scholarly journals A comparison of collecting methods in relation to the diversity of Collembola in scree habitats

2021 ◽  
Vol 40 ◽  
pp. 1-26
Author(s):  
Nikola Jureková ◽  
Natália Raschmanová ◽  
Dana Miklisová ◽  
Ľubomír Kováč

We compared the species composition, relative abundances and life form structure of subterranean Collembola (Hexapoda) captured by two different methods along a depth gradient of five forested scree sites in the Western Carpathians, Slovakia: (1) high-gradient extraction of soil samples, and (2) collection using subterranean traps. Our results showed that the soil samples were more efficient in covering species richness at the majority of the sites. The body size of the captured animals depended remarkably on the sampling method. Extraction was more effective in collecting smaller, less active hemi- and euedaphic forms of Collembola, while collection by subterranean traps favoured both motile ground-dwelling as well as relatively large, active euedaphobionts. Additionally, different trends in the vertical stratification of Collembola life forms and their relative abundances were detected by the two methods. Atmobionts and epigeonts, forming the greater part of the communities in traps compared to soil samples, were distributed along the entire scree profiles, but their relative abundance and species numbers had a strongly decreasing trend with depth. Moreover, motile, large hemi- and euedaphic forms had high relative abundances in traps in the middle and deeper scree levels at three sites. In contrast, in soil samples the hemi- and euedaphobionts with small body size were abundant on the surface of the MSS sites. Thus, soil sampling applied before installation of subterranean traps may serve as an appropriate complementary technique to obtain a more complete pattern of Collembola diversity in forested scree habitats.

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hojjat Asadollahpour Nanaei ◽  
Ali Esmailizadeh ◽  
Ahmad Ayatollahi Mehrgardi ◽  
Han Jianlin ◽  
Dong-Dong Wu ◽  
...  

Abstract Background Body size is considered as one of the most fundamental properties of an organism. Due to intensive breeding and artificial selection throughout the domestication history, horses exhibit striking variations for heights at withers and body sizes. Debao pony (DBP), a famous Chinese horse, is known for its small body size and lives in Guangxi mountains of southern China. In this study, we employed comparative population genomics to study the genetic basis underlying the small body size of DBP breed based on the whole genome sequencing data. To detect genomic signatures of positive selection, we applied three methods based on population comparison, fixation index (FST), cross population composite likelihood ratio (XP-CLR) and nucleotide diversity (Pi), and further analyzed the results to find genomic regions under selection for body size-related traits.Results A number of protein-coding genes with significant (P-value < 0.01) higher FST values (367 genes), XP-CLR scores (681 genes), and a lower value for nucleotide diversity (332 genes) were identified. The most significant signal of positive selection was mapped to the NELL1 gene, probably underlies the body size and development traits, and may also have independently been selected for short stature in the DBP population. In addition, some other loci on different chromosomes were identified to be potentially involved in the development of body size.Conclusions Results of our study identified some positively selected genes across the horse genome, which are possibly involved in body size traits. These novel candidate genes may be useful targets for clarifying our understanding of the molecular basis of body size and as such they should be of great interest for future research into the genetic architecture of relevant traits in horse breeding program.


2011 ◽  
Vol 51 (20) ◽  
pp. 307-323 ◽  
Author(s):  
Luis Alberto Pereira

The geophilomorph centipede Pectiniunguis minutus (Demange, 1968), a little known dwarf schendylid from Gabon (Western equatorial Africa), is redescribed and illustrated based on the type material and an additional non-type specimen preserved in the collections of the Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle, Paris. P. minutus can be easily differentiated from all the other species currently assigned to the genus Pectiniunguis, by the very low number of leg-bearing segments (35 in the males, 37 or 39 in the females) and very small body size (12-16 mm in length). P. minutus is also distinguished by having ventral pore-fields on the anterior region of the body only, this character being shared by a single species of the genus, i.e., P. ascendens Pereira, Minelli & Barbieri, 1994, from the Neotropics (Brazil: State of Amazonas) with which a morphological comparison is given. Comments about other dwarf centipede species belonging to several families of the order Geophilomorpha, are also added.


