INTRODUCTION An understanding of the feeding ecology of the red-billed quelea (Quelea quelea) is necessary for a comprehensive assessment of the potential impact of this species on cereals development. Queleas are reported to subsist primarily on wild Gramineae (Ward 1965a; Gaston 1976), but their mobility and tendency to feed in large aggrega-tions readily adapts them to becoming a major cerea...

An experiment was conducted on eight weak and anaemic goats revealed pale conjunctivae, increased heart rate, rough hair coat, dullness and depression. The haematology showed significantly decreased haemoglobin (7.37±0.16 g %), packed cell volume (PCV)(23.37±0.56%),total erythrocyte count (TEC)(8.12±0.18 million/cumm), mean corpuscular haemoglobin (MCH) (9.10±0.30 pg) and mean corpuscular volum...

The adaptive significance of mechanisms of energy and water conservation among species of desert rodents, which avoid temperature extremes by remaining within a burrow during the day, is well established. Conventional wisdom holds that arid-zone birds, diurnal organisms that endure the brunt of their environment, occupy these desert climates because of the possession of physiological design fea...

Although laboratory studies of large mammals have revealed valuable information on thermoregulation, such studies cannot predict accurately how animals respond in their natural habitats. Through insights obtained on thermoregulatory behavior, body temperature variability, and selective brain cooling in free-living mammals, we show here how we can better understand the physiological capacity of ...

Ap Applicati tions ons in in Pl Plant t Scien Sciences ces Several Australian arid-zone acacias are threatened by habitat loss, degradation, and fragmentation resulting from agricultural activities and exotic herbivores (Morton et al., 1995), although others, including Acacia ligulata A. Cunn. ex Benth., are thriving. Two long-lived and potentially clonal species facing a variety of potential t...

With little precipitation (<10 cm water equivalent annually as snow), soils of the McMurdo Dry Valleys (MDV) have limited water available to support hydrological or biogeochemical processes. Active layer depths across most of this landscape are <1 m. Saturated sediments are obvious in wetted margins on the shorelines of lakes, extending for up to ~10 m into a zone where typically arid MDV soils...