Offspring may succeed well next to their relatives, but it needs particular traits.

Background And Aims: There is ongoing debate about whether offspring perform best next to phylogenetically distantly related adult neighbours (due to the scarcity of enemies and competitors) or next to closely related adults (due to the abundance of mutualists). Here we hypothesise that relatedness of adult neighbours affects which traits confer performance rather than performance itself.

Methods: We studied seed removal, seed germination and sapling growth in Sessile Oaks (Quercus petraea and hybrids), and how they depend on size, shape and other traits, under both closely and distantly related canopies, manipulating offspring-density, presence of insects, and fungi, and spatial proximity to oaks.

Seeds and seedlings of oaks suffer from mammals and molluscs close to phylogenetically isolated, old adults.

Background And Aims: Mammals and molluscs (MaM) are abundant herbivores of tree seeds and seedlings, but how the trees and their environment affect MaM herbivory has been little studied. MaM tend to move much larger distances during the feeding stage than the more frequently studied insect herbivores. We hypothesize that MaM (1) select and stay within the patches that promise to be relatively the richest in seeds and seedlings, i.

Mastomys natalensis, Cricetomys gambianus and Taterillus sp. were found PCR positive for Leishmania major in Burkina Faso, West Africa.

Ouagadougou, the capital city of Burkina Faso, was recognized as a focus of zoonotic cutaneous leishmaniosis in April 2000. Leishmania major was the only strain isolated in this focus. We conducted a prospective study to detect L.

Frequency of drug resistance gene amplification in clinical leishmania strains.

Experimental studies about Leishmania resistance to metal and antifolates have pointed out that gene amplification is one of the main mechanisms of drug detoxification. Amplified genes code for adenosine triphosphate-dependent transporters (multidrug resistance and P-glycoproteins P), enzymes involved in trypanothione pathway, particularly gamma glutamyl cysteine synthase, and others involved in folates metabolism, such as dihydrofolate reductase and pterine reductase. The aim of this study was to detect and quantify the amplification of these genes in clinical strains of visceral leishmaniasis agents: Leishmania infantum, L.

Sandflies of the south part of Ouagadougou City, Burkina Faso.

Since 1996, the number of cases of cutaneous leishmaniasis has increased dramatically in Ouagadougou. Leishmania major, zymodeme MON74 was the only strain isolated in this focus. An epidemiological study of the phlebotomine sandflies fauna has been undertaken.