2017 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 50-58
Author(s):  
Sri Sumarmi Sri Sumarmi ◽  
Nunik Puspitasari ◽  
Soenarnatalina Melaniani

Micronutrients deficiency is prevalent among women in reproductive age, particularly in developing countries, including in Indonesia. Small body size reflects a chronic deficiency of nutrients intake. Both of those problems may correlate each other and making maternal nutrition more complicated. Brides-to be are the most important group of women in reproductive age who require better recognition, because they will become mothers. This study was to describe inter-correlation among anthropometric indices which reflected the maternal body size and several indicators of micronutrient status. A cross sectional study was conducted in selected sub-districts of Probolinggo District, East Java Province year 2012. The samples size of 115 brides-to be were randomly selected from list of brides-to be in Sub-district Office of Religious Affair. The observed variables were body weight, height, body mass index (BMI), mid upper arms circumference (MUAC), micronutrients status including concentration of hemoglobin, serum ferritin, serum retinol and serum zinc. Pearson correlation test was used to analyze data using SPSS for Window version 13.0. Result showed that the average of body weight was 47,3 kg, average stature was 150,4 cm, BMI was 20, MUAC was 25,3 cm. The average of hemoglobin level was 12,4 g/dL, serum ferritin was 50,6 g/L, serum retinol level was 1,06 mol/L, and serum Zn level was 12,9 mol/L. Statistical analisis showed significant correlation between the body weight and hemoglobin concentration (r =0,25, p = 0,01) and serum retinol (r = 0,21, p = 0,03); between BMI and hemoglobin concentration (r = 0,31, p = 0,00) and serum ferritin (r = 0,23, p = 0,03), and serum retinol (r = 0,21, p = 0,02); between MUAC and hemoglobin (r = 0,32, p = 0,00) and serum retinol (r = 0,24, p = 0,02); between hemoglobin concentration and serum ferritin concentration (r = 0,30, p = 0,00). Stature did not correlate with any indicators of micronutrient. It implies that among the indices of body size, body weight and BMI as well as MUAC are important indicators relating to iron status, and vitamin A status, but not zinc status.


Author(s):  
Helen J. Read ◽  
Henrik Enghoff

A large sample of Siphonophoridae from Brazil was studied; two morphological groups could be distinguished. Here species considered to be from the genus Columbianum Verhoeff, 1941 are examined in detail. The genus is known from Central and South America (Guatemala, Panama, Honduras, Guiana, Colombia, Peru and Brazil) and is characterised by a clear demarcation between head and rostrum in combination with long antennae, clearly surpassing the tip of the rostrum. A list of previously described species considered to belong to the genus is given; three new species are described: C. major sp. nov. has a large body size and a small head, C. nahvalr sp. nov. has a particularly pronounced domed head and a more castellated appearance to the body, C. adisi sp. nov. has a small body size and a very characteristic hind margin to the pleurites. Variation in the state of preservation of specimens hinders a diagnosis, but the examination of the accessory claw and details of the metazonital limbus and pleurite edges are helpful. Unusually for Diplopoda, the male gonopods are not very useful for identification. Ecological comments are given for each new species, one of which, C. adisi sp. nov., is from the seasonally flooded forest and appears to avoid inundation by climbing trees.


ZOOTEC ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 37 (2) ◽  
pp. 329
Author(s):  
Grantino F. Turangan ◽  
Umar Paputungan ◽  
Zulkifli Poli ◽  
Agustinus Lomboan

This study was done to evaluate the phenotypic comparison of the body measurements for genetic improvement of running horses at West Tompaso district and those at Nusantara Polo Club Bogor West Java.. Total of forty four running horses consisted of twenty two horses from Nusantara Polo Club Bogor and twenty two horses from West Tompaso district were used in this study. Observation was conducted on November 2016 - January 2017 using purposive sampling method to measure body size of horses. The pregnant horses were excluded in this. The variables measured in this study were including chest girth, chest wide, chest depth, shoulder height, hip height, hip wide, body length, neck length, head wide, and head length. Results showed that body measurements of horses at West Tompaso district tended bigger in the sizes of hip wide, head wide and head length compared with those of horses at Nusantara Polo Club Bogor West Java. While, the body measurements of horses at Nusantara Polo Club Bogor West Java tended bigger in the sizes of chest girth, shoulder height, body length and neck length compared with those at West Tompaso district.Key words: Morfometrik, horse


