Human practices in managed landscapes may often adversely affect aquatic biota, such as aquatic insects. Dispersal is often the limiting factor for successful re-colonization and recovery of stressed habitats. Therefore, in this study, we evaluated the effects of landscape permeability, assuming a combination of riparian vegetation (edge permeability) and other vegetation (landscape matrix perm...

Bisphenol A (BPA) is an endocrine disruptor that can mimic the action of estrogens by interacting with hormone receptors and is, therefore, potentially able to influence reproductive functions in vertebrates. Although information about the interaction with the endocrine systems in invertebrates is limited, it has also been shown its effect on reproductive and developmental parameters in these o...

Currently available tools for studying plant litter decomposition and invertebrate consumption in aquatic ecosystems have at least 2 major limitations: 1) the difficulty of manipulating litter chemical composition to provide mechanistic insights into attributes of litter quality controlling decomposition rate, and 2) lack of a standardized litter that hampers comparisons of results among studie...

We compared metal concentrations in larvae of two Chironomus species (Chironomus staegeri and Chironomus tigris) living in the same lake and at the same depth and time. Concentrations of the nonessential metal cadmium (Cd) differed greatly (.83) between the two species, whereas those of two essential metals differed either much less (zinc [Zn], 23) or not at all (copper [Cu]). These trends were...

In this work, the effects of butyl benzyl phthalate (BBP) and di(2-ethylhexyl) phthalate (DEHP), two of the most extensively used phthalates, were studied in Chironomus riparius under acute short-term treatments, to compare their relative toxicities and identify genes sensitive to exposure. The ecotoxicity of these phthalates was assessed by analysis of the alterations in gene expression profil...

Bisphenol S (BPS) is an industrial alternative to the endocrine disruptor bisphenol A (BPA), and can be found in many products labeled "BPA-free". Its use has grown in recent years, and presently it is considered a ubiquitous emerging pollutant. To date there is a lack of information on the effects of BPS on invertebrates, although they represent more than 95% of known species in the animal kin...

Differentiating cells can be characterized by the number and types of proteins they produce (Markert, 1963). In man and other organisms the diversity of hemoglobins has been correlated with ontogenetic changes which reflect the alterations of gene activity (Ingram, 1963). Furthermore, the types of proteins produced are generally specific for the species. The study of insect coelomic proteins ha...

Rupert L. L. Kellner Lehrstuhl für Tierökologie II, Universität Bayreuth, D-95440 Bayreuth, Germany Z. Naturforsch. 53c, 1081-1086 (1998); received May 25/July 2, 1998 Pederin, Hemolymph Toxin, Paederus riparius, Biosynthesis, Sequestration Pederin analyses of single Paederus riparius specimens reared from the egg and kept for prolonged periods of time show that only the females are able to bio...