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Acacia Cornigera
''Vachellia cornigera'', commonly known as bullhorn acacia (family (biology), family Fabaceae), is a swollen-thorn tree and myrmecophyte native to Mexico and Central America. The common name of "bullhorn" refers to the enlarged, hollowed-out, swollen thorns (technically called stipular Thorns, spines, and prickles, spines) that occur in pairs at the base of leaves, and resemble the horns of a steer. In Yucatán (state), Yucatán (one region where the bullhorn acacia thrives) it is called "subín", in Panama the locals call them "cachito" (little horn). The trees are commonly found in wet lowlands Morphology Bullhorn acacias are often found as trees. Their bark is gray to brown in color and has small furrows. The new growth of the branches is a reddish brown color and is covered in a pubescence, or a covering of small hairs. The leaves are alternate with a pair of stipular spines where the leaf connects to the branch. The spines can vary widely in color from brown, red, and yello ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Carl Linnaeus
Carl Linnaeus (23 May 1707 – 10 January 1778), also known after ennoblement in 1761 as Carl von Linné,#Blunt, Blunt (2004), p. 171. was a Swedish biologist and physician who formalised binomial nomenclature, the modern system of naming organisms. He is known as the "father of modern Taxonomy (biology), taxonomy". Many of his writings were in Latin; his name is rendered in Latin as and, after his 1761 ennoblement, as . Linnaeus was the son of a curate and was born in Råshult, in the countryside of Småland, southern Sweden. He received most of his higher education at Uppsala University and began giving lectures in botany there in 1730. He lived abroad between 1735 and 1738, where he studied and also published the first edition of his ' in the Netherlands. He then returned to Sweden where he became professor of medicine and botany at Uppsala. In the 1740s, he was sent on several journeys through Sweden to find and classify plants and animals. In the 1750s and 1760s, he co ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Beltian Body
A Beltian body is a detachable tip found on the pinnules of some species of ''Acacia'' and closely related genera. Beltian bodies, named after Thomas Belt, are rich in lipids, sugars and proteins and often red in colour. They are believed to have evolved in a symbiotic relationship with ants. The ants live inside special plant structures (domatia) or near the plant and keep away herbivores. Other ant- mutualism related plant structures include Beccarian, Mullerian and pearl bodies. Unique among spiders for its predominantly herbivorous diet, ''Bagheera kiplingi'' feeds almost exclusively on Beltian bodies. See also * Plant defence against herbivory * Elaiosome Elaiosomes ( ''élaion'' "oil" + ''sóma'' "body") are fleshy structures that are attached to the seeds of many plant species. The elaiosome is rich in lipids and proteins, and may be variously shaped. Many plants have elaiosomes that attract ... References External links * Plant physiology Plant morpholo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Livestock
Livestock are the Domestication, domesticated animals that are raised in an Agriculture, agricultural setting to provide labour and produce diversified products for consumption such as meat, Egg as food, eggs, milk, fur, leather, and wool. The term is sometimes used to refer solely to animals which are raised for consumption, and sometimes used to refer solely to farmed ruminants, such as cattle, sheep, and goats. The breeding, maintenance, slaughter and general subjugation of livestock called ''animal husbandry'', is a part of modern agriculture and has been practiced in many cultures since humanity's transition to farming from hunter-gatherer lifestyles. Animal husbandry practices have varied widely across cultures and periods. It continues to play a major economic and cultural role in numerous communities. Livestock farming practices have largely shifted to intensive animal farming. Intensive animal farming increases the yield of the various commercial outputs, but also nega ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Daniel Janzen