Author(s):  
Alessandro Valbonesi ◽  
Graziano Di Giuseppe ◽  
Adriana Vallesi ◽  
Pierangelo Luporini

Two new Euplotes species have been isolated from cold shallow sandy sediments of the extreme Southern Chilean coasts: Euplotes foissneri sp. nov., from a low-salinity site at Puerto Natales on the Pacific coast, and Euplotes warreni sp. nov., from a marine site at Punta Arenas on the Atlantic coast. Euplotes foissneri has a medium body size (53×36 µm in vivo), a dorsal surface marked by six prominent ridges, a double dargyrome, six dorsal and two ventrolateral kineties, a buccal field extending to about 3/4 of the body length, an adoral zone composed of 28–32 membranelles, and nine fronto-ventral, five transverse and two or three caudal cirri. The bulky, hook-, horseshoe- or 3-shaped macronucleus is associated with one sub-spherical micronucleus. The central body region hosts taxonomically unidentified endosymbiotic eubacteria. Euplotes warreni has a small body size (39×27 µm in vivo), a smooth dorsal surface marked by three deep grooves, a double dargyrome, four dorsal and two ventrolateral kineties, a buccal field extending to about 2/3 of the body length, an adoral zone composed of 23–25 adoral membranelles, and nine fronto-ventral, five transverse and three caudal cirri. The macronucleus is hook- or C-shaped and associated with one spherical micronucleus. Endosymbiotic bacteria belonging to the genus Francisella reside preferentially in the anterior cell region. Both species lack the fronto-ventral cirrus numbered ‘V/2’, whereby their cirrotype-9 conforms to the so-called ‘pattern I’, which is the basic distinctive trait of the genus Euplotopsis Borror and Hill, 1995. Phylogenetic analyses of small subunit rRNA gene sequences, however, classify E. warreni into its own early branching clade and E. foissneri into a late branching clade. This indicates a polyphyletic nature and taxonomic inconsistency of the genus Euplotopsis, which was erected to include Euplotes species with cirrotype-9 pattern I.


1981 ◽  
Vol 38 (1) ◽  
pp. 25-46 ◽  
Author(s):  
D. S. Falconer ◽  
I. K. Gauld ◽  
R. C. Roberts ◽  
D. A. Williams

SUMMARYAggregation chimaeras were made from embryos of strains of mice selected for large and small body size and of unselected controls. The strains were combined in pairs marked by albino coat colour and by allo-zyme variants at the Gpi-1 locus. The proportion of cells derived from each component was scored visually in the coat melanocytes and by electrophoresis in ten other organs or tissues (blood, liver, lung, spleen, spinal cord, brain, pituitary, kidney, adrenal and testis). The object was to find out how body weight is related to cell proportions in the body as a whole and in the separate organs. Individuals varied widely in their mean cell proportions but there were significant differences between organs within individuals. Body weight was linearly related to the mean cell proportions which accounted for most, or possibly all, of the chimaeric variance of body weight. No one of the organs studied could be identified as being solely responsible for growth control, or as having a predominant influence on growth. The weights of some organs were probably influenced to a small extent by their own cell proportions independently of the individual's mean, but the differences of body weight were too great to be accounted for by the summation of localized effects on organs. The mean cell proportion, averaged over individuals, was close to 50%, proving that there was no tendency for cells from the larger component to outgrow those from the smaller. It is concluded that growth control must be systemic, but it was not possible to decide whether the systemic effect comes from some particular organ not studied, or is in some undefined way the consequence of the cell proportions in the body as a whole. There was some evidence, though it was inconclusive, that chimaeras show ‘heterosis’ for body weight.


