Dental microwear patterns of extant and extinct Muridae (Rodentia, Mammalia): ecological implications

Extant species of Muridae occupy a wide array of habitats and have diverse dietary habits. Consequently, their dental microwear patterns represent a potential clue to better understand the paleoecology of their extinct relatives, which are abundant in many Old World Neogene localities. In this study, dental microwear is investigated for specimens of 17 extant species of murine and deomyine rodents in order to test the reliability of this method and infer dietary preferences on the fossil species Saïdomys afarensis. This extinct form comes from a mid-Pliocene site (AL 327) located at the Hadar Formation (Ethiopia) known to have delivered many hominid specimens of Australopithecus afarensis. A significant correlation between microwear patterns and diet is detected. Thus, grass, fruit, and insect eaters display, respectively, high amounts of fine scratches, wide scratches, and large pits. Moreover, some aspects of the paleoecology of S. afarensis, including feeding habits, could be assessed in regard to its dental microwear pattern. Indeed, it probably had feeding habits similar to that of living grass eaters. These results concur with the presence of open to woodland areas covered by an herbaceous vegetal layer, including monocotyledons, in the vicinity of this mid-Pliocene locality.     

Vapour pressures, aqueous solubility, Henry's law constants and air/water partition coefficients of 1,8-dichlorooctane and 1,8-dibromooctane

New data on the vapour pressures and aqueous solubility of 1,8-dichlorooctane and 1,8-dibromooctane are reported as a function of temperature between 20 °C and 80 °C and 1 °C and 40 °C, respectively. For the vapour pressures, a static method was used during the measurements which have an estimated uncertainty between 3% and 5%. The aqueous solubilities were determined using a dynamic saturation column method and the values are accurate to within ±10%. 1,8-Dichlorooctane is more volatile than 1,8-dibromooctane in the temperature range covered (p_sat varies from 3 to 250 Pa and from 0.53 to 62 Pa, respectively) and is also approximately three times more soluble in water (mole fraction solubilities at 25 °C of 5.95 × 10⁻⁷ and 1.92 × 10⁻⁷, respectively). A combination of the two sets of data allowed the calculation of the Henry’s law constants and the air water partition coefficients. A simple group contribution concept was used to rationalize the data obtained.     

The deflectors influence on flow complexity,bed morphology,sediment transport and water quality of urban lotic waters - A laboratory study

In this laboratory study different combinations of bed (sand, pebble gravel [gravel], and a mix of sand and gravel) and flow (typical and overtopping) were experimented with to investigate the impact of porous deflectors in flow diversity, water quality, and fish performance in prismatic open channels. Deflectors changed the gradually varied flow to a rapidly varied flow, as a sudden change in the water depth was observed at the deflectors, and this change was large for smooth beds. With the presence of gravel, the scouring near the downstream deflector was almost twice that of the sand bed, and with the scouring at its own upstream deflector, irrespective of whether the flow was typical or overtopping. This behavior was a result of sand mobilization due to shear stress and sand mobilization aided gravel transport. The mixed bed showed less gravel movement compared to the gravel-only bed. The percentage of sediment washed out was minor for all bed scenarios, indicating that sediment transport was local. Relative to the sand bed without deflectors (representing a typical urban canal), deflectors resulted in reduced and improved water quality (in terms of sediment load) for sand, and mixed bed, respectively. The fishes found refuge and were comfortable in the pool areas created by deflectors unlike in channels without deflectors where they showed exhaustion.     

Fishing and echolocation behavior of the greater bulldog bat,Noctilio leporinus,in the field

When hunting for fish Noctilio leporinus uses several strategies. In high search flight it flies within 20–50 cm of the water surface and emits groups of two to four echolocation signals, always containing at least one pure constant frequency (CF) pulse and one mixed CF-FM pulse consisting of a CF component which is followed by a frequency-modulated (FM) component. The pure CF signals are the longest, with an average duration of 13.3 ms and a maximum of 17 ms. The CF component of the CF-FM signals averages 8.9 ms, the FM sweeps 3.9 ms. The CF components have frequencies of 52.8–56.2 kHz and the FM components have an average bandwidth of 25.9 kHz. A bat in high search flight reacts to jumping fish with pointed dips at the spot where a fish has broken the surface. As it descends to the water surface the bat shows the typical approach pattern of all bats with decreasing pulse duration and pulse interval. A jumping fish reveals itself by a typical pattern of temporary echo glints, reflected back to the bat from its body and from the water disturbance. In low search flight N. leporinus drops to a height of only 4–10 cm, with body parallel to the water, legs extended straight back and turned slightly downward, and feet cocked somewhat above the line of the legs and poised within 2–4 cm of the water surface. In this situation N. leporinus emits long series of short CF-FM pulses with an average duration of 5.6 ms (CF 3.1 and FM 2.6) and an average pulse interval of 20 ms, indicating that it is looking for targets within a short range. N. leporinus also makes pointed dips during low search flight by rapidly snapping the feet into the water at the spot where it has localized a jumping fish or disturbance. In the random rake mode, N. leporinus drops to the water surface, lowers its feet and drags its claws through the water in relatively straight lines for up to 10m. The echolocation behavior is similar to that of high search flight. This indicates that in this hunting mode N. leporinus is not pursuing specific targets, and that raking is a random or statistical search for surface fishes. When raking, the bat uses two strategies. In directed random rake it rakes through patches of water where fish jumping activity is high. Our interpretation is that the bat detects this activity by echolocation but prefers not to concentrate on a single jumping fish. In the absence of jumping fish, after flying for several minutes without any dips, N. leporinus starts to make very long rakes in areas where it has hunted successfully before (memory-directed random rake). Hunting bats caught a fish approximately once in every 50–200 passes through the hunting area.