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Establishment of distinct follicle cell fates at the early stages of Drosophila oogenesis is crucial for achieving proper morphology of individual egg chambers. In Drosophila oogenesis, Notch-signaling controls p...
The differential allocation hypothesis (DAH) predicts that individuals should adjust their parental investment to their current mate’s quality. Although in principle the DAH holds for both sexes, male adjustme...
In wood-dwelling fungus-farming weevils, the so-called ambrosia beetles (Curculionidae: Scolytinae and Platypodinae), wood in the excavated tunnels is used as a medium for cultivating fungi by the combined act...
Female sperm storage has evolved independently multiple times among vertebrates to control reproduction in response to the environment. In internally fertilising amphibians, female salamanders store sperm in c...
The avian glottis channels air from the oropharynx to the trachea and is situated on an elevated structure, the laryngeal mound. It is imperative that the glottis be protected and closed during swallowing, whi...
The aim of this study was to evaluate the visual acuity of adult zebrafish by assessing the optokinetic reflex. Using a modified commercially available optomotor device (OptoMotry®), virtual three-dimensional ...
A huge diversity of marine species reproduce by synchronously spawning their gametes into the water column. Although this species-specific event typically occurs in a particular season, the precise time and da...
Many coral reef fishes undergo habitat and diet shifts during ontogeny. However, studies focusing on the physiological and morphological adaptations that may prepare them for these transitions are relatively s...
Male monogyny in the absence of paternal investment is arguably one of the most puzzling mating systems. Recent evidence suggests that males of monogynous species adjust their life-history and their mating dec...
Interest in the placing of landmarks and subsequent morphometric analyses of shape for 3D data has increased with the increasing accessibility of computed tomography (CT) scanners. However, current computer pr...
Honey bees, Apis mellifera, have a diverse community of pathogens. Previous research has mostly focused on bacterial brood diseases of high virulence, but milder diseases caused by fungal pathogens have recently ...
The transmission electron microscope (TEM) is used for the first time to study the development of book gills in the horseshoe crab. Near the end of the nineteenth century the hypothesis was presented for homol...
Osmotic stress transcriptional factor 1 (Ostf1) was firstly identified in tilapia in 2005. Then numerous studies have investigated its regulation and expression profile in fish gill tissues in related to osmor...
Inter-specific comparisons of metazoan developmental mechanisms have provided a wealth of data concerning the evolution of body form and the generation of morphological novelty. Conversely, studies of intra-sp...
As urban and rural land development become widespread features of the global landscape so an understanding of the landscape requirements of displaced and isolated wildlife species becomes increasingly importan...
Intermediate forms in the evolution of new adaptations such as transitions from water to land and the evolution of flight are often poorly understood. Similarly, the evolution of superfast sonic muscles in fis...
Sex allocation theory predicts that in small mating groups simultaneous hermaphroditism is the optimal form of gender expression. Under these conditions, male allocation is predicted to be very low and overall...
The song of oscines provides an extensively studied model of age-dependent behaviour changes. Male and female receivers might use song characteristics to obtain information about the age of a signaller, which ...
Animals are capable of using information from recent experiences to modify subsequent behavioral responses. Animals' ability or propensity to modify their behavior in the light of new information has repeatedl...
The marine α-taxonomist often encounters two problems. Firstly, the "environmental dirt" that is frequently present on the specimens and secondly the difficulty in distinguishing key-features due to the unifor...
While blood parasites are common in many birds in the wild, some groups seem to be much less affected. Seabirds, in particular, have often been reported free from blood parasites, even in the presence of poten...
Taxonomy or biological systematics is the basic scientific discipline of biology, postulating hypotheses of identity and relationships, on which all other natural sciences dealing with organisms relies. However, ...
Maternal effects mediated by egg size and quality may profoundly affect offspring development and performance, and mothers may adjust egg traits according to environmental or social influences. In avian specie...
The mechanisms underlying the switching from an asexual to a sexual mode of reproduction, and vice versa, remain unknown in metazoans. In planarians, asexual worms acquire cryptic sexuality when fed with sexual w...
Copepods outnumber every other multicellular animal group. They are critical components of the world's freshwater and marine ecosystems, sensitive indicators of local and global climate change, key ecosystem s...
