Hormonally mediated maternal effects link maternal phenotype and environmental conditions to offspring phenotype. The production of lipid-rich maternal yolk precursors may provide a mechanism by which lipophilic steroid hormones can be transported to developing yolks, thus predicting a positive correlation between yolk precursors in mothers and androgen levels in eggs. Using rockhopper penguins...

Understanding reproductive performance in ecologically impoverished vs. more sustained anthropogenic habitats is critical to assess population health status and to develop land use and conservation management strategies. We compared resourcebased maternal effects, reproductive performance, and offspring quality in a model migratory passerine bird, the European starling (Sturnus vulgaris). We as...

Cysteine proteases are involved in the degradation of intracellular and extracellular proteins, although their precise roles in vivo are not well understood. Here we characterise a genetic mutant of the Caenorhabditis elegans cathepsin L protease gene cpl-1. CPL-1 is provided maternally and is essential for C. elegans embryogenesis. Immunofluorescence and electron microscopy data show that yolk...

Of 92 drug-resistant Mycobacterium tuberculosis strains isolated from sputum specimens, 86 showed growth in two types of 7H12 broth, one with egg yolk and the other without egg yolk. In addition, two strains grew only in plain 7H12 broth without yolk, and four others were recovered only in the medium supplemented with egg yolk. The radiometrically detected growth was higher in the presence of e...

In present study, two trials had been conducted to evaluate the effects of Spirulina platensis (SP) on growth performance, carcass characteristics, egg quantity and quality traits, and immunity response of Japanese quails. In trial 1, a total number of 180 one-day-old Japanese quails were randomly assigned into 6 groups, 3 replicates with 10 quail chicks per replicate. Experimental die...

Variation in yolk hormones is assumed to provide the plasticity necessary for mothers to individually optimize reproductive decisions via changes in offspring phenotype, the benefit being to maximise fitness. However, rather than routinely expecting adaptive variation within all species, the pattern and magnitude of yolk hormone deposition should theoretically relate to variation in life-histor...

Abstract In this study, multi-tissue (yolk and carapace) stable isotope analysis was used to assess individual isotopic niche trajectories of nesting green turtles on Rocas Atoll, off northeastern Brazil, reveal a diet shift in the temporal dimension. The were highly directional, with stronger component towards decreasing values ?15N from carapace yolk. When are their foraging sites (temporal w...