Land Use Change Consistently Reduces α- But Not β- and γ-Diversity of Bees.

Land use change threatens global biodiversity and compromises ecosystem functions, including pollination and food production. Reduced taxonomic α-diversity is often reported under land use change, yet the impacts could be different at larger spatial scales (i.e.

Genotypic variation in blueberry flower morphology and nectar reward content affects pollinator attraction in a diverse breeding population.

Background: Pollination is crucial to obtaining optimal blueberry yield and fruit quality. Despite substantial investments in seasonal beekeeping services, blueberry producers consistently report suboptimal pollinator visitation and fruit set in some cultivars. Flower morphology and floral rewards are among the key factors that have shown to contribute to pollinator attraction, however little is known about their relative importance for improving yield in the context of plant breeding.

How can residents protect and promote pollinators? The diffusion of residential pollinator-friendly gardening.

Urbanization and land use change are leading causes of declines in pollinator abundance and diversity. However, researchers in different regions of the world have found that some pollinators can thrive in urban landscapes, depending on land use practices, environmental conditions, and species traits. Residential landscapes constitute a significant portion of urban green space and thus, residents' adoption of landscape practices to promote pollinators can play a central role in addressing the global pollinator challenge.

Season of prescribed burns and management of an early successional species affect flower density and pollinator activity in a pine savanna ecosystem.

In the age of changing fire regimes, land managers often rely on prescribed burns to promote high diversity of herbaceous plants. Yet, little is known about how the timing of prescribed burns interacts with other ecological factors to maintain biodiversity while restoring fire-adapted ecosystems. We examined how timing of prescribed burns and removal of a dominant, early successional weedy plant yankeeweed () affect flower density and pollinator activity in an early-successional longleaf pine savanna restored from a timber plantation.

A specialist bee and its host plants experience phenological shifts at different rates in response to climate change.

Changes in climate can alter the phenology of organisms, potentially decoupling partners within mutualisms. Previous studies have shown that plant and pollinator phenologies are shifting over time, but these shifts have primarily been documented for generalists and within small geographic regions, and the specific climatic cues regulating these shifts are not well understood. We examined phenological shifts in a specialist pollinator and its host plant species over a 117-year study period using a digitized data set of more than 4000 unique collection records.

CropPol: A dynamic, open and global database on crop pollination.

Seventy five percent of the world's food crops benefit from insect pollination. Hence, there has been increased interest in how global change drivers impact this critical ecosystem service. Because standardized data on crop pollination are rarely available, we are limited in our capacity to understand the variation in pollination benefits to crop yield, as well as to anticipate changes in this service, develop predictions, and inform management actions.

Blueberry Yields Increase With Bee Visitation Rates, but Bee Visitation Rates are not Consistently Predicted by Colony Stocking Densities.

Pollinator-dependent crops rely on the activity of managed and wild pollinators. While farm management and surrounding landscape can influence wild pollinator contributions, managed pollinator contributions may be primarily driven by their stocking densities, though this is not well studied across crops. We selected 20 southern highbush blueberry farms along two independent gradients of honey bee Apis mellifera L.

A global synthesis reveals biodiversity-mediated benefits for crop production.

Human land use threatens global biodiversity and compromises multiple ecosystem functions critical to food production. Whether crop yield-related ecosystem services can be maintained by a few dominant species or rely on high richness remains unclear. Using a global database from 89 studies (with 1475 locations), we partition the relative importance of species richness, abundance, and dominance for pollination; biological pest control; and final yields in the context of ongoing land-use change.

Native Solitary Bees Provide Economically Significant Pollination Services to Confection Sunflowers (Helianthus annuus L.) (Asterales: Asteraceae) Grown Across the Northern Great Plains.

The benefits of insect pollination to crop yields depend on genetic and environmental factors including plant self-fertility, pollinator visitation rates, and pollinator efficacy. While many crops benefit from insect pollination, such variation in pollinator benefits across both plant cultivars and growing regions is not well documented. In this study, across three states in the northern Great Plains, United States, from 2016 to 2017, we evaluated the pollinator-mediated yield increases for 10 varieties of confection sunflowers, Helianthus annuus L.