Daniel Hunt Janzen (born January 18, 1939, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin) is an American evolutionary ecologist and conservationist. He divides his time between his professorship in biology at the University of Pennsylvania, where he is the DiMaura Professor of Conservation Biology, and his research and field work in Costa Rica. Janzen and his wife Winifred Hallwachs have catalogued the biodiversity of Costa Rica. Through a DNA barcoding initiative, Janzen and geneticist Paul Hebert have registered over 500,000 specimens representing more than 45,000 species, which has led to the identification of cryptic species of near-identical appearance that differ in terms of genetics and ecological niche. Janzen and Hallwachs developed some of the most influential hypotheses in ecology that continue to influence research more than 50 years later. Janzen and Hallwachs helped to establish the Area de Conservación Guanacaste World Heritage Site, one of the oldest, largest and most succes ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pheromone
A pheromone () is a secreted or excreted chemical factor that triggers a social response in members of the same species. Pheromones are chemicals capable of acting like hormones outside the body of the secreting individual, to affect the behavior of the receiving individuals. There are ''alarm signal, alarm pheromones'', ''food trail pheromones'', ''sex pheromones'', and many others that affect behavior or physiology. Pheromones are used by many organisms, from basic unicellular prokaryotes to complex multicellular eukaryotes. Their use among insects has been particularly well documented. In addition, some vertebrates, plants and ciliates communicate by using pheromones. The ecological functions and evolution of pheromones are a major topic of research in the field of chemical ecology. Background The portmanteau word "pheromone" was coined by Peter Karlson and Martin Lüscher in 1959, based on the Greek language, Greek () and (). Pheromones are also sometimes classified as ec ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nectar
Nectar is a viscous, sugar-rich liquid produced by Plant, plants in glands called nectaries, either within the flowers with which it attracts pollination, pollinating animals, or by extrafloral nectaries, which provide a nutrient source to animal Mutualism (biology), mutualists, which in turn provide plant defense against herbivory#Indirect defenses, herbivore protection. Common nectar-consuming pollinators include mosquitoes, hoverfly, hoverflies, wasps, bees, butterfly, butterflies and moths, hummingbirds, honeyeaters and Bat#Fruit and nectar, bats. Nectar is an economically important substance as it is the sugar source for honey. It is also useful in agriculture and horticulture because the adult stages of some predatory insects feed on nectar. For example, a number of predacious or Parasitoid wasp, parasitoid wasps (e.g., the social wasp species ''Apoica flavissima'') rely on nectar as a primary food source. In turn, these wasps then hunt agricultural pest insects as food ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lipid
Lipids are a broad group of organic compounds which include fats, waxes, sterols, fat-soluble vitamins (such as vitamins A, D, E and K), monoglycerides, diglycerides, phospholipids, and others. The functions of lipids include storing energy, signaling, and acting as structural components of cell membranes. Lipids have applications in the cosmetic and food industries, and in nanotechnology. Lipids are broadly defined as hydrophobic or amphiphilic small molecules; the amphiphilic nature of some lipids allows them to form structures such as vesicles, multilamellar/ unilamellar liposomes, or membranes in an aqueous environment. Biological lipids originate entirely or in part from two distinct types of biochemical subunits or "building-blocks": ketoacyl and isoprene groups. Using this approach, lipids may be divided into eight categories: fatty acyls, glycerolipids, glycerophospholipids, sphingolipids, saccharolipids, and polyketides (derived from condensatio ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Protein
Proteins are large biomolecules and macromolecules that comprise one or more long chains of amino acid residue (biochemistry), residues. Proteins perform a vast array of functions within organisms, including Enzyme catalysis, catalysing metabolic reactions, DNA replication, Cell signaling, responding to stimuli, providing Cytoskeleton, structure to cells and Fibrous protein, organisms, and Intracellular transport, transporting molecules from one location to another. Proteins differ from one another primarily in their sequence of amino acids, which is dictated by the Nucleic acid sequence, nucleotide sequence of their genes, and which usually results in protein folding into a specific Protein structure, 3D structure that determines its activity. A linear chain of amino acid residues is called a polypeptide. A protein contains at least one long polypeptide. Short polypeptides, containing less than 20–30 residues, are rarely considered to be proteins and are commonly called pep ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alkaloid
