Lineage-specific plastid degradation in subtribe Gentianinae (Gentianaceae).

The structure and sequence of plastid genomes is highly conserved across most land plants, except for a minority of lineages that show gene loss and genome degradation. Understanding the early stages of plastome degradation may provide crucial insights into the repeatability and predictability of genomic evolutionary trends. We investigated these trends in subtribe Gentianinae of the Gentianaceae, which encompasses ca.

Difference in diel mating time contributes to assortative mating between host plant-associated populations of Chilo suppressalis.

Behavioral isolation in animals can be mediated by inherent mating preferences and assortative traits, such as divergence in the diel timing of mating activity. Although divergence in the diel mating time could, in principle, promote the reproductive isolation of sympatric, conspecific populations, there is currently no unequivocal evidence of this. We conducted different mate-choice experiments to investigate the contribution of differences in diel mating activity to the reproductive isolation of the rice and water-oat populations of Chilo suppressalis.

Thermal effects on development and adult longevity of endoparasitoid Chelonus murakatae Munakata (Hymenoptera: Braconidae).

The effects of temperature on the development duration and longevity of adult of Chelonus murakatae were studied under five constant temperatures including 22.5, 25, 27.5, 30 and 32.

Do differences in life-history traits and the timing of peak mating activity between host-associated populations of Chilo suppressalis have a genetic basis?

The development of host races, genetically distinct populations of the same species with different hosts, is considered to be the initial stage of ecological speciation. Ecological and biological differences consistent with host race formation have been reported between water-oat and rice-associated populations of Chilo suppressalis. In order to confirm whether these differences have a genetic basis, we conducted experiments to determine the extent to which various life-history traits and the time of peak mating activity of these populations were influenced by the species of host plant larvae were raised on.

General Assembly of Twisted Trigonal-Prismatic Nonanuclear Silver(I) Clusters.

A general class of C3 -symmetric Ag9 clusters, [Ag9 S(tBuC6 H4 S)6 (dpph)3 (CF3 SO3 )] (1), [Ag9 (tBuC6 H4 S)6 (dpph)3 (CF3 SO3 )2 ]⋅CF3 SO3 (2), [Ag9 (tBuC6 H4 S)6 (dpph)3 (NO3 )2 ] ⋅NO3 (3), and [Ag9 (tBuC6 H4 S)7 (dpph)3 (Mo2 O7 )0.5 ]2 ⋅2 CF3 COO (4) (dpph=1,6-bis(diphenylphosphino)hexane), with a twisted trigonal-prism geometry was isolated by the reaction of polymeric {(HNEt3 )2 [Ag10 (tBuC6 H4 S)12 ]}n , 1,6-bis(diphenylphosphino)hexane, and various silver salts under solvothermal conditions. The structures consist of discrete clusters constructed from a girdling Ag9 twisted trigonal prism with the top and bottom trigonal faces capped by diverse anions (i.