[Universities and medicine].

History of universities with special emphasis on medicine as part of universities is presented as a short survey. Particular attention is thereby focused on the development of university based medical schools in Austria, especially in the city of Vienna. The importance of Abraham Flexner for both the US and european medical schools is recognized.

Using Nectar-Related Traits to Enhance Crop-Pollinator Interactions.

Floral nectar and other reward facilitate crop pollination, and in so doing, increase the amount and breadth of food available for humans. Though abundance and diversity of pollinators (particularly bees) have declined over the past several decades, a concomitant increase in reliance on pollinators presents a challenge to food production. Development of crop varieties with specific nectar or nectar-related traits to attract and retain pollinating insects is an appealing strategy to help address needs of agriculture and pollinators for several reasons.

Phenotypic integration in an extended phenotype: among-individual variation in nest-building traits of the alfalfa leafcutting bee (Megachile rotundata).

Structures such as nests and burrows are an essential component of many organisms' life-cycle and require a complex sequence of behaviours. Because behaviours can vary consistently among individuals and be correlated with one another, we hypothesized that these structures would (1) show evidence of among-individual variation, (2) be organized into distinct functional modules and (3) show evidence of trade-offs among functional modules due to limits on energy budgets. We tested these hypotheses using the alfalfa leafcutting bee, Megachile rotundata, a solitary bee and important crop pollinator.

Do managed bees have negative effects on wild bees?: A systematic review of the literature.

Managed bees are critical for crop pollination worldwide. As the demand for pollinator-dependent crops increases, so does the use of managed bees. Concern has arisen that managed bees may have unintended negative impacts on native wild bees, which are important pollinators in both agricultural and natural ecosystems.

Plant-Herbivore and Plant-Pollinator Interactions of the Developing Perennial Oilseed Crop, Silphium integrifolium.

Sampling in Kansas and North Dakota documented the plant-herbivore and plant-pollinator interactions of the developing perennial oilseed crop, Silphium integrifolium Michx. The larva of the tortricid moth, Eucosma giganteana (Riley), was the most damaging floret- and seed-feeding pest in Kansas, with infested heads producing ≈85% (2015) or ≈45% (2016) fewer seeds than apparently undamaged heads. Necrosis of apical meristems caused stunting and delayed bloom in Kansas; though the source of the necrosis is not known, observations of the tarnished plant bug, Lygus lineolaris (Palisot de Beauvois; Hemiptera: Miridae), in S.

A global synthesis of the effects of diversified farming systems on arthropod diversity within fields and across agricultural landscapes.

Agricultural intensification is a leading cause of global biodiversity loss, which can reduce the provisioning of ecosystem services in managed ecosystems. Organic farming and plant diversification are farm management schemes that may mitigate potential ecological harm by increasing species richness and boosting related ecosystem services to agroecosystems. What remains unclear is the extent to which farm management schemes affect biodiversity components other than species richness, and whether impacts differ across spatial scales and landscape contexts.

Methyl salicylate attracts natural enemies and reduces populations of soybean aphids (Hemiptera: Aphididae) in soybean agroecosystems.

Methyl salicylate, an herbivore-induced plant volatile, has been shown to attract natural enemies and affect herbivore behavior. In this study, methyl salicylate was examined for its attractiveness to natural enemies of the soybean aphid, Aphis glycines Matsumura (Hemiptera: Aphididae), and for its direct effects on soybean aphid population growth rates. Methyl salicylate lures were deployed in plots within organic soybean [Glycine max (L.

Small plot trials documenting effective mating disruption of oriental fruit moth by using high densities of wax-drop pheromone dispensers.

In 2004 field experiments, we compared the effectiveness of various deployment densities of 0.1-ml paraffin wax drops containing 5% pheromone versus Isomate M-Rosso "rope" dispensers for disruption of Grapholita molesta (Busck). Treatments were evaluated in 0.

Tissue damage at anterior capsule edges after continuous curvilinear capsulorhexis, high-frequency capsulotomy, and erbium:YAG laser capsulotomy.