2021 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marjut Rajasilta ◽  
Katja Mäkinen ◽  
Suvi Ruuskanen ◽  
Jari Hänninen ◽  
Päivi Laine

In fish, the lipid resources of the female form a link between the environment and progeny, contributing to the contents of the egg yolk. Variation of the environmental conditions is therefore expected to affect the egg quality via maternal pathways, reflecting the female’s response to the environmental factors before spawning. We investigated the content of lipids and thyroid hormones in the ovary and eggs of the Baltic herring during 1988–2019, when salinity of the Baltic Sea first declined and then stabilized to a lower level, and winters varied between severe and mild. The total lipid resources of spawning females decreased by 40–50% during the study, and the ovarian lipid concentration followed this trend resulting in a decrease of the lipid content of eggs. The concentration of thyroid hormones in the ovary suggested a hormonal response in females to salinity and winter temperature and was observable also in the content of thyroid hormones in the eggs. A change in the egg lipid content took place approximately around 1998 (SE ± 3 years) suggesting that in declining salinity, egg quality was associated with salinity and intrinsic factors in the female, i.e., fecundity and amount of lipids deposited into the ovary. However, during the period of stable salinity, egg quality was mainly limited by the female’s lipid resources. As also the body size of the females decreased over the years, it is suggested that small body size can be a key phenotypic trait to reduce the environmental impact on egg quality in variable environmental conditions.


1980 ◽  
Vol 152 (6) ◽  
pp. 1506-1518 ◽  
Author(s):  
H W Kunz ◽  
T J Gill ◽  
B D Dixon ◽  
F H Taylor ◽  
D L Greiner

The linkage of the major histocompatibility complex (MHC) and the growth and reproduction complex (Grc) in the rat was studied in an F2 hybrid population generated from female BIL/1 (RT1l-Grc) and male YO (RT1u-Grc+) animals: 1.722 offspring were born, and 1,568 were weaned and studied. The body weights of the offspring segregated with the RT1 haplotype of the MHC, and the RT1l homozygotes were significantly smaller than their RT1l/u and RT1u/u littermates. The growth rate of the RT1l/l animals was approximately the same as that of the BIL/1 animals, and both were significantly less than the growth rates of the RT1l/u, RT1u/u, and YO (RT1u) animals. The testes of the RT1l animals showed an arrest of spermatogenesis at the early pachytene stage of the primary spermatocytes, and they were approximately 1/10 as heavy as the testes of the RT1l/u and RT1u/u animals. The ovaries in females of all three haplotypes had the same weight, but there was a decrease in the number of ova released per cycle in the RT1 l/l animals. The major loss of the RT1l homozygotes, which caused distortion of the phenotypic ratios among the offspring, did not occur in utero but in the early postnatal period before weaning. There were 7/1568 recombinants between the MHC, using the RT1.A antigen as the marker, and the Grc, using small body size (dw-3) as the marker, and 1/1568 recombinant between the loci influencing body size (dw-3) and fertility (ft) of the Grc. These data gave the following map distances (95% confidence levels): RT1.A to dw-3, 0.45 (0.25-0.96) centimorgans and dw-3 to ft, 0.07 (0.04-0.40) centimorgans. A female recombinant was used develop an inbred line carrying the RT1.Al-Grc+ chromosome.


Bionatura ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 1763-1769
Author(s):  
Yury Catalina López-Cardona ◽  
Edison Parra-García ◽  
Jaime Palacio-Baena ◽  
Silvia Lucía Villabona-González

We assessed the size variation of morphological traits in Bosmina freyi regarding changes in environmental variables, the biomass of invertebrate predators, and algal food availability in two depths of the photic zone, the riverine zone, and near the dam zone (lacustrine zone) in The Riogrande II reservoir. In 200 individuals of B. freyi, using the software TpsDig2 we measured the body size, mucron and antennule lengths, and the antennule aperture percentage. Using the Mann-Whitney U test, we assessed the differences between these traits considering the zones and the photic depths; however, we used a canonical discriminant analysis with morphologic traits and environmental variables. Measured morphological traits showed a heterogeneous distribution between sampled zones and depths (p < 0.05). The highest values mucron and antennule lengths and the smallest antennule aperture angle were observed on small body size individuals, associated with physical, chemical, and biological characteristics in the riverine zone and the subsurface. Size structure distribution in B. freyi was related to changes in water temperature, trophic state, depredation, availability, and quality of food, of which implications related to the zooplankton community structure, predator-prey relations, and energy flow in the reservoir.


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