Distribution and habitat use by the Audouin's Gull (Ichthyaetus audouinii) in anthropized environments.

Human activities provide wildlife with highly abundant and predictable food subsidies, which can affect population dynamics and have wide-ranging ecological impacts. A key ecological question is how species adapt their foraging behaviour to capitalize on these new feeding opportunities. We investigate habitat use by Audouin's Gulls (Ichthyaetus audouinii) off the Western Mediterranean Sea, an opportunistic seabird that has recently expanded to diverse breeding colonies subjected to varying degrees of human influence.

Real-time quantitative RT-PCR for human telomere elongation reverse transcriptase in chronic myeloid leukemia.

Telomeres cap chromosome ends and are pivotal for DNA stability. Deregulation of the telomere stabilising enzyme telomerase in malignancy has implications in diagnosis, prognosis and therapeutics of cancer. Quantification of the expression of the telomerase catalytic subunit, hTERT, using the LightCycler TeloTAGGG hTERT Quantification kit is not optimal for analysis of chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) samples.

Real-time quantitative PCR of telomere length.

Telomeres cap the ends of chromosomes and are essential for the protection of chromosomes, as well as restricting the replicative potential of a cell. These functions are achieved by the regulation of telomeric repeat length, making the measurement of telomere length a useful aid in the elucidation of the replicative history and potential of cells. Previously published techniques employed either hybridization or flow cytometry methods, which are technically demanding and time-consuming.