Purpose: To compare the effect of erbium:YAG laser photocapsulotomy (ELC), continuous curvilinear capsulorhexis (CCC), and high-frequency capsulotomy (HFC) on anterior capsule edges using light microscopy (LM) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM).

Setting: Department of Ophthalmology, Department of Histology and Embryology II, University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria.

Methods: Five anterior capsule membranes were obtained experimentally by ELC, which was performed with the Oertli MicroLaser photoemulsification tip in eyes from 5 human cadavers.

Effects of 1alpha,25-dihydroxy-vitamin D3 pretreatment and MAP kinase inhibitor PD 98059 on response of osteoblasts to prostate-derived osteoblastic factors.

Prostate carcinoma-derived factors induce a proliferative response in osteoblasts. The present study investigated the involvement of MAP kinase in the osteoblastic reaction of osteocytes and the response of 1alpha,25-hydroxy-vitamin D3 (1,25-vitD3)-pretreated osteoblasts. Conditioned media (CM) from prostate, colon, pancreatic, renal cell and breast cancer cell lines were tested on their proliferative activity using murine osteoblast-like MC3T3-E1 cells, MG63 human osteosarcoma cells and immortalized human osteoblasts (AHTO-7).

Quinaprilat during cardioplegic arrest in the rabbit to prevent ischemia-reperfusion injury.

Objectives: This study evaluated intracardiac angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibition as an adjuvant to cardioplegia and examined its effects on hemodynamic, metabolic, and ultrastructural postischemic outcomes.

Methods: The experiments were performed with an isolated, erythrocyte-perfused, rabbit working-heart model. The hearts excised from 29 adult New Zealand White rabbits (2950 +/- 200 g) were randomly assigned to four groups.

Interlacing of collagen lamellae in the midstroma of the human cornea.

Purpose: To investigate by means of scanning electron microscopy (SEM) the interlacing of collagen lamellae in the midstroma of the human cornea after opening the interlamellar spaces.

Material And Methods: For SEM, cells and noncollagenous extracellular matrix were removed with 10% sodium hydroxide. Specimens were dehydrated in a series of graded tertiary butanols, frozen at -24 degrees C and dried in an exsiccator by sublimation of the frozen butanol.

Modulation of CD99/MIC2 expression of human AHTO-7 osteoblasts by carcinoma cell line-conditioned media.

Background: Prostate cancer metastases induce a predominantly osteoblastic response in bone tissue, resulting in new bone formation and associated morbidity; however, the mechanisms of these tumor-host responses are not fully understood.

Materials And Methods: Supernatants of prostate (PC3, DU145, LNCaP), breast (BT20, ZR-75-1), colon (SW620, Colo 320DM), pancreatic (ASPC1, Capan-1), renal cell (ACHN) and hepatoma (HepG2) cell lines were tested for their capacity to modulate proliferation, activity of alkaline phosphatase (ALP) and CD99/MIC2 expression in AHTO-7 (large T antigen transfected human trabecular osteoblasts) cells in vitro.

Results: Osteoblastic stimulation is not restricted to prostate cancer derived conditioned media CM and high activity is found in CM from Capan-1, HepG2 and ACHN lines.

Diltiazem during reperfusion preserves high energy phosphates by protection of mitochondrial integrity.

Objective: This study evaluates the effects of diltiazem administered during reperfusion on hemodynamic, metabolic, and ultrastructural postischemic outcome.

Methods: Hearts of 38 adult White New Zealand rabbits underwent 60 min of global cold ischemia followed by 40 min of reperfusion in an erythrocyte perfused isolated working heart model. Hearts were randomly assigned to four groups and received diltiazem (0.

Light and electron microscopic study of stress-shielding effects on rat patellar tendon.

In this second part of our study, the histomorphologic changes occurring in the patellar tendon (PT) of rats after sole stress-shielding were evaluated. In seven adult albino rats, both PTs were exposed by straight skin incision and then stress-shielded on one side by a cerclage, while the contralateral PT served as the sham-operated control. One animal died after the operation and was used as a negative control.