Similar policing rates of eggs laid by virgin and mated honey-bee queens

Worker-policing is a well-documented mechanism that maintains functional worker sterility in queenright honey-bee colonies. Unknown, however, is the source of the egg-marking signal that is thought to be produced by the queen and used by policing workers to discriminate between queen- and worker-laid eggs. Here we investigate whether mating is necessary for the queen to produce the egg-marking signal. We compare the removal rate of eggs laid by virgin queens and compare this rate with that of eggs laid by mated queens. Our results show that mating does not affect the acceptability of eggs, suggesting that physiological changes linked to the act of mating do not play a role in the production of the queens egg-marking signal.     

Collision-free path planning in the Belousov-Zhabotinsky medium assisted by a cellular automaton

We offer a new approach to computing a shortest collision-free path in a space containing obstacles, using an experimental chemical processor, based on the Belousov-Zhabotinsky (BZ) reaction. The chemical processor was then coupled via optical links with a two-dimensional cellular automaton (CA) processor. In the BZ chemical processor obstacles are represented by sites of local stimulation generated by an array of silver wires. Circular excitation waves are generated which travel through the medium and approximate a scalar distance-to-obstacle field. The field is taken as the initial configuration of the CA processor, which calculates a tree of 'many-sources-one-destination' shortest paths using wave spreading in a discrete excitable medium. We describe a hybrid (experimental chemical and software based) parallel processor (with parallel inputs and outputs) which uses the principles of wave-based computing in both the physical and computational levels of its architecture.     

Effects of cross-feeding anarchistic and wild type honey bees: anarchistic workers are not queen-like

Unlike normal (wild type) honey bee ( Apis mellifera) colonies, 'anarchistic' colonies are characterised by workers that activate their ovaries in the presence of the queen and brood and by the ability of their workers to lay eggs that evade worker policing. In the Cape honey bee ( A. m. capensis), female larvae can manipulate non- capensis nurse workers such that they receive more larval food and develop into worker-queen intermediates or intercastes. We speculated that, in anarchistic colonies, larvae might produce signals that result in excessive feeding of female larvae. Excessively fed female larvae may then develop into reproductively active workers. In this study we cross-fostered anarchistic and wild type brood and investigated the effect of cross-fostering on the amount of food fed to larvae and on the morphology of the resulting workers. We show that anarchistic larvae do not manipulate wild type nurse workers into feeding them more, nor do anarchistic workers develop into worker-queen intermediates. On the contrary, anarchistic larvae are fed less than wild type larvae and anarchistic workers seem to be poor nurses in that they feed larvae less, irrespective of brood genotype.     

Method for rapid on-site identification of VOCs

Rapid on-site identification of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in ambient air is an important first step in remediation efforts. This study describes modification of a commercially available, portable GC/MS system and development of an analysis protocol for rapid (<3 min) sampling and identification of VOCs typically found at contaminated sites at the low ppbv level.     

Role of temperature on lipid/fatty acid composition in Pacific cod (Gadus macrocephalus) eggs and unfed larvae

During early development, oviparous fish species must use finite lipid and fatty acid (FA) reserves for both catabolism and structural components. In cold environments, developing fish have the additional constraint of maintaining membrane fluidity for metabolic efficiency (homeoviscous adaptation), resulting in further demand on lower melting point FAs like n-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs). To examine whether marine fish embryos physiologically adapt to changing temperature environments, we incubated Pacific cod (Gadus macrocephalus) eggs at 5 temperatures (0, 2, 4, 6, and 8 °C) in the laboratory and sampled them repeatedly during development to measure changes in lipid/FA composition. Pacific cod embryos increased n-3 PUFA content during the egg stage in all temperature treatments, with the possible exception of 0 °C, where poor survival and hatch success limited our ability for continued sampling. At the beginning of the hatch cycle, free-swimming embryos shifted from lipogenesis to lipid catabolism. The rates of lipogenesis and catabolism were temperature dependent, and the distinct increase in unsaturated fatty acids at temperatures <8 °C was consistent with homeoviscous adaptation theory. However, with the possible exception of embryos at 0 °C, the relative amounts of essential fatty acids (e.g., EPA, DHA, AA) were conserved in a similar manner across incubation temperatures. Collectively, these data suggest Pacific cod are capable of homeoviscous adaptation but cannot tolerate temperatures approaching 0 °C despite their possible ability to biosynthesize PUFAs from other energetic sources.     

Increased spatial variance accompanies reorganization of two continental shelf ecosystems

Phase transitions between alternate stable states in marine ecosystems lead to disruptive changes in ecosystem services, especially fisheries productivity. We used trawl survey data spanning phase transitions in the North Pacific (Gulf of Alaska) and the North Atlantic (Scotian Shelf) to test for increases in ecosystem variability that might provide early warning of such transitions. In both time series, elevated spatial variability in a measure of community composition (ratio of cod [Gadus sp.] abundance to prey abundance) accompanied transitions between ecosystem states, and variability was negatively correlated with distance from the ecosystem transition point. In the Gulf of Alaska, where the phase transition was apparently the result of a sudden perturbation (climate regime shift), variance increased one year before the transition in mean state occurred. On the Scotian Shelf, where ecosystem reorganization was the result of persistent overfishing, a significant increase in variance occurred three years before the transition in mean state was detected. However, we could not reject the alternate explanation that increased variance may also have simply been inherent to the final stable state in that ecosystem. Increased variance has been previously observed around transition points in models, but rarely in real ecosystems, and our results demonstrate the possible management value in tracking the variance of key parameters in exploited ecosystems.     

Solid-Phase Microextraction As A Tool for Studying Volatile Compounds in Frog Skin

Solid-phase microextraction (SPME) is an effective technique for studying frog volatile secretions. Its primary advantage is in its application to sampling live animals. the ability to sample an organism over an extended period allows changes in an individual's chemical signature to be determined. the presence of eucalyptol in the skin secretion of Ewing's tree frog, Litoria ewingi, was used to assess the effectiveness of SPME in sampling frog volatiles. Rapid sample times coupled with the polydimethylsiloxane/divinylbenzene (PDMS/DVB) fibre provided the best signal/noise ratio for the majority of frog volatiles analysed, and importantly resulted in the least amount of stress to the animals involved.     

Advances in polymer-based detection of environmental ibuprofen in wastewater

Environmental Science and Pollution Research - Globally, ibuprofen is the third most consumed drug and its presence in the environment is a concern because little is known about its adverse effects...