Alkaloids are a broad class of natural product, naturally occurring organic compounds that contain at least one nitrogen atom. Some synthetic compounds of similar structure may also be termed alkaloids. Alkaloids are produced by a large variety of organisms including bacteria, fungus, fungi, Medicinal plant, plants, and animals. They can be purified from crude extracts of these organisms by acid-base extraction, or solvent extractions followed by silica-gel column chromatography. Alkaloids have a wide range of pharmacology, pharmacological activities including antimalarial medication, antimalarial (e.g. quinine), asthma, antiasthma (e.g. ephedrine), chemotherapy, anticancer (e.g. omacetaxine mepesuccinate, homoharringtonine), cholinomimetic (e.g. galantamine), vasodilation, vasodilatory (e.g. vincamine), Antiarrhythmic agent, antiarrhythmic (e.g. quinidine), analgesic (e.g. morphine), antibacterial (e.g. chelerythrine), and anti-diabetic, antihyperglycemic activities (e.g. berb ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pseudomyrmex Ferruginea
The acacia ant (''Pseudomyrmex ferruginea'') is a species of ant of the genus ''Pseudomyrmex''. These arboreal, wasp-like ants have an orange-brown body around 3 mm in length and very large eyes. The acacia ant is best known and named for living in symbiosis with the bullhorn acacia (''Acacia cornigera'') throughout Central America. The ant and the acacia exemplify a coevolution of a Mutualism (biology), mutualistic system, as described by Evolutionary ecology, evolutionary ecologist Daniel Janzen. Description ''P. ferruginea'' is an obligate plant ant that occupies at least five species of acacia (''Acacia chiapensis, A. chiapensis'', ''Acacia collinsii, A. collinsii'', ''Acacia cornigera, A. cornigera'', ''Acacia hindsii, A. hindsii'' and ''Acacia sphaerocephala, A. sphaerocephala''). Its life cycle conforms to the claustral pattern of ants in general. Mutualistic symbiosis To repel herbivorous animals, various acacias protect their succulent leave ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Symbiosis
Symbiosis (Ancient Greek : living with, companionship < : together; and ''bíōsis'': living) is any type of a close and long-term biological interaction, between two organisms of different species. The two organisms, termed symbionts, can for example be in Mutualism (biology), mutualistic, commensalism, commensalistic, or parasitism, parasitic relationships. In 1879, Heinrich Anton de Bary defined symbiosis as "the living together of unlike organisms". The term is sometimes more exclusively used in a restricted, mutualistic sense, where both symbionts contribute to each other's subsistence. This means that they benefit each other in some way. Symbiosis can be ''obligate'' (or ''obligative''), which means that one, or both of the organisms depend on each other for survival, or ''facultative'' (optional), when they can also subsist independently. Symbiosis is also classified by physical attachment. Symbionts forming a single body live ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pseudomyrmex Ferruginea Ryan Somma
''Pseudomyrmex'' is a genus of stinging, wasp-like ants in the subfamily Pseudomyrmecinae. They are large-eyed, slender ants, found mainly in tropical and subtropical regions of the New World. Distribution and habitat ''Pseudomyrmex'' is predominantly Neotropical in distribution, but a few species are known from the Nearctic region. Most species are generalist twig nesters, for instance, ''Pseudomyrmex pallidus'' may nest in the hollow stems of dead grasses, twigs of herbaceous plants, and in dead, woody twigs. However, the genus is best known for several species that are obligate mutualists with certain species of ''Acacia sensu lato, Acacia''. Other species have evolved obligate mutualism with other trees; for example ''Pseudomyrmex triplarinus'' is obligately dependent on any of a few trees in the genus ''Triplaris''.Larrea-Alcázar, D. M. and J. A. Simonetti. (2007)Why are there few seedlings beneath the myrmecophyte ''Triplaris americana''?. ''Acta Oecologica'' 32(1) 112–1 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
