The South American fur seal reproductive histophysiology is scarcely described. This study provides a histological description of prepuberal South American fur seal (Arctocephalus australis) ovaries as well as three-dimensional reconstructions of subcapsular crypts and primordial follicles. Ovaries from fresh dead animals were processed for histology and sliced into serial sections. A portion o...

During the last decades, R/V Meteor and R/V Polarstern deep-sea investigations in the south Atlantic and neighbouring Southern Ocean collected new samples of stalked crinoids belonging to the families Bathycrinidae, Phrynocrinidae and Hyocrinidae which are herein described. The species found are Bathycrinus australis A.H. Clark, 1907b (the most abundant), Dumetocrinus aff. antarcticus (Bather, ...

Metacercariae of the trematode Curtuteria australis (Echinostomatidae) accumulate in the foot of the New Zealand cockle Austrovenus stutchburyi, severely impairing the cockle's ability to burrow under the sediments. This results in increased predation by birds on cockles, and thus enhanced transmission rates of the parasite to its bird definitive hosts. This host manipulation by the trematode i...

Metacercariae of the trematode Curtuteria australis (Echinostomatidae) accumulate in the foot of the New Zealand cockle Austrovenus stutchburyi, severely impairing the cockle’s ability to burrow under the sediments. This results in increased predation by birds on cockles, and thus enhanced transmission rates of the parasite to its bird definitive hosts. This host manipulation by the trematode i...

The frequency of soil drying-rewetting cycles is predicted to increase under future global climate change, and arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) are symbiotic with most plants. However, it remains unknown how AMF affect plant growth under different frequencies of soil drying-rewetting cycles. We subjected a clonal wetland plant Phragmites australis to three frequencies of drying-rewetting cycl...

The cattle tick of Australia, Rhipicephalus australis, is a vector for microbial parasites that cause serious bovine diseases. The Haller's organ, located in the tick's forelegs, is crucial for host detection and mating. To facilitate the development of new technologies for better control of this agricultural pest, we aimed to sequence and annotate the transcriptome of the R. australis forelegs...

The rhizome of Phragmites australis has long been used for the treatment of hepatitis in traditional Chinese medicine. In this study, the hepatoprotective and antioxidant activities of an aqueous extract from the rhizome of P. australis (AE-PA) were evaluated. The acute toxicity test in mice showed that AE-PA was nontoxic since a dose of 2000 mg/kg body weight (b.w.) did not cause toxic symptom...

1. The distribution of genetic variation can be interpreted to understand the timing and mechanisms of invasive species spread. Allee effects, positive relationships between fitness and density or number of conspecific individuals, can play a substantial role in determining the time lag between initial introduction and invasive spread and can produce genetic patterns in invading populations tha...