Are ticks venomous animals?
As an ecological adaptation venoms have evolved independently in several species of Metazoa. As haematophagous arthropods ticks are mainly considered as ectoparasites due to directly feeding on the skin of ani...
Page 11 of 17
As an ecological adaptation venoms have evolved independently in several species of Metazoa. As haematophagous arthropods ticks are mainly considered as ectoparasites due to directly feeding on the skin of ani...
Many potential hosts of social parasites recognize and reject foreign intruders, and reduce or altogether escape the negative impacts of parasitism. The ontogenetic basis of whether and how avian hosts recogni...
Nematostella vectensis, a member of the cnidarian class Anthozoa, has been established as a promising model system in developmental biology, but while information about the genetic regulation of embryonic develop...
In insects, the pumping of the dorsal heart causes circulation of hemolymph throughout the central body cavity, but not within the interior of long body appendages. Hemolymph exchange in these dead-end structu...
The posterodorsal part of the medial amygdala is essential for processing reproductively salient sensory information in rodents. This is the initial brain structure where information from olfactory system and ...
Urbanization is a global phenomenon that is encroaching on natural habitats and decreasing biodiversity, although it is creating new habitats for some species. The Eurasian kestrel (Falco tinnunculus) is frequent...
Life history theories predict that investment in current reproduction comes at a cost for future reproduction and survival. Oxidative stress is one of the best documented mechanisms underlying costs of reprodu...
Incomplete lineage sorting and hybridization are two major nonexclusive causes of haplotype sharing between species. Distinguishing between these two processes is notoriously difficult as they can generate sim...
Temperate winters produce extreme energetic challenges for small insectivorous mammals. Some bat species inhabiting locations with mild temperate winters forage during brief inter-torpor normothermic periods o...
The Damaraland mole-rat (Fukomys damarensis) is a eusocial, subterranean mammal, which exhibits an extreme reproductive skew with a single female (queen) monopolizing reproduction in each colony. Non-reproductive...
In spite of considerable work on the linear proportions of limbs in amniotes, it remains unknown whether differences in scale effects between proximal and distal limb segments has the potential to influence lo...
Diaptomid copepods are prevalent throughout continental waters of the Neotropics, yet little is known about their biogeography. In this study we investigate the main biogeographical patterns among the neotropi...
Though it has long been known that the prosomal ganglion of scorpions is supplied by a dense system of arteries, the pattern of this network has never been described and analyzed in detail. Using MicroCT in co...
Metamorphic remodeling of the nervous system and its organization in juvenile may shed light on early steps of evolution and can be used as an important criterion for establishing the relationships among large...
Why have birds evolved the ability to reject eggs? Typically, foreign egg discrimination is interpreted as evidence that interspecific brood parasitism (IP) has selected for the host’s ability to recognize and...
The homology of the digits in the bird wing is a high-profile controversy in developmental and evolutionary biology. The embryonic position of the digits cartilages with respect to the primary axis (ulnare and...
Domestication can lead to marked alterations in the biobehavioural profile of a species. Furthermore, during ontogeny, the individual phenotype of an animal can be shaped by the environment in important phases...
To increase fertilization success, males transfer accessory gland products (Acps). Several species have evolved unconventional Acps transfer modes, meaning that Acps are transferred separately from the sperm. ...
Kinorhyncha is a clade of marine invertebrate meiofauna. Their body plan includes a retractable introvert bearing rings of cuticular spines, and a limbless trunk with distinct segmentation of nervous, muscular...
The computational demands of sociality (maintaining group cohesion, reducing conflict) and ecological problems (extractive foraging, memorizing resource locations) are the main drivers proposed to explain the ...
The ability to relocate home or breeding sites after experimental removal has been observed in several amphibians and the sensory basis of this behavior has been studied in some temperate-region species. Howev...
Head-bobbing in birds is a conspicuous behaviour related to vision comprising a hold phase and a thrust phase. The timing of these phases has been shown in many birds, including quail, to be coordinated with f...
Nutrient availability, assimilation, and allocation can have important and lasting effects on the immune system development of growing animals. Though carotenoid pigments have immunostimulatory properties in m...
Cichlid fishes show considerable diversity in swim bladder morphology. In members of the subfamily Etroplinae, the connection between anterior swim bladder extensions and the inner ears enhances sound transmis...
