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Organisms show an incredibly diverse array of body and organ shapes that are both unique to their taxon and important for adapting to their environment. Achieving these specific shapes involves coordinating th...
In Camponotus sericeus (Fabricius), foraging ants are recruited mostly as individuals but occasionally as small groups that move in a single file. We studied the structure and organization of these small foraging...
Aggressive interactions between bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus) and harbor porpoises (Phocoena phocoena) have been reported in different parts of the world since the late 1990s. In the Baltic Sea, harbor...
Many animals in coral reefs exhibit lunar cycles in their reproduction, showing synchronous gametogenesis and spawning at a particular moon phase. How these lunar reproductive cycles are endogenously regulated...
To effectively conserve migratory species, the entire range encompassed by their annual life cycle needs to be considered. Most research on Nearctic-Neotropical migratory birds has focused on the breeding grou...
Postcopulatory mate choice occurs ubiquitously in the animal kingdom. However, it is usually a major challenge to visualise the process taking place in a body. This fact makes it difficult to understand the me...
Natural enemy abundance in a crop plot depends on its prey presence and also influenced by habitats close to field. Landscape changes are also important factors driving pest and natural enemy population abunda...
The ability to imitate sounds depends on a process called vocal production learning, a rare evolutionary trait. In addition to the few mammalian groups that possess this ability, vocal production learning has ...
Increases in global mean temperature, changes in rainfall patterns, and extreme climatic events are expected results of climate change. The individual effects of elevated temperature and precipitation on insec...
The mechanism by which sea anemones attach to surfaces underwater remains elusive, which is surprising given their ubiquitous distribution in the world’s oceans and tractability for experimental biology. Their...
Sexual behavior in Drosophila melanogaster flies is greatly influenced by chemical cues. In this study, a spatial distribution of female and male sex pheromones was investigated on the surface of virgin and mated...
Cleptoparasitic bees are less commonly collected than their hosts and often more difficult to identify and additional descriptions and treatment of diagnostic characteristics are needed.
Non-invasive biomarkers can facilitate health assessments in wild primate populations by reducing the need for direct access to animals. Neopterin is a biomarker that is a product of the cell-mediated immune r...
Habitat loss is a key threat to the survival of many species. Habitat selection studies provide key information for conservation initiatives by identifying important habitat and anthropogenic characteristics i...
Suction organs provide powerful yet dynamic attachments for many aquatic animals, including octopus, squid, remora, and clingfish. While the functional morphology of suction organs from some cephalopods and fi...
Roads have major ecological impacts on wildlife. Vehicle collisions most frequently impact large herbivores due to their larger home range compared to smaller animals, and higher population density compared to...
The morphological structures of organisms form tightly integrated but mutually independent character complexes (modules) linked through common development and function. Even though their abundance, diversity, ...
Males of the microscopic annelid family Dinophilidae use their prominent glandomuscular copulatory organ (penis) to enzymatically dissolve the female’s epidermis and thereafter inject sperm. In order to test f...
Very little is known about the temporal or spatial movement patterns of Chinese giant salamanders (Andrias davidianus) due to their rarity, remote habitat and secretive nature. Commercial breeding farms provide a...
Nematodes are an important component of deep-sea hydrothermal vent communities, but only few nematode species are able to cope to the harsh conditions of the most active vent sites. The genus Oncholaimus is known...
Expansion of brain tissue and development of advanced cognitive skills are characteristic traits of human evolution. Their emergence has been causally linked to the intake of nutrients that promote brain devel...
The Neotropics are considered to represent one of the most biologically diverse areas on Earth. Nonetheless, many species are assumed to have widespread distributions and occur in the entire Neotropical range....
Declining amphibian populations around the world necessitate the establishment of captive assurance colonies as a hedge against extinction. For species that are difficult to breed in captivity, assisted reprod...
Ecological immunology proposes that the optimal immune defence, and the costs coming with it, vary across environments. In environments with higher pathogen load, the immune system should experience greater ch...
The animal ecology literature proposes the view that predation risk induces fear in prey animals, but it is also possible that behavioral and physiological changes induced by predation risk are not associated ...
Modifications of the ovipositor appear to have played a prominent role in defining the host range of parasitoid hymenopterans, highlighting an important contributing factor in shaping their oviposition strateg...
