New fossil species Mickoleitia longimanus is described from the Lower Cretaceous limestone in Brazil. It is attributed to a new family Mickoleitiidae and a new fossil insect order Coxoplectoptera within the palaeopterous Ephemerida.
This study provides direct evidence for the essential role of proline in high freeze tolerance in the drosophiliid fly, Chymomyza costata.
Replacement of larval epidermal cells (the larger cells) with new adult cells during metamorphosis of the fly Drosophila requires downregulation of the atf3 gene
Entrance into diapause represents a case of phenotypic plasticity which is based on a deep change of gene transcription. Among others, the transcription of genes coding for heat shock proteins of the family Hsp70 kDa is also altered. We assessed the competence of the bugs for responding to heat- and cold-stresses by up-regulation of these genes.
The book presents a collection of studies on the Lepidoptera, as specialized insects with distinctive features and as model systems for carrying out cutting-edge research. Leading researchers provide an evolutionary framework for placing moths and butterflies on the Tree of Life. The book covers progress in deciphering the silkworm genome and unravelling lepidopteran sex chromosomes.
Our studies in Papua New Guinea, which included sampling tens of thousands of herbivorous insects from their host plants, testing their feeding preferences in the laboratory and - in case of larvae - their rearing to adults, demonstrated that there are relatively few strictly specialised herbivores in tropical rainforests.
Our study of approximately 500 species from three herbivorous guilds feeding on foliage (caterpillars, Lepidoptera), wood (ambrosia beetles, Coleoptera) and fruit (fruitflies, Diptera) found a low rate of change in species composition (beta diversity) across 75,000 km² of contiguous lowland rainforest in Papua New Guinea, as most species were widely distributed.
Given that many animals are sexually dimorphic and many predators hunt their prey based on its size, conspicuousness or behaviour, sex-selective predation should be widespread. In an article recently published in PloS ONE, David Boukal, Luděk Berec and Vlastimil Křivan from the Department of Theoretical Ecology highlight that this phenomenon is surprisingly poorly covered in the research on...
For the first time, chemical nature of an oviposition-deterring pheromone was identified in predatory insects by the use of bioassay guided fractionation. Active oviposition-deterring component in tracks of the aphidophagous coccinellid, Cheilomenes sexmaculata larvae, was (Z)-pentacos-12-ene. The alkaloid coccinelline and saturated hydrocarbons that occur in larval tracks and in the extract of...
Ecologists commonly work with the concepts of competition and negative density dependence. Negative density dependence means that with increasing population size Darwinian fitness of each its member declines. Competition for common resources is one of the mechanisms causing such dependence. It appears, however, that especially at low population sizes where competition is weak this does not need...
