Plants possess numerous traits that reduce the potentially detrimental effect of herbivores. These traits, referred to as “defense traits,” fall into two broad categories, resistance traits, which reduce herbivory, and tolerance traits, which reduce the impact of herbivory on fitness. Plant resistance can be further divided into avoidance, which affects herbivore behavior (i.e., recognition or ...

Herbivores are important drivers of plant species coexistence and community assembly. However, detailed mechanistic information on how herbivores affect dominance hierarchies between plant species is scarce. Here, we used data of a multi-site herbivore exclusion experiment in grasslands to assess changes in the cover of 28 plant species in response to aboveground pesticide. application. Moreove...

This study aimed to evaluate the bioefficacy and blood feeding inhibition of mosquitoes under laboratory conditions using the WHO tunnel test method on unwashed and washed long-lasting insecticide impregnated net with extrinsic heat treatment of 30 degrees C followed by 80 degrees C on the same net during washing. PermaNet exhibited fairy high durability to washing (5 washes) and had fairy long...

Studies of herbivorous insects have played a major role in understanding how ecological divergence can facilitate genetic differentiation. In contrast to the majority of herbivorous insects, grasshoppers as a group are largely polyphagous. Due to this relative lack of intimate grasshopper-plant associations, grasshopper-plant systems have not played a large part in the study of host-associated ...

Studies of feeding behavior in genetically tractable invertebrate model systems have been limited by the lack of proper methodology. We introduce the Capillary Feeder (CAFE), a method allowing precise, real-time measurement of ingestion by individual or grouped fruit flies on the scale of minutes to days. Using this technique, we conducted the first quantitative analysis of prandial behavior in...

Introduction: Preference of son over daughter is a growing culture in the patriarchal society of India. Favoritism can be defined as real or perceived preferential behavior and treatment to one or more of a mother’s child at the expense of that mother’s other children. Preference for son is often manifested as discrimination against the daughters. It can lead to many discriminatory practices ag...

Laboratory and field experiments have demonstrated in many cases that malaria vectors do not feed randomly, but show important preferences either for infected or non-infected hosts. These preferences are likely in part shaped by the costs imposed by the parasites on both their vertebrate and dipteran hosts. However, the effect of changes in vector behaviour on actual parasite transmission remai...

One of the mechanisms through which regular exercise contributes to weight maintenance could be by reducing intake and preference for high-fat (HF) diets. Indeed, we previously demonstrated that wheel-running rats robustly reduced HF diet intake and preference. The reduced HF diet preference by wheel running can be so profound that the rats consumed only the chow diet and completely avoided the...

Food neophobia is a highly heritable trait characterized by the rejection of foods that are novel or unknown and potentially limits dietary variety, with lower intake and preference particularly for fruits and vegetables. Understanding non-genetic (environmental) factors that may influence the expression of food neophobia is essential to improving children's consumption of fruits and vegetables...

b a ckground: the aim was to survey the specific factors, which cause to decrease blood feeding of mosquitoes important to succeed vector control. m e t hods: larval collection was carried out from fixed and variable breeding places of yazd county, central iran in 2009. autogeny-anautogeny, stenogamy-eurygamy, and blood preference of culex pipiens were studied using standard mosquito cages bloo...