Lake Edward, East Africa, harbours a largely understudied assemblage of haplochromine cichlids that displays a range of adaptions to various specialised trophic niches. In this system, we discovered specimens of Haplochromis with morphologies similar to those of oral-mollusc shellers from Lake Victoria. These morphologies are characterised by short oral jaws with stout teeth that are used either to crush molluscs or to grab the soft bodies of snails and wrench them out of their shells. A morphometric study on 47 specimens from Lake Edward revealed the presence of three new species with an oral-shelling morphology: Haplochromis concilians sp. nov., H. erutus sp. nov. and H. planus sp. nov. All three species are formally described. Stomach-content observations confirmed an opportunistic oral-shelling ecology for H. concilians sp. nov. and H. erutus sp. nov. Within H. planus sp. nov., only large specimens displayed a specialised oral-shelling morphology, but their stomachs were nearly empty, while small specimens consumed mainly Ostracoda and Hydrachnidia. Remarkably, the three species differed considerably in morphology from each other, but they each resembled oral-sheller species from Lake Victoria.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/jfb.14107 | DOI Listing |
PLoS One
January 2025
Entomology & Biothreat Management Division, Defense Research Laboratory (DRL-DRDO), Tezpur, Assam, India.
Cotton leaf curl disease (CLCuD) is a major constraint for production of cotton (Gossypium sp.) in Northwest India. CLCuD is caused by a monopartite, circular ssDNA virus belonging to the genus Begomovirus in association with betasatellites and alphasatellites, and ttransmitted by a whitefly vector (Bemisia tabaci).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPlanta
January 2025
Key Laboratory of Chemical Biology of Natural Products, Ministry of Education, School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Shandong University, Jinan, 250012, Shandong, China.
The evolutionary conservation of type III polyketide synthases (PKS) in Selaginella has been elucidated, and the critical amino acid residues of the anther-specific chalcone synthase-like enzyme (SmASCL) have been identified. Selaginella species are the oldest known vascular plants and a valuable resource for the study of metabolic evolution in land plants. Polyketides, especially flavonoids and sporopollenin precursors, are essential prerequisites for plant land colonization.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFEnviron Sci Pollut Res Int
January 2025
Department of Chemical Engineering, Amirkabir University of Technology (Tehran Polytechnic), Tehran, 15875-4413, Iran.
This study presents a novel, eco-friendly method for removing methyldiethanolamine (MDEA) from wastewater, addressing its environmental impact and elevated chemical oxygen demand (COD) from gas refineries. We employed two wetland plants, Phragmites australis and Typha latifolia, utilizing a hydroponics approach to assess MDEA removal efficiency. Wastewater samples from the Ilam gas refinery in Iran were tested at varying initial concentrations (50 to 1600 ppm) over three consecutive 7-day periods, with a 1-day rest interval.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFJ Am Chem Soc
January 2025
Merck Center for Catalysis at Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey 08544, United States.
The direct synthesis of C(sp)-rich architectures is a driving force for innovation in synthetic organic chemistry. Such scaffolds impart beneficial properties onto drug molecules that correlate with greater clinical success. Consequently, there is a strong impetus to develop new methods by which to access sp-rich molecules from commercial feedstocks, such as alkenes.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: With the approval of several anti-amyloid antibodies and a robust pipeline of new amyloid-based therapies, attention turns towards questions related to real-world clinical practice. Here we explore the impact of several biological pathways on the amyloid biomarker response of AD patients using a Quantitative Systems Pharmacology (QSP) approach with the ultimate objective to find measurable biomarkers for responder identification.
Method: Using a well-validated QSP biophysically realistic model of amyloid aggregation, we performed sensitivity analysis to identify key drivers of amyloid biomarkers both in a longitudinal observational context and after treatment with specific amyloid antibodies.
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