Protection by association: evidence for aposematic commensalism

Do predator energy demands or previous exposure influence protection by aposematic coloration of prey?

Growing evidence exists that aposematic and toxic prey may be included in a predator's diet when the predator experiences physiological stress. The tree sparrow Passer montanus is known to have a significant portion of aposematic and toxic ladybirds in its natural diet. Here, we present experiments testing the attack and eating rate of the tree sparrow toward the invasive aposematic harlequin l...

Viral commensalism in humans?

In this issue of the Journal, Matsumoto et al. [1] asked whether human T lymphotropic virus type 1 (HTLV-1) antibody status is associated with the risk of developing gastric cancer. In a cohort of 5000 patients aged 40 years who were enrolled during 1989 –1992 in an HTLV-1– endemic area, they identified 1812 subjects who underwent endoscopy of the upper gastrointestinal tract before 2003. Of th...

Evidence for the Higher Importance of Signal Size Over Body Size in Aposematic Signaling in Insects

To understand the evolution of warning coloration, it is important to distinguish between different aspects of conspicuous color patterns. As an example, both pattern element size and body size of prey have been shown to enhance the effectiveness of warning signals. However, it is unclear whether the effect of body size is merely a side effect of proportionally increasing pattern elements, or i...

Condoms for sex work: protection or evidence?

no evidence for association between amelogenesis imperfecta and candidate genes

background: amelogenesis imperfecta (ai) is an inherited tooth disorder. despite the fact that up to now, several gene muta­tions in mmp20, enam, amelx and klk4 genes have been reported to be associated with ai, many other genes sug­gested to be involved. the main objective of this study was to find the mutations in three major candidate genes including mmp20, enam and klk4 responsible for ai f...