Sex determination in insects is characterized by a gene cascade that is conserved at the bottom but contains diverse primary signals at the top. The bottom master switch gene doublesex is found in all insects. Its upstream regulator transformer is present in the orders Hymenoptera, Coleoptera and Diptera, but has thus far not been found in Lepidoptera and in the basal lineages of Diptera. trans...

We report the complete sequence of a paralogous copy of elongation factor-1a (EF-1a) in the honeybee, Apis mellifera (Hymenoptera: Apidae). This copy differs from a previously described copy in the positions of five introns and in 25% of the nucleotide sites in the coding regions. The existence of two paralogous copies of EF-1a in Drosophila and Apis suggests that two copies of EF-1a may be wid...

UNLABELLED Hypersensitivity reactions to hymenoptera venom are infrequent in paediatric patients. A study was made to determine the incidence of this pathology in children, based on an epidemiological survey targeted to all members of the SEICAP (Sociedad Española de Inmunología Clínica y Alergia Pediátrica/Spanish Society of Paediatric Clinical Immunology and Allergy), and designed to collect ...

Background. Hymenoptera stings are sometimes fatal in venom-allergic patients. Fatalities mostly occur in previously stung subjects, especially those with a history of systemic reactions, and could be avoided if patients were properly informed of the existence of a prevention strategy for insect stings, referred to an allergy follow-up and prescribed auto-injectable epinephrine and/or venom-spe...

Along with food and drug allergic reactions, a Hymenoptera insect Sting (Apoidea, Vespidae, Formicidae) is one of the most common causes of anaphylaxis worldwide. Diagnoses of Hymenoptera venom allergy (HVA) and specific immunotherapy (SIT) have been based on the use of crude venom extracts. However, the incidence of cross-reactivity and low levels of sensibility during diagnosis, as well as th...

The social brain hypothesis posits that the cognitive demands of social behaviour have driven evolutionary expansions in brain size in some vertebrate lineages. In insects, higher brain centres called mushroom bodies are enlarged and morphologically elaborate (having doubled, invaginated and subcompartmentalized calyces that receive visual input) in social species such as the ants, bees and was...

Extraordinarily high rates of recombination have been observed in some eusocial species. The most popular explanation is that increased recombination increases genetic variation among workers, which in turn increases colony performance, for example by increasing parasite resistance. However, support for the generality of higher recombination rates among eusocial organisms remains weak, due to l...

The understory in forest plantations can increase richness and diversity of natural enemies due to greater plant species richness. The objective of this study was to test the hypothesis that the presence of the understory and climatic season in the region (wet or dry) can increase the richness and abundance of Hymenoptera parasitoids in Eucalyptus plantations, in the municipality of Belo Orient...

The aim of this study was to assemble data on the summer feeding ecology of the Great Pampa-finch, Embernagra platensis at the Laguna de Guaminí, Buenos Aires, Argentina, and to explore the differences related to the dietary patterns for each sex between winter and summer when possible. The stomach contents of 43 birds were analyzed. The animal fraction was composed of Hymenoptera (45.1%), Cole...

BACKGROUND It is hypothesized that because of higher mast cell numbers and mediator release, mastocytosis predisposes patients for systemic immediate-type hypersensitivity reactions to certain drugs including non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAID). OBJECTIVE To clarify whether patients with NSAID hypersensitivity show increased basal serum tryptase levels as sign for underlying mast ce...