic group. The future of these approaches in the context of altered crop development for repellency or as anti-feedants, the effects of climate change and the risks of behaviorally-based methods are discussed.


Polar Biology ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Irina Izaguirre ◽  
Fernando Unrein ◽  
M. Romina Schiaffino ◽  
Enrique Lara ◽  
David Singer ◽  
...  

2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Hongjun Wang ◽  
Jianqing Tian ◽  
Huai Chen ◽  
Mengchi Ho ◽  
Rytas Vilgalys ◽  
...  

AbstractPeatlands have persisted as massive carbon sinks over millennia, even during past periods of climate change. The commonly accepted theory of abiotic controls (mainly anoxia and low temperature) over carbon decomposition cannot fully explain how vast low-latitude shrub/tree dominated (wooded) peatlands consistently accrete peat under warm and seasonally unsaturated conditions. Here we show, by comparing the composition and ecological traits of microbes between Sphagnum- and shrub-dominated peatlands, that slow-growing microbes decisively dominate the studied shrub-dominated peatlands, concomitant with plant-induced increases in highly recalcitrant carbon and phenolics. The slow-growing microbes metabolize organic matter thirty times slower than the fast-growing microbes that dominate our Sphagnum-dominated site. We suggest that the high-phenolic shrub/tree induced shifts in microbial composition may compensate for positive effects of temperature and/or drought on metabolism over time in peatlands. This biotic self-sustaining process that modulates abiotic controls on carbon cycling may improve projections of long-term, climate-carbon feedbacks in peatlands.


2014 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 680-680 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Belmaker ◽  
V. Parravicini ◽  
M. Kulbicki

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. Nandhi Kesavan ◽  
Latha K

Abstract Among all the threats to global diversity, climate change is the most severe cause. According to the world’s biodiversity conservation organization, reptile species are affected mostly because the biological and ecological traits of the reptiles are strongly linked with climate. To prevent species extinction, we tried to develop a decision support system that incurs the costs and benefits of reintroducing a taxon from its origin to adapt environmental conditions to conserve it from its extinction. The model was developed by applying multiple linear regressions that take the climatic variables and species traits to determine the cost and benefits for the distribution of species. The effectiveness of the model was evaluated by applying it to the Indian Black Turtle, which is an endangered species list in India evaluated by the International Union for Conservation of Nature list. The model recommends moving the species, which is endangered, to the location where it can save itself from climate change. However, the framework demonstrates huge differences in the estimated significance of climate change, and the model strategy helps to recognize the probable risk of increased revelation to critically endangered species.


BioScience ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 66 (2) ◽  
pp. 118-129 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel J Salkeld ◽  
Paul Stapp ◽  
Daniel W Tripp ◽  
Kenneth L Gage ◽  
Jennifer Lowell ◽  
...  

The Auk ◽  
2002 ◽  
Vol 119 (4) ◽  
pp. 943-954 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kimberly S. Bostwick ◽  
Matthew J. Brady

Abstract Most recent research on character evolution attempts to identify either (1) homology or homoplasy (systematic use of the term character), or (2) the adaptive function or selective regime underlying the origin of a character (“adaptationist” use of the term character). There have been relatively few serious considerations or examples of neutral character evolution above the molecular level. Wing feather taxis in birds, the presence or absence of the fifth secondary feather, provides an intriguing possible example of nonadaptive character evolution. We examine the phylogenetic pattern of wing feather taxis among birds to (1) determine its polarity in modern birds (Neornithes), (2) hypothesize the frequency and taxonomic locations of changes in the taxic state, (3) test whether taxis is relatively labile or inert phylogenetically, and (4) allow preliminary consideration of whether adaptive or selectively neutral processes have produced those patterns. Minimum tree length necessary to explain the distribution of wing feather taxis was calculated at the family level using Sibley and Ahlquist's DNA–DNA hybridization tree (1990). Parsimony analysis indicates that the eutaxic condition (fifth secondary present) is ancestral in modern birds, and that diastataxy (fifth secondary absent) has originated independently at least 7 times and reversed to the eutaxic condition on at least 13 occasions within modern birds. Despite multiple independent origins and reversals, wing feather taxis is extremely conserved throughout the tree, such that one or the other state completely characterizes many large multiordinal or multifamilial clades. Lack of obvious correlations with morphological and ecological traits suggest that no single adaptive scenario will explain the evolution of wing feather taxis. Instead, the biological details and phylogenetic patterns make nonadaptive, or selectively neutral evolutionary processes, such as genetic drift, an equally if not more plausible explanation for the distribution of wing feather taxis.


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