In unicolonial populations of ants, individuals can mix freely within large networks of nests that contain many queens. It has been proposed that the absence of aggression in unicolonial populations stems from a loss of nest mate recognition, but few studies have tested this hypothesis. We investigated patterns of aggression and nest mate recognition in the unicolonial wood ant, Formica paralug...

Culture-based methods were employed to recover 3929 isolates of fungi from soils collected in May and July 2014 from mound nests of Formica ulkei and adjacent non-nest sites. The abundance, diversity, and richness of species from nest mounds exceeded those of non-mound soils, particularly in July. Communities of fungi from mounds were more similar to those from mounds than non-mounds; this was ...

A synopsis of the Coreid genus Eldarca Signoret, 1864 is presented. Full species status is given to Eldarca rufa Reed, 1899 n. stat. New distributional data are provided for Eldarca nigra Signoret, 1864. Eldarca haematoloma rufa Reed, 1899 n. stat. is considered as subspecies of E. haematomera. Eldarca nigroscutellata sp. nov. is described from southern Patagonia; which becomes also the souther...

The aim of the study was to develop a data base about the water quality in the Lake of 16 Tishreen Dam through, study was performed to determine of non biotic factors values of water in Lake and infecting FreeLiving fishes with monogenea parasites, and finding a relationship between parasites distribution and environmental conditions changing. 144 Free – living fishes were examined for detectin...

Dwarf bamboo-dominated forests are often subjected to temporary periods of drought due to rising air temperature and decreasing rainfall. Nevertheless, the relationship among CO2 assimilation, photoprotective pathways and metabolism of reactive oxygen species (ROS) remains unexplored in bamboo species. Changes in leaf gas exchange, chlorophyll fluorescence, energy partitioning, antioxidative sy...

Body size in animals is affected by both genes and the environment (e.g., the amount of food resources). In ants, body size is related to several traits in an individual's physiology and life history. For example, a large queen may increase offspring production, thus increasing her overall fitness. In this study, whether sub-optimal environmental conditions affect the body size of queens of the...