scholarly journals Pathogens, parasites, and parasitoids of ants: a synthesis of parasite biodiversity and epidemiological traits

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lauren E. Quevillon ◽  
David P. Hughes
Keyword(s):  
Life Cycle ◽  
Ecological Diversity ◽  
Ecological Traits ◽  
Comprehensive Review ◽  
Parasite Ecology ◽  
Single Host ◽  
Parasite Biodiversity ◽  
Ecological Success ◽  
Future Work ◽  
Host Death

1.AbstractAnts are among the most ecologically successful organisms on Earth, with a global distribution and diverse nesting and foraging ecologies. Ants are also social organisms, living in crowded, dense colonies that can range up to millions of individuals. Understanding the ecological success of the ants requires understanding how they have mitigated one of the major costs of social living-infection by parasitic organisms. Additionally, the ecological diversity of ants suggests that they may themselves harbor a diverse, and largely unknown, assemblage of parasites. As a first step, we need to know the taxonomic and functional diversity of the parasitic organisms infecting ants. To that end, we provide a comprehensive review of the parasitic organisms infecting ants by collecting all extant records. We synthesize major patterns in parasite ecology by categorizing how parasites encounter their ant hosts, whether they require host death as a developmental necessity, and how they transmit to future hosts.We report 1,415 records of parasitic organisms infecting ants, the majority of which come from order Diptera (34.8%), phylum Fungi (25.6%), and order Hymenoptera (25.1%). Most parasitic organisms infecting ants are parasitoids (89.6%), requiring the death of their host as developmental necessity and most initially encounter their hosts in the extranidal environment (68.6%). Importantly, though most parasitic organisms infecting ants only need a single host to complete their life cycle (89.2%), the vast majority need to leave the nest before transmission to the next ant host can occur (88.3%), precluding ant-to-ant transmission within the nest. With respect to the host, we only found records for 9 out of 17 extant ant sub-families, and for 82 out of the currently recognized 334 ant genera. Though there is likely bias in the records reported, both host and parasite ecological traits and evolutionary histories underlie the pattern of ant-parasite association reported here. This work provides a foundation for future work that will begin to untangle the ecological drivers of ant-parasite relationships and the evolutionary implications thereof.

scholarly journals On Possibility of Using Tamarix as Indicator of the Relief Dynamics

2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (11) ◽  
pp. 57-69
Author(s):  
S. Krylenko ◽  
V. Krylenko ◽  
M. Krylenko
Keyword(s):  
Life Cycle ◽  
Soil Salinity ◽  
Environmental Conditions ◽  
Spatial Location ◽  
Ecological Traits ◽  
Ecological Success ◽  
Growing Conditions ◽  
High Dynamics ◽  
Short Time ◽  
Arid Territories

Abstract. Genus Tamarix includes about seventy species that are adapted to hot, dry growing conditions, but are able to withstand prolonged flooding and soil salinity. As a result, species of the genus Tamarix are common inhabitants of arid territories, while the sea, river and lake coasts are also an inhabitation of Tamarix. The ecological success of the Tamarix genus is ensured by the peculiarities of its life cycle and various adaptive functions. The ability of a plant to maintain its viability during a change in environmental conditions, including when the relief changes is the most important. In addition, Tamarix, having the ability to reduce the mobility of loose substrates, is able to change the relief in a relatively short time. The accumulative seacoasts are characterized by high dynamics of the relief. This paper discusses the possibility of determining the age of the formation of coastal landforms using information on the spatial location of both individual Tamarix specimens and its population within large marine coastal accumulative forms. It is shown that several physiological and ecological traits of the Tamarix genus make it possible to use it as an indicator of certain environmental conditions, existing or existed earlier in the places of its modern growth.

INSTANCE MIGRATION BETWEEN ONTOLOGIES HAVING STRUCTURAL DIFFERENCES

2011 ◽  
Vol 20 (06) ◽  
pp. 1127-1156 ◽  
Author(s):  
MAXIM DAVIDOVSKY ◽  
VADIM ERMOLAYEV ◽  
VYACHESLAV TOLOK
Keyword(s):  
Knowledge Management ◽  
Life Cycle ◽  
Structural Changes ◽  
Software Framework ◽  
Ontology Alignment ◽  
Transformation Rules ◽  
Structural Differences ◽  
Prototype Software ◽  
Descriptive Theories ◽  
Future Work

Ontology instance migration is one of the complex and not fully solved problems in knowledge management. A solution is required when the ontology schema evolves in the life cycle and the assertions have to be transferred to the newer version. The problem may become more complex in distributed settings when, for example, several autonomous software entities use and exchange partial assertional knowledge in a domain that is formalized by different though semantically overlapping descriptive theories. Such an exchange is essentially the migration of the assertional part of an ontology to other ontologies belonging to or used by different entities. The paper presents our method and tool for migrating instances between the ontologies that have structurally different but semantically overlapping schemas. The approach is based on the use of the manually coded transformation rules describing the changes between the input and the output ontologies. The tool is implemented as a plug-in for the ProjectNavigator prototype software framework. The article also reports the results of our three evaluation experiments. In these experiments we evaluated the degree of complexity in the structural changes to which our approach remains valid. We also chose the ontology sets in one of the experiments to make the results comparable with the ontology alignment software. Finally we checked how well our approach scales with the increase of the quantity of the migrated ontology instances to the numbers that are characteristic to industrial ontologies. In our opinion the evaluation results are satisfactory and suggest some directions for the future work.

