Many alien plants use animal vectors for dispersal of their diaspores (zoochory). If alien plants interact with native disperser animals, this can interfere with animal-mediated dispersal of native diaspores. Interference by alien species is known for frugivorous animals dispersing fruits of terrestrial plants by ingestion, transport and egestion (endozoochory). However, less attention has been...

1. We used published data to investigate the combined influence of egg size and incubation temperature on embryonic development time for a broad assortment of aquatic insects at four different incubation temperatures (10, 15, 20 and 25 °C). 2. Embryonic development time (EDT) was positively correlated with egg size at each of the four temperatures, but with different relationships for univoltin...

Evolutionary trajectories are often biased by developmental and historical factors. However, environmental factors can also impose constraints on the evolutionary trajectories of organisms leading to convergence of morphology in similar ecological contexts. The physical properties of water impose strong constraints on aquatic feeding animals by generating pressure waves that can alert prey and ...

The patterns of blood flow through the complex circulation of the tiger salamander, Ambystoma tigrinum, were investigated during aquatic normoxia and hypoxia by application of the microsphere technique. The distribution of differently labelled microspheres injected into the bloodstream towards the left and right atria, respectively, was used to evaluate the role of the ductus arteriosus in lung...

It is well known that the transboundary spread of infectious diseases is aided by trade in live animals and the consequences can be severe if, as a result, a pathogen broadens its host range to new species. Trade in aquatic animal species is increasing, and aquaculture is also expanding to meet the growing human population's demands for animal protein. Moreover, it is clear that aquaculture has...

Lipids constituted 0.6-2.2% wet wt of the gills of 11 species of aquatic animals (4 bivalves, a crustacean and 6 fishes). Phospholipids, largely phosphatidylcholine (PC) and phosphatidylethanolamine (PE), are major components of all species. The plasmalogen contents of these lipids were 47-291 mumol/g, with the highest values found for bivalve gill total lipids and the catfish phospholipid frac...

1. Liver, kidney, brain, skeletal muscle, and cardiac muscle from one newborn and three adult long-snouted dolphins (Stenella plagiodon) were obtained for enzyme studies. 2. All of the dolphin tissues exhibited cytochrome oxidase, succinic dehydrogenase, and malic dehydrogenase activity. Considerable differences in the enzyme activities of the various tissues were noted, with cardiac muscle exh...

~ Organic matter from aquatic and terrestrial sources provides the carbon energy that 'drives' aquatic food webs. Most streams and rivers are heterotrophic — that is, more carbon is consumed (e.g. by animals and bacteria) than is produced within the system by aquatic plants. However, despite the presence of vast amounts of carbon in streams and rivers, only a small proportion of the total is tr...