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Predator disease out-break modulates top-down, bottom-up and climatic effects on herbivore population dynamics.

Human-introduced disease and climatic change are increasingly perturbing natural ecosystems worldwide, but scientists know very little about how they interact to affect ecological dynamics. An outbreak of canine parvovirus (CPV) in the wolf population on Isle Royale allowed us to test the transient effects of an introduced pathogen and global climatic variation on the dynamics of a three-level food chain. Following the introduction of CPV, wolf numbers plummeted, precipitating a switch from top-down to bottom-up regulation of the moose population; consequently, the influence of climate on moose population growth rate doubled. This demonstrates that synergistic interactions between pathogens and climate can lead to shifts in trophic control, and suggests that predators in this system may play an important role in dampening the effects of climate change on the dynamics of their prey.

Animals↗

[Geographical hematology and population dynamics].

Hemotypology, which is based on the study of a large number of immunological and enzyme systems in the blood, has shown the extraordinary polymorphism of the human species and the lack of a genetic barrier between groups once considered as separate races. The typological mode of thought predominated in anthropology until the middle of this century. Mankind was divided into races according to a theoretical profile characteristic of each one, the holotype, which all the members of the same race were thought to resemble. Today we tend toward the substitution of population thinking: the human species, like all the other animal or plant species, is made up of populations, reproductive units whose members are more likely to mate within the group than outside it. A population is never totally closed and it is the interpopulational genetic flux which assures the homogeneity of the species. Three factors play a fundamental role in the genetic structure of human populations: 1. An ancestral genetic heritage from the distant past is modified by external contribution such as genetic flux and hybridization; 2. Chance is an especially important factor in very isolated small groups; 3. Natural selection: the majority of all genetic factors are not neutral, as we used to think, but possess a certain selective value. This nonneutrality doubtless explains the maintenance of the hemotypological polymorphism in man, as in the model proposed by A.E. Mourant and J. Ruffié. Following these ideas, sometimes it is possible to find the hemotypological traces of important events, especially of the great migrations of the beginning of the neolithic or the beginning of the historic period. Examples are cited which concern the peopling of sub-Saharan Africa, the western Mediterranean and western Europe, and of the continental Far East and Japan. This conceptual revolution, based on the dynamic idea of populations and not on that of the typological conception of race, has shed new light on the science of anthropology and has bridged the gap between hematology and history.

Africa, Northern↗

Prophage contribution to bacterial population dynamics.

Cocultures of Salmonella strains carrying or lacking specific prophages undergo swift composition changes as a result of phage-mediated killing of sensitive bacteria and lysogenic conversion of survivors. Thus, spontaneous prophage induction in a few lysogenic cells enhances the competitive fitness of the lysogen population as a whole, setting a selection regime that forces maintenance and spread of viral DNA. This is likely to account for the profusion of prophage sequences in bacterial genomes and may contribute to the evolutionary success of certain phylogenetic lineages.

Biological Evolution↗

Mitochondrial DNA control-region and coding-region data highlight geographically structured diversity and post-domestication population dynamics in worldwide donkeys.

Donkeys (Equus asinus) have been used extensively in agriculture and transportations since their domestication, ca. 5000-7000 years ago, but the increased mechanization of the last century has largely spoiled their role as burden animals, particularly in developed countries. Consequently, donkey breeds and population sizes have been declining for decades, and the diversity contributed by autochthonous gene pools has been eroded. Here, we examined coding-region data extracted from 164 complete mitogenomes and 1392 donkey mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) control-region sequences to (i) assess worldwide diversity, (ii) evaluate geographical patterns of variation, and (iii) provide a new nomenclature of mtDNA haplogroups. The topology of the Maximum Parsimony tree confirmed the two previously identified major clades, i.e. Clades 1 and 2, but also highlighted the occurrence of a deep-diverging lineage within Clade 2 that left a marginal trace in modern donkeys. Thanks to the identification of stable and highly diagnostic coding-region mutational motifs, the two lineages were renamed as haplogroup A and haplogroup B, respectively, to harmonize clade nomenclature with the standard currently adopted for other livestock species. Control-region diversity and population expansion metrics varied considerably between geographical areas but confirmed North-eastern Africa as the likely domestication center. The patterns of geographical distribution of variation analyzed through phylogenetic networks and AMOVA confirmed the co-occurrence of both haplogroups in all sampled populations, while differences at the regional level point to the joint effects of demography, past human migrations and trade following the spread of donkeys out of the domestication center. Despite the strong decline that donkey populations have undergone for decades in many areas of the world, the sizeable mtDNA variability we scored, and the possible identification of a new early radiating lineage further stress the need for an extensive and large-scale characterization of donkey nuclear genome diversity to identify hotspots of variation and aid the conservation of local breeds worldwide.

Animals↗

Population dynamics of mosquito immatures and the succession in abundance of aquatic insects in rice fields in Madurai, South India.

Studies on the breeding pattern of mosquito immatures and the successional changes in the abundance of aquatic insects were conducted in rice fields near Madurai, south India. The population of late (III/IV) larval instars of culicines peaked on Day 28 and pupae (Culex tritaeniorhynchus, Cx. pseudovishnui and Cx. vishnui) peaked on Day 9 after transplantation, whereas the population of late (III/IV) larval instars of anophelines peaked on Day 19 and pupae of Anopheles subpictus and An. vagus on Days 7 and 9 respectively, after transplantation of paddy. A total of 14 families (consisting of 17 subfamilies) of aquatic insects belonging to six different orders, Coleoptera, Diptera, Ephemeroptera, Hemiptera, Anisoptera and Zygoptera were collected during the study period and the abundance of each group of insects is discussed in detail. The Shannon-Weaver Diversity Index, applied to study the diversity of different groups of aquatic insects, showed a clear pattern in diversity of surface predators, bottom predators and non-predators of mosquito immatures. The multiple linear regression model reveals that notonectid adults, coenagrionids, libellulids and veliids act as important predators of mosquito immatures in rice fields.

Animals↗