Error Compensation Techniques for Fixed-Width Array Multiplier Design — A Technical Survey

2016 ◽  
Vol 26 (03) ◽  
pp. 1730003 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. Balamurugan ◽  
P. S. Mallick
Keyword(s):  
Error Compensation ◽  
Absolute Error ◽  
Mean Square ◽  
Maximum Absolute Error ◽  
Comprehensive Review ◽  
Related Research ◽  
Error Formula ◽  
Error Metrics ◽  
Array Multiplier ◽  
Future Work

This paper provides a comprehensive review of various error compensation techniques for fixed-width multiplier design along with its applications. In this paper, we have studied different error compensation circuits and their complexities in the fixed-width multipliers. Further, we present the experimental results of error metrics, including normalized maximum absolute error [Formula: see text], normalized mean error [Formula: see text] and normalized mean-square error [Formula: see text] to evaluate the accuracy of fixed-width multipliers. This survey is intended to serve as a suitable guideline and reference for future work in fixed-width multiplier design and its related research.

The morphology, formation and development of cysts of Entamoeba

Parasitology ◽  
1969 ◽  
Vol 59 (1) ◽  
pp. 41-53 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elspeth W. McConnachie
Keyword(s):  
Life Cycle ◽  
Present Knowledge ◽  
Comprehensive Review ◽  
Critical Phase

Parasitic amoebae of the genus Entamoeba are transmitted from one host to another as cysts. The active amoeboid forms are so adapted to life within their particular hosts that, outside the host, they soon die, but encysted stages survive conditions fatal to the unprotected amoebae. The cyst is an integral and critical phase in the life-cycle of Entamoeba; its attributes directly influence the dissemination of the organism, and are an important aspect in the epidemiology of amoebiasis. The following account of the morphology, formation and development of the cysts of Entamoeba is an assessment of present knowledge, and is not a comprehensive review of all available observations.

scholarly journals A newly discovered radiation of endoparasitic gastropods and their coevolution with asteroid hosts in Antarctica

2019 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Kara K. S. Layton ◽  
Greg W. Rouse ◽  
Nerida G. Wilson
Keyword(s):  
Marine Invertebrates ◽  
Global Scale ◽  
Morphological Data ◽  
Sea Stars ◽  
Single Host ◽  
Scotia Arc ◽  
Event Based ◽  
Genus One ◽  
Future Work ◽  
The Antarctic

Abstract Background Marine invertebrates are abundant and diverse on the continental shelf in Antarctica, but little is known about their parasitic counterparts. Endoparasites are especially understudied because they often possess highly modified body plans that pose problems for their identification. Asterophila, a genus of endoparasitic gastropod in the family Eulimidae, forms cysts in the arms and central discs of asteroid sea stars. There are currently four known species in this genus, one of which has been described from the Antarctic Peninsula (A. perknasteri). This study employs molecular and morphological data to investigate the diversity of Asterophila in Antarctica and explore cophylogenetic patterns between host and parasite. Results A maximum-likelihood phylogeny of Asterophila and subsequent species-delimitation analysis uncovered nine well-supported putative species, eight of which are new to science. Most Asterophila species were found on a single host species, but four species were found on multiple hosts from one or two closely related genera, showing phylogenetic conservatism of host use. Both distance-based and event-based cophylogenetic analyses uncovered a strong signal of coevolution in this system, but most associations were explained by non-cospeciation events. Discussion The prevalence of duplication and host-switching events in Asterophila and its asteroid hosts suggests that synchronous evolution may be rare even in obligate endoparasitic systems. The apparent restricted distribution of Asterophila from around the Scotia Arc may be an artefact of concentrated sampling in the area and a low obvious prevalence of infection. Given the richness of parasites on a global scale, their role in promoting host diversification, and the threat of their loss through coextinction, future work should continue to investigate parasite diversity and coevolution in vulnerable ecosystems.