The relic silverfish Tricholepidion gertschi is the sole extant representative of the family Lepidotrichidae. Its phylogenetic position is of special interest, since it may provide crucial insights into the early...
Male contribution to parental care varies widely among avian species. Yet the reasons for this variation, as well as its consequences, are still unclear. Because the amount of care provided by one sex is ultim...
Previous exposure to a pathogen can help organisms cope with recurring infection. This is widely recognised in vertebrates, but increasing occasions are also being reported in invertebrates where this phenomen...
Onychophora is a relatively small phylum within Ecdysozoa, and is considered to be the sister group to Arthropoda. Compared to the arthropods, that have radiated into countless divergent forms, the onychophora...
Producing smart offspring is an important fitness trait; individuals with enhanced cognitive ability should be more adept at responding to complex environmental demands. Cognitive ability can be influenced by ...
Many marine planktonic crustaceans such as copepods have been considered as widespread organisms. However, the growing evidence for cryptic and pseudo-cryptic speciation has emphasized the need of re-evaluatin...
Experimental litter size manipulations are often not problem free. Typically conducted shortly after birth or oviposition, they do not account for the energy already invested into the production of the offspri...
There has been much recent debate in Australia over whether lethal control of dingoes incurs environmental costs, particularly by allowing increase of populations of mesopredators such as red foxes and feral c...
Sacoglossan sea slugs are well known for their unique ability among metazoans to incorporate functional chloroplasts (kleptoplasty) in digestive glandular cells, enabling the slugs to use these as energy sourc...
Maternal kin selection is a driving force in the evolution of mammalian social complexity and it requires that kin are distinctive from nonkin. The transition from the ancestral state of asociality to the deri...
Bivalve teredinids inflict great destruction to wooden maritime structures. Yet no comprehensive study was ever carried out on these organisms in European coastal waters. Thus, the aims of this study were to: ...
Free-living flatworms, in both marine and freshwater environments, are able to adhere to and release from a substrate several times within a second. This reversible adhesion relies on adhesive organs comprised...
In biparental birds testosterone levels of males are typically high during the mating phase and decrease during the parental phase. Testosterone implants may enhance mating behaviors, increase the likelihood o...
Within arthropods, several crustacean groups are unique in their early development due to their stereotyped cell division patterns and cell lineages. However, it is still unclear whether these cell division pa...
How important are sexual hormones beyond their function in reproductive biology has yet to be understood. In this study, we analyzed the effects of sex steroids on the biology of the embryonic amphibian epider...
Higher-level systematics in amphibians is relatively stable. However, recent phylogenetic studies of African torrent-frogs have uncovered high divergence in these phenotypically and ecologically similar frogs,...
Chitons (Polyplacophora) are molluscs considered to have a simple nervous system without cephalisation. The position of the class within Mollusca is the topic of extensive debate and neuroanatomical characters...
The mismatch between dorsal and ventral trunk features along the millipede trunk was long a subject of controversy, largely resting on alternative interpretations of segmentation. Most models of arthropod segm...
Female spiders are fine-tuned to detect and quickly respond to prey vibrations, presenting a challenge to courting males who must attract a female’s attention but not be mistaken for prey. This is likely parti...
The Mediterranean sacoglossan Elysia timida is one of the few sea slug species with the ability to sequester chloroplasts from its food algae and to subsequently store them in a functional state in the digestive ...
The organization and development of the nervous system has traditionally been used as an important character for establishing the relationships among large groups of animals. According to this criterion, phoro...
Villin 1 is an actin-regulatory protein involved in the formation of microvilli of mammalian enterocytes. The microvilli, finger-like protrusions, are more abundant on the apical surfaces of gill ionocytes in ...
Animal colouration is a trade-off between being seen by intended, intra- or inter-specific receivers while not being seen by the unintended. Many fishes solve this problem by adaptive colouration. Here, we inv...
The rising atmospheric CO2 level is continuously driving the dissolution of more CO2 into the oceans, and some emission scenarios project that the surface waters may reach 1000 μatm by the end of the century. It ...
Several mammalian species spontaneously align their body axis with respect to the Earth’s magnetic field (MF) lines in diverse behavioral contexts. Magnetic alignment is a suitable paradigm to scan for the occ...
A remarkable aspect of bird migration is its nocturnality, particularly common in Passeriformes. The switch in activity from purely diurnal to also nocturnal is evident even in caged birds that during migrator...