The interaction of temperature and sucrose concentration on foraging preferences in bumblebees

Several authors have found that flowers that are warmer than their surrounding environment have an advantage in attracting pollinators. Bumblebees will forage preferentially on warmer flowers, even if equal nutritional reward is available in cooler flowers. This raises the question of whether warmth and sucrose concentration are processed independently by bees, or whether sweetness detectors respond to higher sugar concentration as well as higher temperature. We find that bumblebees can use lower temperature as a cue to higher sucrose reward, showing that bees appear to process the two parameters strictly independently. Moreover, we demonstrate that sucrose concentration takes precedence over warmth, so that when there is a difference in sucrose concentration, bees will typically choose the sweeter feeder, even if the less sweet feeder is several degrees warmer.     

天津市水生态现状及保护管理

天津的水生态问题由来已久。河流开发利用程度高、人工化程度明显、水体污染严重、天然湿地逐年减少是水生态基本特征,诸多不适宜的人类活动造成生物种类减少、地面沉降、河流干涸等问题,而水利工程的影响、水资源的过度利用、环境管理中的漏洞是导致水生态问题的主要原因。文章认为,调整水库管理方式、停止部分水坝的使用、建立切实可行的湿地保护管理模式、建立稳定的湿地保护资金投入机制以及建立湿地监测评估体系是保护管理水生态的根本途径。     

Differences in sensory ecology contribute to resource partitioning in the bats Myotis bechsteinii and Myotis nattereri (Chiroptera: Vespertilionidae)

Coexisting animal species frequently differ in resource use in at least one niche dimension and thus avoid competition. While a range of morphological differences that lead to differentiation in animals' mechanical access to food have been identified, the role of sensory differences in within-guild niche differentiation has received less attention. We tested the hypothesis that differences in sensory access to prey contribute to resource partitioning between potentially competing species using two sympatric, similar-sized, congeneric bat species as a model system. Nursery colonies of Natterer's bat (Myotis nattereri) and Bechstein's bat (Myotis bechsteinii) roost in bat boxes in the same orchard and forage in forests and orchards nearby. In observations and behavioural experiments with freshly captured M. bechsteinii, we showed that individuals are able to hunt using prey-generated sound alone. In contrast, M. nattereri rarely uses prey-generated sound, but instead is able to find prey by echolocation very close to vegetation. In accordance with these behavioural data, we showed that M. bechsteinii has significantly larger ears than M. nattereri, providing it with superior detection and localization abilities for relatively low-frequency prey rustling sounds. We hypothesized that these differences in sensory ecology of the two syntopic, congeneric species would contribute to resource partitioning, so that M. bechsteinii would find more noisy prey taxa, possibly hidden in vegetation, by listening for prey sounds, while M. nattereri would have better access to still prey using echolocation or associative learning. Analysis of faecal samples collected on the same nights from bat boxes occupied by each species corroborated this prediction. The diets of the two species differed significantly, reflecting their different prey perception techniques and thereby supporting the hypothesis that differences in sensory ecology contribute to niche differentiation. Electronic supplementary material Supplementary material is available for this article at and accessible for authorised users. B.M. Siemers and S.M. Swift contributed equally to this work.     

洞庭湖生态环境承载力分析

洞庭湖湖内冬枯水季节，有芦苇面积530km^2，草地面积800余km^2，泥滩地面积367km^2，天然水域面积约993km^2。湖洲之间隔水相望，河沟水系纵横交错，具“水浸皆湖，水落为洲”的地貌特征，呈现出支离破碎的形态面貌和典型的自然湿地景观。文章在大量调查的基础上，从自然和人文两个方面对洞庭湖的生态环境承载力或环境压力进行分析。     

城市建筑施工与环境保护

本文指出了目前我国城市建筑施工中存在的种种破坏城市生态环境的现象及其后果，分析了形成这种状态的原因，提出了解决城市工程施工中环境保护问题的对策与建议。     

城市生态的氧平衡研究：以南京市为例

城市化地区人的生态及其产业活动强度大、范围广，对氧的收支关系反应敏感。空气中氧的平衡能力及其可持续性，是促进城市社会经济与环境协调发展的基本条件，按南京总体规划确定的主城．中心城市围及市域三个层次的格局，主城的氧亏可从城乡结合部的制氧空间得到足够的补偿。中心城市圈自身耗氧低，对主城的外延发展，卫呈城镇的工业化，新增大型耗能企业的布点均有较强的氧平衡能力，维护城市生态氧平衡的关键措施是建设城市生态防     

