Photoregulatory functions drive variation in eye coloration across macaque species.

Primates, the most colorful mammalian radiation, have previously served as an interesting model to test the functions and evolutionary drivers of variation in eye color. We assess the contribution of photo-regulatory and communicative functions to the external eye appearance of nine macaque species representing all the branches of their radiation. Macaques' well described social structure and wide geographical distribution make them interesting to explore.

Identification of unique highly hetero-substituted benzenes as chemical weapons of springtails by a combination of trace analytical methods with DFT calculations and synthesis.

Springtails (Collembola) are important members of the soil mesofauna. They are small, often less than 1-2 mm in length. A typical escape response of most surface-living species is to jump, using their furca.

The unique epicuticular chemistry of Collembola - A cross-species analysis.

Springtails (Collembola), tiny hexapod arthropods, are abundant in the soil of most ecosystems, but our knowledge of their secondary metabolites is limited, in contrast to that of insects. In insects, the outer cuticle is usually covered by mixtures of long-chain hydrocarbons serving different functions, such as water regulation or chemical communication. In contrast, the knowledge of the epicuticular chemistry of springtails is scarce.

Opening up new niche dimensions: The stoichiometry of soil microarthropods in European beech and Norway spruce forests.

Niche theory fundamentally contributed to the understanding of animal diversity. However, in soil, the diversity of animals seems enigmatic since the soil is a rather homogeneous habitat, and soil animals are often generalist feeders. A new approach to understand soil animal diversity is the use of ecological stoichiometry.

Trophic ecology of three marine polychaete species: Evidence from laboratory experiments using stable isotope (N, C), fatty acid (NLFA) analyses, and C and N stoichiometry.

Marine polychaetes are a highly diverse taxon with a large variety of different feeding modes. A proper identification of the different diets of polychaete species and their trophic position in the food web is crucial for understanding their interactions in marine ecosystems as well as marine community dynamics. Since gut content analyses and feeding experiments are difficult to conduct in marine habitats, other methods using biochemical tracers may contribute to a better understanding of the trophic ecology of marine polychaetes.

Bonobo mothers have elevated urinary cortisol levels during early but not mid or late lactation.

In mammals, the costs of reproduction are biased towards females. Lactation is particularly energetically expensive, and behavioral and physiological data indicate that maternal effort during lactation induces energetic stress. Another source of stress in females is male aggression directed towards them when they are cycling.

Response of arboreal Collembola communities to the conversion of lowland rainforest into rubber and oil palm plantations.

Background: In the last decades, Southeast Asia has experienced massive conversion of rainforest into rubber and oil palm monoculture plantations. The effects of this land-use change on canopy arthropods are still largely unknown. Arboreal Collembola are among the most abundant canopy arthropods in tropical forests, potentially forming a major component of the canopy food web by contributing to the decomposition of arboreal litter and being an important prey for canopy arthropod predators.

Differences in leaf and root litter decomposition in tropical montane rainforests are mediated by soil microorganisms not by decomposer microarthropods.

Background: Plant litter decomposition is a key process in carbon and nutrient cycling. Among the factors determining litter decomposition rates, the role of soil biota in the decomposition of different plant litter types and its modification by variations in climatic conditions is not well understood.

Methods: In this study, we used litterbags with different mesh sizes (45 µm, 1 mm and 4 mm) to investigate the effect of microorganisms and decomposer microarthropods on leaf and root litter decomposition along an altitudinal gradient of tropical montane rainforests in Ecuador.

"Jack-of-all-trades" is parthenogenetic.

Sex is evolutionarily more costly than parthenogenesis, evolutionary ecologists therefore wonder why sex is much more frequent than parthenogenesis in the majority of animal lineages. Intriguingly, parthenogenetic individuals and species are as common as or even more common than sexuals in some major and putative ancient animal lineages such as oribatid mites and rotifers. Here, we analyzed oribatid mites (Acari: Oribatida) as a model group because these mites are ancient (early Paleozoic), widely distributed around the globe, and include a high number of parthenogenetic species, which often co-exist with sexual oribatid mite species.

Biotic filtering by species' interactions constrains food-web variability across spatial and abiotic gradients.

Despite intensive research on species dissimilarity patterns across communities (i.e. β-diversity), we still know little about their implications for variation in food-web structures.

Dispersal patterns of oribatid mites across habitats and seasons.

Oribatid mites are tiny arthropods that are common in all soils of the world; however, they also occur in microhabitats above the soil such as lichens, mosses, on the bark of trees and in suspended soils. For understanding oribatid mite community structure, it is important to know whether they are dispersal limited. The aim of this study was to investigate the importance of oribatid mite dispersal using Malaise traps to exclude sole passive wind-dispersal.

Leaf litter identity rather than diversity shapes microbial functions and microarthropod abundance in tropical montane rainforests.

In tropical forest ecosystems leaf litter from a large variety of species enters the decomposer system, however, the impact of leaf litter diversity on the abundance and activity of soil organisms during decomposition is little known. We investigated the effect of leaf litter diversity and identity on microbial functions and the abundance of microarthropods in Ecuadorian tropical montane rainforests. We used litterbags filled with leaves of six native tree species (, , , , , and spp.