Australia's onshore basin inventory: volume I

2016 ◽  
Vol 56 (2) ◽  
pp. 591
Author(s):  
Lidena Carr ◽  
Russell Korsch ◽  
Tehani Palu
Keyword(s):  
Confidence Rating ◽  
Petroleum System ◽  
Petroleum Geology ◽  
The South ◽  
Comprehensive Review ◽  
Petroleum Systems ◽  
Level Of Knowledge ◽  
Data Coverage ◽  
Future Work ◽  
Access Data

Following the publication of Geoscience Australia Record 2014/09: Petroleum geology inventory of Australia’s offshore frontier basins by Totterdell et al (2014), the onshore petroleum section of Geoscience Australia embarked on a similar project for the onshore Australian basins. Volume I of this publication series contains inventories of the McArthur, South Nicholson, Georgina, Amadeus, Warburton, Wiso, Galilee, and Cooper basins. A comprehensive review of the geology, petroleum systems, exploration status, and data coverage for these eight Australian onshore basins was conducted, based on the results of Geoscience Australia’s precompetitive data programs, industry exploration results, and the geoscience literature. A petroleum prospectivity ranking was assigned to each basin, based on evidence for the existence of an active petroleum system. The availability of data and level of knowledge in each area was reflected in a confidence rating for that ranking. This extended abstract summarises the rankings assigned to each of these eight basins, and describes the type of information available for each of these basins in the publically available report by Carr et al (2016), available on the Geoscience Australia website. The record allocated a high prospectivity rating for the Amadeus and Cooper basins, a moderate rating for the Galilee, McArthur and Georgina basins, and a low rating for the South Nicholson, Warburton and Wiso basins. The record lists how best to access data for each basin, provides an assessment of issues and unanswered questions, and recommends future work directions to lessen the risk of these basins in terms of their petroleum prospectivity. Work is in progress to compile inventories on the next series of onshore basins.

scholarly journals Construct-it: A board game to enhance built environment students’ understanding of the property life cycle

2019 ◽  
Vol 33 (3) ◽  
pp. 186-197 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. Hayhow ◽  
E.A. Parn ◽  
D.J. Edwards ◽  
M. Reza Hosseini ◽  
C. Aigbavboa
Keyword(s):  
Life Cycle ◽  
Built Environment ◽  
Learning Experience ◽  
Methodological Approach ◽  
Board Game ◽  
Proof Of Concept ◽  
Theoretical Frameworks ◽  
Industry Practice ◽  
Traditional Classroom Teaching ◽  
Future Work

This article investigates the development of a board game entitled ‘Construct-it’ as an innovative pedagogical approach (as proof of concept) to augmenting the applied knowledge and understanding of built environment students studying property life cycle analysis. A largely qualitative and inductive methodological approach is conducted to identify and investigate the various pertinent theoretical frameworks that could be adopted; conduct a critical synthesis of extant literature; and develop Construct-it, a game intuitively grounded in practice-based knowledge. The study reveals that games provide a fun, engaging and challenging means of educating students at higher education institutions. It also notes a significant dearth of literature in terms of applying games to students enrolled on built environment programmes. Construct-it can enhance the student’s learning experience and knowledge of pertinent industry practice and standards and can complement traditional classroom teaching approaches. The study concludes with directions for the future work required to enhance the development of the novel pedagogical proof of concept presented. Such work will require robust testing and validation of the game to measure its impact on the student learning experience.

scholarly journals Life Cycle Assessment model for the chlor-alkali process: A comprehensive review of resources and available technologies

2017 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
pp. 44-58 ◽  
Author(s):  
Isabel Garcia-Herrero ◽  
María Margallo ◽  
Raquel Onandía ◽  
Rubén Aldaco ◽  
Angel Irabien
Keyword(s):  
Life Cycle Assessment ◽  
Life Cycle ◽  
Assessment Model ◽  
Comprehensive Review

scholarly journals Comparative real-time PCR and enzyme analysis of selected gender-associated molecules inSchistosoma japonicum

Parasitology ◽  
2008 ◽  
Vol 135 (5) ◽  
pp. 575-583 ◽  
Author(s):  
L. MOERTEL ◽  
G. N. GOBERT ◽  
D. P. McMANUS
Keyword(s):  
Life Cycle ◽  
Real Time ◽  
Real Time Pcr ◽  
Developmental Stages ◽  
Enzyme Analysis ◽  
Parasitic Helminths ◽  
Life Cycle Stages ◽  
Gene Transcripts ◽  
Differential Transcription ◽  
Future Work

SUMMARYSchistosomes are complex parasitic helminths with discrete life-cycle stages, adapted for survival in their mammalian and snail hosts and the external aquatic environment. Recently, we described the fabrication and use of a microarray to investigate gender-specific transcription inSchistosoma japonicum. To address transcriptional differences, 8 gender-associated gene transcripts identified previously by the microarray analysis were selected for further study. First, differential transcription patterns were investigated in 4 developmental stages using real-time PCR. Subsequently, we undertook functional analysis of a subset of 4 transcripts encoding metabolic enzymes, so as to correlate gender-associated transcript levels with enzyme activity in protein extracts from adult worms. The 8 characterized molecules serve as a basis for further investigation of differential gene expression during the schistosome life-cycle and for studying the sexual dimorphism of adult worms. Continual refinement and annotation of the microarray used in the current study should support future work on these aspects.

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