This study was performed to compare the efficiency of six microalgae namely Dunaliella tertiolecta, Tetraselmis suecica, Nannochloropsis oculata, Chaetoceros sp., Chlorella sp. and Spirolina sp. on the growth, survival rate and reproduction efficacy in Artemia urmiana in laboratory conditions. Artemia cysts were harvested from Urmia Lake and hatched according to the standard method. Live microa...

Background: To examine the relative contributions of dietary fat intake level and its food sources and assisted reproduction parameters. Materials and Methods: A prospective study was conducted on 240 infertile women. In assisted reproduction treatment cycle, body mass index (BMI), physical activity (PA), calorie intake, fat consumption and major food sources were assessed. The number of retrie...

Members of some social insects adjust their behaviours depending upon social context. Such plasticity allows colonies to sustain efficiency of the whole without the cost of additional production of individuals or delayed responses to perturbations. Using the recently discovered social clonal stage of trematode parasites, we investigated whether members of the reproductive caste adjust their def...

Behavioral similarity between partners is likely to promote within-pair compatibility and to result in better reproductive success. Therefore, individuals are expected to choose a partner that is alike in behavioral type. However, mate searching is very costly and does not guarantee finding a matching partner. If mismatched individuals pair, they may benefit from increasing their similarity aft...

Trichogramma spp. are parasitoids used in the regulation of insect populations that can cause economic damage. In order to ensure good performance, understanding some of their biological characteristics is essential. The objective of this study is to evaluate whether mating interferes with the biological characteristics of a population of Trichogramma pretiosum collected in the field. In all ex...

Recent evolutionary models of reproductive partitioning within animal societies (known as 'optimal skew', 'concessions' or 'transactional' models) predict that a dominant individual will often yield some fraction of the group's reproduction to a subordinate as an incentive to stay in the group and help rear the dominant's offspring. These models quantitatively predict how the magnitude of the s...

The reproductive performance of plants depends on the temperature of the flower. A recent study reports the mechanistic basis of flower head orientation in sunflowers and provides intriguing hints as to its functional significance.

The long-standing goal of finding genes causing reproductive isolation is being achieved. To better link the genetics with the process of speciation, we propose that 'speciation gene' be defined as any gene contributing to the evolution of reproductive isolation. Characterizing a speciation gene involves establishing that the gene affects a component of reproductive isolation; demonstrating tha...

The relationship between the basic reproduction number R0 and the exponential growth rate, specific to pair approximation models, is derived for the SIS, SIR and SEIR deterministic models without demography. These models are extended by including a random rewiring of susceptible individuals from infectious (and exposed) neighbours. The derived relationship between the exponential growth rate an...