Troglobites, or species restricted to caves, commonly have small ranges and high levels of endemism, making them extremely sensitive to relatively small-scale habitat alteration that results from urbanization. Protection of federally listed endangered troglobites in central Texas focuses on caves that are occupied by the species. The determination of occupancy is based on presence/absence surve...

A majority of terrestrial and marine organisms use to fend off a wide range of microorganisms, including bacteria and fungi by employing “antimicrobial peptides (AMPs)” that are ribosomally synthesized from proteinogenic amino acids. AMPs are a primary component of innate immune mechanisms in marine invertebrates. In contrast, marine sponges seem to contain no AMPs, but often contain nonribosom...

Marine invertebrates lack an acquired, memory-type immunity based on T-lymphocyte subsets and clonally derived immunoglobulins (72). This differs from the vertebrate immune system, which is characterized by somatic gene rearrangement, clonal selection, and expansion and a discriminative ability that includes lymphocytes, among other factors, which impart specificity and memory (71). Marine inve...

INTRODUCTION The important role of fauna in modifying the regolith by redistributing particles is now widely acknowledged (e.g., Paton et al. 1995). One issue of some importance to regolith studies and the interpretation of paleosols is how the role of terrestrial bioturbation has evolved since life first invaded the land areas of Earth in the Early Paleozoic. This particular issue was raised d...

Symbioses involving bacteria and invertebrates contribute to the biological diversity and high productivity of both aquatic and terrestrial environments. Well-known examples from chemosynthetic deep-sea hydrothermal vent environments involve ectosymbiotic microbes associated with the external surfaces of marine invertebrates. Some of these ectosymbioses confer protection or defence from predato...

The aim of the present study was to elucidate consistent patterns in chronic polycyclic aromatic compound (PAC) toxicity to soil and sediment inhabiting invertebrates. Therefore we examined our experimental dataset, consisting of twenty-one chronic effect concentrations for two soil invertebrates (Folsomia candida and Enchytraeus cripticus) and two sediment invertebrates (Lumbriculus variegatus...

Why study response of stream invertebrates to watershed disturbances such as clearcut logging? Stream invertebrates can be excellent integrators of changes in such ecosystem phenomena as changes in the food base of ecosystems. For example, a number of invertebrate taxa appear to track changes in food resources (Hawkins et al. 1982; Fuller et al. 1986; Wallace and Gurtz 1986; Feminella and Hawki...