Mutualism between a leguminous tree and large African monkeys as pollinators

Observations of a monkey community in a forest of the Zaire Basin show that four species intensively lick the nectar of Daniellia pynaertii (Caesalpinoideae) for 5 months of the year; nectar makes up a mean of 20% and a maximum of 50% of monthly plant feeding records (Fig. 3). Such intensive nectar-feeding by monkeys of up to 8 kg body weight probably developed in these basically frugivorous primates as an alternative strategy to cope with a shortage of fleshy fruits. This would have been possible due to the high density of the plant species, the synchrony and abundance of its flowering (Fig. 2), and the large size of the nectar drop and its nutritional value. Patterns of monkey movements among Daniellia trees show that one flowering tree may receive up to 10 species visits and 30 individual visits per day, for a total of up to 141 min. (Table 1). A monkey troop can visit 12 trees in succession over less than 3 h (Fig. 4). This suggests that monkeys are able to promote pollen transfer both among flowers of the same tree and between conspecific trees. The individual tree fruiting index is positively correlated with its flowering index and with the amount of visits by monkeys, indicating at least that monkeys do not inhibit the reproductive ability of flowers (Fig. 5). These results suggest that monkeys can be considered as a guild of effective pollinators. Long-term coevolution between the plant and its present-day pollinators seems unlikely, and we suggest that monkeys replaced other pollinators, such as Lepidoptera. This hypothesis is supported by the fact that tubular flowers adapted for pollination by Lepidoptera are found in affine species of the same genus and of affine genera, the latter being known to be pollinated by these insects. In contrast, D. pynaertii flowers typically meet the pollination syndrome currently defined for attracting large mammals: notably conspicuousness and open morphology of the flowers, nectar colour and abundance. These characteristics suggest that coadaptation between monkeys and plant or at least one-sided adaptation has operated. Correspondence to: A. Gautier-Hion     

土壤动物群落生态学与土壤微生态环境的关系

主要综述了国内外蚯蚓种群、捕食性线虫、蚂蚁、跳虫、螨类等土壤动物与土壤理化性质的关系,以及蚯蚓、白蚁、蜗牛、线虫等土壤动物与土壤酶活性的相关性研究;提出了该学科今后的研究趋势。该学科未来要融合土壤动物和整个农林生态系统的研究为一体,把农林的土壤动物群落生态学及其与土壤微生态环境关系结合起来,耦合土壤动物与植物根系-根际微生态环境,链接农林土壤动物与土壤健康及其害虫生态调控,分析探究它们内在的联系和机制,加强立地调控措施,为森林健康和土壤健康提供科学基础资料。     

Simulating correlated count data

In this study we compare two techniques for simulating count-valued random n-vectors Y with specified mean and correlation structure. The first technique is to use a lognormal-Poisson hierarchy (L-P method). A vector of correlated normals Z is generated and transformed to a vector of lognormals X. Then, Y is generated as conditionally independent Poissons with means X _i . The L-P method is simple, fast, and familiar to many researchers. However, the method requires each Y _i to be overdispersed (i.e., σ² > μ), and only low correlations are possible with this method when the variables have small means. We develop a second technique to generate the elements of Y as overlapping sums (OS) of independent X _j ’s (OS method). For example, suppose X, X ₁, and X ₂ are independent. If Y ₁ = X + X ₁ and Y ₂ = X + X ₂, then Y ₁ and Y ₂ are correlated because they share the common component X. A generalized version of the OS method for simulating n-vectors of two-parameter count-valued distributions is presented. The OS method is shown to address some of the shortcomings of the L-P method. In particular, underdispersed random variables can be simulated, and high correlations are feasible even when the means are small. However, negative correlations cannot be simulated with the OS method, and when n > 3, the OS method is more complicated to implement than the L-P method.