Insects are known to rely on terrestrial landmarks for navigation. Landmarks are used to chart a route or pinpoint a goal. The distant panorama, however, is often thought not to guide navigation directly durin...
Hybridization can have complex effects on evolutionary dynamics in ants because of the combination of haplodiploid sex-determination and eusociality. While hybrid non-reproductive workers have been found in a ...
In the adult males of helminthomorph millipedes, one or two pairs of legs in the anterior part of the trunk are strongly modified into sexual appendages (gonopods) used for sperm transfer during the copula. Go...
Near the end of the nineteenth century the hypothesis was presented for the homology of book lungs in arachnids and book gills in the horseshoe crab. Early studies with the light microscope showed that book gi...
The now thriving field of neurophylogeny that links the morphology of the nervous system to early evolutionary events relies heavily on detailed descriptions of the neuronal architecture of taxa under scrutiny...
While the gene flow in some organisms is strongly affected by physical barriers and geographical distance, other highly mobile species are able to overcome such constraints. In southern South America, the Ande...
The spider Cupiennius salei (Keyserling 1877) has become an important study organism in evolutionary and developmental biology. However, the available staging system for its embryonic development is difficult to ...
Evolutionary arms-races between avian brood parasites and their hosts have typically resulted in some spectacular adaptations, namely remarkable host ability to recognize and reject alien eggs and, in turn, so...
Cooperation and conflict in social insects are closely linked to the genetic structure of the colony. Kin selection theory predicts conflict over the production of males between the workers and the queen and b...
Holocentrids (squirrelfish and soldierfish) are vocal reef fishes whose calls and sound-producing mechanisms have been studied in some species only. The present study aims to compare sound-producing mechanisms...
Ectoprocta is a large lophotrochozoan clade of colonial suspension feeders comprising over 5.000 extant species. Their phylogenetic position within the Lophotrochzoa remains controversially discussed, but also...
Dispersal rates, i.e. the effective number of dispersing individuals per unit time, are the product of dispersal capacity, i.e. a species physiological potential for dispersal, dispersal behaviour, i.e. the de...
Susceptibility to parasite infection affects fitness-related processes, such as mate choice and survival, yet its genetic regulation remains poorly understood. Interleukin-4 (IL4) plays a central role in the humo...
Rescuing amphibian diversity is an achievable conservation challenge. Disease mitigation is one essential component of population management. Here we assess existing disease mitigation strategies, some in earl...
The genetic structure of the marble trout Salmo trutta marmoratus, an endemic salmonid of northern Italy and the Balkan peninsula, was explored at the macro- and micro-scale level using a combination of mitochond...
Magnetic orientation is a taxonomically widespread phenomenon in the animal kingdom, but has been little studied in anuran amphibians. We collected Common Toads (Bufo bufo) during their migration towards their sp...
An opinion currently shared by taxonomists and non taxonomists alike is that the work of inventorying biodiversity is unbalanced: firstly, in favour of countries in which taxonomy has been studied for a long t...
The axial musculoskeletal system represents the plesiomorphic locomotor engine of the vertebrate body, playing a central role in locomotion. In craniates, the evolution of the postcranial skeleton is character...
The detailed interpretation of mass phenomena such as human escape panic or swarm behaviour in birds, fish and insects requires detailed analysis of the 3D movements of individual participants. Here, we descri...
There is a long-standing controversial about how parthenogenetic species can be defined in absence of a generally accepted species concept for this reproductive mode. An integrative approach was suggested, com...
Most species of birds exhibit well-defined seasonality in their various physiological and behavioral functions like reproduction, molt, bill color etc. such that they occur at the most appropriate time of the ...
The polychaete annelid Platynereis dumerilii is an emerging model organism for the study of molecular developmental processes, evolution, neurobiology and marine biology. Annelids belong to the Lophotrochozoa, th...
The nemertean pilidium is one of the most notable planktotrophic larval types among marine invertebrates. The juvenile forms inside the larva from a series of isolated rudiments, called the imaginal discs. The...
Invertebrate nervous systems are highly disparate between different taxa. This is reflected in the terminology used to describe them, which is very rich and often confusing. Even very general terms such as 'br...
Mating plugs that males place onto the female genital tract are generally assumed to prevent remating with other males. Mating plugs are usually explained as a consequence of male-male competition in multiply ...
Frontiers in Zoology