Repeated convergent evolution of parthenogenesis in Acariformes (Acari).

The existence of old species-rich parthenogenetic taxa is a conundrum in evolutionary biology. Such taxa point to ancient parthenogenetic radiations resulting in morphologically distinct species. Ancient parthenogenetic taxa have been proposed to exist in bdelloid rotifers, darwinulid ostracods, and in several taxa of acariform mites (Acariformes, Acari), especially in oribatid mites (Oribatida, Acari).

Selective attention for affiliative and agonistic interactions of dominants and close affiliates in macaques.

Monitoring conspecifics is a crucial process in social learning and a building block of social cognition. Selective attention to social stimuli results from interactions of subject and stimulus characteristics with dominance rank often emerging as an important predictor. We extend previous research by providing as stimuli naturally occurring affiliative interactions between group members instead of pictorial or auditory representations of conflicts, and by extending to the affiliative relationship, i.

Oribatid mites reveal that competition for resources and trophic structure combine to regulate the assembly of diverse soil animal communities.

The role of niche partitioning in structuring species-rich soil animal communities has been debated for decades and generated the "enigma of soil animal diversity." More recently, resource-based niche partitioning has been hypothesized to play a very limited role in the assembly of soil animal communities. To test this hypothesis, we applied a novel combination of stable isotopes and null models of species co-occurrence to quantify the extent of resource niche partitioning on a diverse oribatid mite community sampled from mature oak woodland.

Parthenogenetic . sexual reproduction in oribatid mite communities.

The dominance of sex in Metazoa is enigmatic. Sexual species allocate resources to the production of males, while potentially facing negative effects such as the loss of well-adapted genotypes due to recombination, and exposure to diseases and predators during mating. Two major hypotheses have been put forward to explain the advantages of parthenogenetic versus sexual reproduction in animals, that is, the Red Queen hypothesis and the Tangled Bank/Structured Resource Theory of Sex.

Online LI-rTMS during a Visual Learning Task: Differential Impacts on Visual Circuit and Behavioral Plasticity in Adult Ephrin-A2A5 Mice.

Repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) induces plasticity in normal and abnormal neural circuitries, an effect that may be influenced by intrinsic brain activity during treatment. Here, we study potential synergistic effects between low-intensity rTMS (LI-rTMS) and concurrent neural activity in promoting circuit reorganization and enhancing visual behavior. We used ephrin-A2A5 mice, which are known to possess visuotopic mapping errors that are ameliorated by LI-rTMS, and assessed the impact of stimulation when mice were engaged in a visual learning task.

Priorities for research in soil ecology.

The ecological interactions that occur in and with soil are of consequence in many ecosystems on the planet. These interactions provide numerous essential ecosystem services, and the sustainable management of soils has attracted increasing scientific and public attention. Although soil ecology emerged as an independent field of research many decades ago, and we have gained important insights into the functioning of soils, there still are fundamental aspects that need to be better understood to ensure that the ecosystem services that soils provide are not lost and that soils can be used in a sustainable way.

Patterns of oribatid mite species diversity: testing the effects of elevation, area and sampling effort.

Elevational gradients in species diversity and species area relationships are two well established patterns that are not mutually exclusive in space and time. Elevation and area are both considered as good proxies to detect and characterize the patterns of species diversity distribution. However, such studies are hampered by the incomplete biodiversity data available for ecologists, which may affect the pattern perceptions.

Oribatid mite species numbers increase, densities decline and parthenogenetic species suffer during bog degradation.

This study compared the oribatid mites in two natural and four industrially exploited bogs. One natural bog (Zakręt, Z) was located in northeastern Poland and the other one (Toporowy Staw Niżni, TSN), in southern Poland. The four exploited bogs were also located in southern Poland and can be ranked from least to most degraded as follows: Łysa Puścizna (LP), Baligówka (B), Puścizna Mała (PM) and Kaczmarka (K).

A review of the research on Canary Islands praying mantises (Mantodea).

For many years researchers studying the fauna of the Canary Islands have only sparsely treated the charismatic insect order of praying mantises (Mantodea). By studying the known literature it becomes obvious that there are several inconsistencies regarding mantodean taxonomy as well as the number of actual species and their distribution within the archipelago. In the present contribution, the literature treating the Canary Island Mantodea fauna is thoroughly reviewed, and the distribution of the ten known Mantodea species is presented with additional comments on the taxonomic problems.

True katydids (Pseudophyllinae) from Guadeloupe: acoustic signals and functional considerations of song production.

Guadeloupe, the largest of the Leeward Islands, harbors three species of Pseudophyllinae (Orthoptera: Tettigoniidae) belonging to distinct tribes. This study examined the basic aspects of sound production and acousto-vibratory behavior of these species. As the songs of many Pseudophyllinae are complex and peak at high frequencies, they require high quality recordings.