This study examines phylogenetic relationships among six species of the Formica rufa group ants (F. polyctena, F. rufa, F. lugubris, F. paralugubris, F. aquilonia, and F. pratensis). The phylogeny based on a 2051bp fragment of mtDNA including cyt b, tRNASer, and ND1 genes supports the division of the group into three major clusters: one with the species F. polyctena and F. rufa, one with F. aqu...

I used a host-visitor modeling framework to examine the interaction between the treehopper Publilia conca6a and ants in the genus Formica. In particular, I tested the functional relationship between ant tending, the spatial distribution of treehoppers, and treehopper density. The per-capita density of ants at each host plant was a decreasing function of treehopper density, distance from the ant...

In addition to the three so far known species of Prosopistoma Latreille, 1833 from West Palaearctic region, P. pennigerum (Müller, 1785), P. oronti Alouf, 1977 and P. orhanelicum Dalkıran, 2009, two new species are described based on larvae. Prosopistoma helenae sp. n. has been found in Iraq (Tigris River in Mosul) and Prosopistoma alaini sp. n. in Algeria (Oued Isser, Sidi Abdelli). Critical d...

Lesteva (s.str.) hartmanni sp. n. (Nepal: Gandaki Province, Manaslu Mts.), L. (s.str.) brevipennis Cameron, 1941 and L. (s.str.) torrentum Cameron, 1924 are (re-) described and illustrated. New records of L. (s.str.) championi Lohse, 1982, L. (s.str.) jaegeri Shavrin, 2012 and a modified identification key to the species of Lesteva Latreille, 1797 of Nepal are provided. L. brevipennis is record...

A two-stage power conditioning circuit consisting of an AC DC converter followed by a DC DC converter is proposed for a vibration-based energy harvesting system. The power conditioning circuit intends to maximize the amount of power extracted from a piezoelectric energy harvester by matching the source impedance with the circuit by adaptively adjusting the duty cycle. An equivalent electrical c...

Some populations of Pogonomyrmex harvester ants comprise pairs of highly differentiated lineages with queens mating at random with several males of their own and of the alternate lineage. These queens produce two types of diploid offspring, those fertilized by males of the queens' lineage which develop into new queens and those fertilized by males of the other lineage which mostly develop into ...

This paper presents a new energy-harvesting system with two identical piezoelectric energy harvesters in a tandem configuration. Each harvester consists of a piezoelectric beam and a circular cylinder. Experiments are performed to investigate the energy-harvesting performances of this system in water. It can be found that their energy-harvesting performances are all different from that of the s...

In this paper, a 9 degree of freedom seaweed harvester dynamical model is presented. The model presented describes the coupled dynamics of a vessel and a harvesting device, lifted by a winch, subject to sea waves disturbances. In order to find an appropriate harvesting path, which minimizes the harvester motions, the model response is simulated for different encounter angles. This 9 DOF seaweed...