Scenario‐Based Evaluation of Commercially Available Cleaning Robots for Collection of Bacillus Spores from Environmental Surfaces

The cleaning robots, a vacuum‐based robot (R2) and a wetted‐wipe‐based robot (R4), were evaluated in this study to determine their effectiveness for sampling Bacillus atrophaeus spores. The tests were designed to evaluate the benefit of robot sampling on large areas with two different contamination scenarios: a high‐concentration, low spatial extent contamination (hot spot) and a low concentration, high spatial extent contamination (widely dispersed). The hot spot tests were conducted with the high spore contamination (approximately 10⁷ colony forming units [CFUs]) on a limited area (30.5 cm × 30.5 cm), 2 percent of the entire test. The widely dispersed tests were conducted with approximately 0.1 CFUs/cm² for floor laminate and approximately 10 CFUs/cm² for carpet surfaces. The widely dispersed tests distributed spores across the test surface and covered approximately 40 percent of the entire test area. The test results showed that both robots successfully sampled a large quantity of spores from carpet and floor laminate surfaces for both test scenarios. Robot performance is discussed in the context of currently used surface sampling methods. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.*     

Neurophysiological and behavioral development in birds: Song learning as a model system

The avian song system is a particularly good model for studying the behavioral and physiological aspects of animal development. One seemingly trivial but very important reason for this is that the sound spectrograph enables sounds to be described, measured and analyzed objectively and in detail. Secondly, birdsong is one of the few behaviors which is performed by a separate chain of brain regions and is therefore relatively easy to investigate neurophysiologically. Work on song also provides a clear illustration of the subtle way in which birds are influenced by their internal and external environments during development.     

Effects of secondarily-treated sewage effluent on the early life-history stages of two species of brown macroalgae: Hormosira banksii and Durvillaea potatorum

Sewage effluent has a deleterious effect on the early life-history stages of Hormosira banksii (Turner) Decaisne and Durvillaea potatorum (Labillardière) Areschoug. High concentrations of sewage effluent (28 and 40% in seawater) inhibit zygote germination by 55 to 95%, retard embryo growth (80 to 100%) and cause severe embryo mortality, with less than 60 and 5% surviving after 14 d, respectively. It is probable that such adverse effects would significantly reduce levels of recruitment of these species in sewage-affected localities, and that sewage effluent has played an important role in the decline of these species from several rock platforms in south-east Victoria, Australia. Zygote germination, embryo growth and embryo mortality were inhibited 40% more strongly in sewage effluent than diluted seawater, showing that the effect of sewage effluent is not simply one of seawater dilution. However, this effect was only observed at high concentrations (28 and 40%). The absence of any difference between the low concentrations of sewage effluent (4 and 12% in seawater) and diluted seawater suggests that the dilution of waste water is important in mitigating its more harmful effects. The sensitivity of H. banksii and D. potatorum embryos to the composition of the medium in which they grow and the ease with which they can be manipulated in culture suggest that they may be utilised as biological indicators of water quality.     

Chemical aspects of mass spawning in corals. II. (-)-Epi-thunbergol,the sperm attractant in the eggs of the soft coral Lobophytum crassum (Cnidaria: Octocorallia)

Sea turtles migrate between feeding and nesting areas that are often geographically separated by hundreds or thousands of kilometers. Observations of their aggregations at sea and at nesting beaches have led to the hypothesis that sea turtles migrate in socially structured groups. While this migratory strategy is common to many marine vertebrates, socially facilitated behavior is not well documented in testudines. In 1990 and 1991, we attached satellite transmitters to olive ridleys (Lepidochelys olivacea Eschscholtz) found ovipositing together during a mass nesting at Nancite Beach, Costa Rica, to determine whether they migrate independently or in groups after they leave the nesting beach. Results showed that the turtles were not spatially associated during the internesting period, were capable of re-establishing themselves as a group during a subsequent nesting emergence, and were not spatially associated during their postnesting migrations to oceanic feeding areas. We suggested that what appear to be socially structured groups of L. olivacea are in fact individual turtles simultaneously using the same habitat.