Tail autotomy affects bipedalism but not sprint performance in a cursorial Mediterranean lizard

Running is essential in all terrestrial animals mainly for finding food and mates and escaping from predators. Lizards employ running in all their everyday functions, among which defense stands out. Besides flight, tail autotomy is another very common antipredatory strategy within most lizard families. The impact of tail loss to sprint performance seems to be species dependent. In some lizard species, tail shedding reduces sprint speed, in other species, increases it, and, in a few species, speed is not affected at all. Here, we aimed to clarify the effect of tail autotomy on the sprint performance of a cursorial lizard with particular adaptations for running, such as bipedalism and spike-like protruding scales (fringes) on the toepads that allow high speed on sandy substrates. We hypothesized that individuals that performed bipedalism, and have more and larger fringes, would achieve higher sprint performance. We also anticipated that tail shedding would affect sprint speed (though we were not able to define in what way because of the unpredictable effects that tail loss has on different species). According to our results, individuals that ran bipedally were faster; limb length and fringe size had limited effects on sprint performance whereas tail autotomy affected quadrupedal running only in females. Nonetheless, tail loss significantly affected bipedalism: the ability for running on hindlimbs was completely lost in all adult individuals and in 72.3% of juveniles.     

土壤-青菜系统中铅污染对土壤微生物活性及多样性的影响

采用盆栽方法研究了青菜种植条件下2种不同类型的人为铅污染土(黄松田土和黄红壤)中不同处理对土壤微生物生物量、生理生态参数以及群落结构的影响.结果表明,2种土壤在外源铅含量为100和300 mg·kg-1时,土壤微生物生物量有微小增加,而高浓度铅污染使土壤微生物生物量显著降低.在高浓度铅污染土壤中,微生物生理生态参数发生明显变化,微生物生物量碳/土壤有机质碳(Cmic/Corg)逐渐下降,代谢熵(qco2)明显上升,表明土壤微生物群落处于胁迫状态.结果还显示,铅污染对土壤微生物的影响与不同的管理方式(青菜种植情况)以及土壤中有机质、粘粒含量等有关,在种植青菜、有机质和粘粒含量高的土壤中,土壤微生物各项参数变化要小.对21种磷脂脂肪酸(PLFA)的图谱进行分析,结果表明,受铅污染土壤的微生物群落结构组成伴随着功能参数的变化而发生了改变;随着铅污染程度的增强,指示真菌和放线菌类的脂肪酸增加,而革兰氏阳性菌与革兰氏阴性菌脂肪酸比值下降.