Seasonal variation of vessel pits in sapwood: microscopical analyses of the morphology and chemical components of pit membrane encrustations in Fraxinus mandschurica.

Background And Aims: Pit pairs and their filter-like partition, i.e. pit membranes, play important roles as water pathways, barriers and regulators in the water-conducting system of angiosperms.

Formation of xylem tissues and secondary cell walls is diminished by severe and consecutive insect defoliation.

Premise: Insect defoliation of trees causes unusual changes to wood anatomy and slows radial growth that decreases tree value; however, the characteristics of these anatomical changes in hardwoods remain unclear. The aim of this study was to characterize the anatomy and histochemistry of the wood in trunks of Betula maximowicziana trees after severe insect defoliation.

Methods: Secondary xylem tissues were sampled from trunks that had been defoliated by Caligula japonica at Naie and Furano in central Hokkaido during 2006-2012, then cross-dated and examined microscopically and stained histochemically to characterize anatomical and chemical changes in the cells.

Yeast associated with flower longicorn beetle Leptura ochraceofasciata (Cerambycidae: Lepturinae), with implication for its function in symbiosis.

Wood is difficult for most animals to digest due to large amounts of indigestible polymers, but some wood-feeding insects are considered to be able to utilize it as food with the aid of microbial symbionts. Most members of flower longicorn beetles (Coleoptera: Cerambycidae: Lepturinae) feed on nectar and pollen of flowers as adults and wood as larvae. In some lepturines, associations with yeasts are known: female adults possess fungus-storing organs (termed mycetangia) at ovipositors, and larvae also possess such organs (termed mycetomes) in their midguts to carry the associated yeasts.

Kestose supplementation exerts bifidogenic effect within fecal microbiota and increases fecal butyrate concentration in dogs.

Kestose, a fructooligosaccharide (FOS) with one fructose monomer linked to sucrose, is a key component of the prebiotic activity of FOS. This study aimed to evaluate the prebiotic potential of Kestose in terms of the impact on population change in the intestinal microbiota and fecal short-chain fatty acid (SCFA) concentration in dogs. Kestose 2 g per dog was administered daily with conventional diet to 6 healthy, adult beagle dogs for 8 weeks followed by 4 weeks of follow-up period without Kestose supplementation.