Greater complexity of the learned vocal repertoire has been shown to increase mating and territory defence success in songbirds. Vocal learning in some songbird species begins in the egg and these songbird emb...
The red-tailed phascogale is a ‘Near Threatened’ dasyurid marsupial. Males are semelparous and die off shortly after the breeding season in the wild due to a stress-related syndrome, which has many physiologic...
A common life cycle pattern in benthic-dwelling taxa in the ocean is an obligate pre-competent dispersal period of microscopic propagules followed by their entry into a competent period, during which they are cap...
Hibernation allows animals to survive periods of resource scarcity by reducing their energy expenditure through decreased metabolism. However, hibernators become susceptible to psychrophilic pathogens if they ...
Oribatid mites are among the primordial decomposer faunal elements and potential prey organisms in soil. Among their myriad morphological defenses are strong sclerotization and mineralization, cuticular tecta,...
Many intriguing questions about predator-prey interactions can be addressed by using clay models of prey animals. These are placed in the field to test predators’ avoidances or preferences (testing e.g. color ...
In eusocial animal colonies, individuals from different castes often play divergent behavioral roles and confront distinct cognitive demands. Neuroecology theory predicts variation in cognitive demands will co...
Small crustaceans in the order Anostraca that lack a carapace are commonly referred to as fairy shrimps. Eubranchipus is an Anostracan genus distributed across the Holarctic region. E. uchidai has been recorded o...
The Palaearctic butterfly genus Pseudophilotes Beuret, 1958 (Lycaenidae: Polyommatinae), that today occurs in North Africa and in Eurasia, includes ten described species with various distribution ranges, includin...
Retention of genetic diversity and demographic sustainability are the cornerstones of conservation breeding success. In theory, monogamous breeding with equal reproductive output will retain genetic diversity ...
Insect diapause is associated with physiological dormancy, extension of life span and an altered developmental programme. Reactive oxygen species, oxidative damaged products and antioxidants are being increasi...
Tiger populations have declined globally due to poaching, prey depletion, and habitat loss. The westernmost tiger population of Ranthambhore in India is typified by bottlenecks, small size, and isolation; prob...
Small mammals are important reservoirs for pathogens in military conflicts and peacekeeping operations all over the world. This study investigates the rodent communities in three military bases in Northern Afg...
In this study, we report the first case of a male reef manta ray, Mobula alfredi, becoming sexually mature in captivity and present its reproductive characteristics.
Agrochemicals are widely used in many parts of the world posing direct and indirect threats to organisms. Xenobiotic-related disease susceptibility is a common phenomenon and a proposed cause of amphibian decl...
Emerging infectious diseases in wildlife are an increasing threat to global biodiversity. White-nose syndrome (WNS) in bats is one of the most recently emerged infectious diseases in North America, causing mas...
Recent phylogenies of deer mice, genus Peromyscus, have relied heavily on mitochondrial markers. These markers provided resolution at and below the level of species groups, but relationships among species groups ...
Live imaging of whole invertebrates can be accomplished with X-ray micro-computed tomography (micro-CT) at 10-100 μm spatial resolution. However, image quality could be compromised by the movement of live subj...
Flexible spatial memory, such as “place” learning, is an important adaptation to assist successful foraging and to avoid predation and is thought to be more adaptive than response learning which requires a con...
The original article was published in BMC Zoology 2017 2:7
The Gharana wetland conservation reserve (GWCR) is a semi-arid wetland adjacent to agricultural areas on the Indo-Pakistani border. Despite being declared an Important Bird Area (IBA) by Birdlife International...
The Erratum to this article has been published in BMC Zoology 2017 2:8
The African wolf, for which we herein recognise Canis lupaster Hemprich and Ehrenberg, 1832 (Symbolae Physicae quae ex Itinere Africam Borealem er Asoam Occidentalem Decas Secunda. Berlin, 1833) as the valid spec...
Populations of Eastern Whip-poor-will (Antrostomus vociferous) appear to be declining range-wide. While this could be associated with habitat loss, declines in populations of many other species of migratory aeria...
The genus Caenorhabditis has been central to our understanding of metazoan biology. The best-known species, Caenorhabditis elegans, is but one member of a genus with around 50 known species, and knowledge of thes...
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