Beyond the physiological and behavioural, differences in appendage morphology between the workers and queens of Apis mellifera are pre-eminent. The hind legs of workers, which are highly specialized pollinators, deserve special attention. The hind tibia of worker has an expanded bristle-free region used for carrying pollen and propolis, the corbicula. In queens this structure is absent. Althoug...

This study aimed to model the habitat suitability for an invasive clam Corbicula fluminea in a coastal shallow lagoon in the southern Neotropical region (-30.22, -50.55). The lagoon (19km2, maximum deep 2.5m) was sampled with an Ekman dredge in an orthogonal matrix comprising 84 points. At each sampling point, were obtained environmental descriptors as depth, organic matter content (OMC), avera...

The fresh water clam Corbicula fluminea is currently one of the most economically important aquatic species in China because of its nutritional value and pharmacological activity. In order to explore the potential of C. fluminea as a natural resource of bioactive compounds, a papain-released polysaccharide designated CFPS-2 was isolated. Chemical composition analysis indicated that CFPS-2 conta...

Corbicula fluminea is a freshwater bivalve mollusk that originates from Asia (Britton and Morton 1979, Mouthon 1981, Araujo et al. 1993). The species is known to be opportunistic, adapting to a wide range of lentic and lotic habitats and utilizing both filterand deposit-feeding strategies (Way et al. 1990). C. fluminea is 2 to 3 cm in size and has the typical oval-triangular clam shape. It also...

This study investigated the in vivo effects of microcystins on gene expression of several phosphoprotein phosphatases (PPP) in the freshwater clam Corbicula fluminea with two different exposure scenarios. Clams were exposed for 96 h to 5 μg L(-1) of dissolved microcystin-LR and the relative changes of gene expression of three different types of PPP (PPP1, 2 and 4) were analyzed by quantitative ...