Pseudococcus comstocki (Hemiptera: Pseudococcidae) is a mealybug species native to Eastern Asia and present as an invasive pest in northern Italy and southern France since the start of the century. It infests apple and pear trees, grapevines and some ornamental trees. Biocontrol programmes against this pest proved successful in central Asia and North America in the second half of the 20th centu...

Copper (Cu) accumulation in shoot and root tissues and low molecular weight organic acids (LMWOA) root exudation have been studied in two metallophytes from Central Chile (Oenothera affinis and Imperata condensata) and two agricultural plants (Lupinus albus and Helianthus annus) growing under hydroponics conditions at increasing Cu levels (0, 0.125, 0.250, 0.5, 1 and 2 mg Cu/L). The plants were...

The regeneration of disturbed forest is an essential part of tropical forest ecology, both with respect to natural disturbance regimes and large-scale human-mediated logging, grazing, and agriculture. Pioneer tree species are critical for facilitating the transition from deforested land to secondary forest because they stabilize terrain and enhance connectivity between forest fragments by incre...

Effects of habitat and acclimation temperature on cholesterol contents were examined in oceanic and inshore species of copepods. The cholesterol content of five species of thermally acclimated copepods was determined, and nine species (representing six families) were sampled to assess the role of habitat temperature. The species selected have maximum habitat temperatures (and temperature tolera...

Chromosome numbers of one species Eranthemum (E. macrophyllum Wall. ex Nees) and five Strobilanthes [S. affinis (Griff.) Terao J. R. I. Wood et Benett., S. biocullata Y. F. Deng & Wood, dimorphotricha Hance, heteroclita D. Fang H. Lo pseudocollina K. He Qin] in the family Acanthaceae from China have been reported for first time. The chromosome were determined as 2n=4x=44 E. macrophyllum, 2n=2x=...

A taxonomic study of the genus Furcilarnaca Gorochov, 2004 is presented. Four new species are described: F. affinis sp. nov., F. hirta sp. nov., F. fractiflexa sp. nov., F. brachyptera sp. nov.. Two new combinations F. fallax (Liu et al., 2010) comb. nov. and F. pulex (Karny, 1928) comb. nov. are given. A key to the species and the distributional data of Furcilarnaca are provided.

Eleven species of Mordellidae are newly recorded for New Brunswick, Canada. Six of these, Falsomordellistena discolor (Melsheimer), Falsomordellistena pubescens (Fabricius), Mordellistena ornata (Melsheimer), Mordellaria undulata (Melsheimer), Tomoxia inclusa LeConte, and Yakuhananomia bidentata (Say)are new for the Maritime provinces. Falsomordellistena pubescens is new to Canada. Pelecotoma f...

Five species previously usually treated as Dicranomyia (Dicranomyia) mitis (Meigen, 1830) are redescribed and named with already existing names, viz. D. (D.) mitis [s. str.], D. (D.) affinis (Schummel, 1829), D. (D.) quadra (Meigen, 1838), sp. restit., D. (D.) lutea (Meigen, 1804), and D. (D.) imbecilla Lackschewitz in Lackschewitz & Pagast, 1941, stat. n. All important characters of the wing, ...

Maintenance of genetic variation at loci under selection has profound implications for adaptation under environmental change. In temporally and spatially varying habitats, non-neutral polymorphism could be maintained by heterozygote advantage across environments (marginal overdominance), which could be greatly increased by beneficial reversal of dominance across conditions. We tested for revers...

A molecular tool, focused on the mitochondrial Control Region (CR), was developed to discriminate the two hawthorn-feeding psyllid species, Cacopsylla melanoneura (Förster) and C. affinis (Löw), and to estimate their frequencies in mixed populations. The test was carried out in paired and single-tube amplifications and validated analysing 52 male specimens previously determined by morphological...