Ophryocystis Elektroscirrha
''Ophryocystis elektroscirrha'' (sometimes abbreviated OE or ''O.e.'') is an obligate, neogregarine protozoan parasite that infects monarch (''Danaus plexippus'') and queen (''Danaus gilippus'') butterflies. There are no other known hosts. The species was first discovered in Florida, around the late 1960s. Since then, it has been found in every monarch population examined to date, including monarchs sampled in North America, Hawaii, Australia, Cuba, and Central and South America. Dormant spores occur on the cuticles of butterflies, in between the butterfly's scales. They are small, brown or black objects about 1/100 the width of a butterfly scale. The only currently known way of treating the ''Ophryocystis'' parasite is by soaking the host's eggs in a light bleach solution, which kills the spores that are present on the eggs' surface. Life cycle ''Ophryocystis elektroscirrha'' is most often transmitted from females to their offspring, when spores stick to the female's body and ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Obligate Parasite
An obligate parasite or holoparasite is a parasitic organism that cannot complete its life-cycle without exploiting a suitable host. If an obligate parasite cannot obtain a host it will fail to reproduce. This is opposed to a facultative parasite, which can act as a parasite but does not rely on its host to continue its life-cycle. Obligate parasites have evolved a variety of parasitic strategies to exploit their hosts. It is advantageous for the parasite to preserve the health of its host when this is compatible with its nutritional and reproductive requirements, except when the death of the host is necessary for transmission.Combes, C. (1997) Fitness of Parasites: Pathology and Selection ''International Journal for Parasitology'' 27 (1): 1–10. Species Obligate parasitism is exhibited in a range of organisms, with examples in viruses, bacteria, fungi, plants, and animals.Balashov, Yu.S. (2011) Parasitism and Ecological Parasitology. ''Entomological Review'' 91 (9): 1216–1223. ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Integument
In biology, an integument is the tissue surrounding an organism's body or an organ within, such as skin, a husk, Exoskeleton, shell, germ or Peel (fruit), rind. Etymology The term is derived from ''integumentum'', which is Latin for "a covering". In a transferred, or figurative sense, it could mean a cloak or a disguise. In English, "integument" is a fairly modern word, its origin having been traced back to the early seventeenth century; and refers to a material or layer with which anything is enclosed, clothed, or covered in the sense of "clad" or "coated", as with a skin or husk. Botanical usage In botany, the term "integument" may be used as it is in zoology, referring to the covering of an organ. When the context indicates nothing to the contrary, the word commonly refers to an envelope covering the nucellus of the Ovule#Integuments, chivai and chalaza, ovule. The integument may consist of one layer (unitegmic) or two layers (bitegmic), each of which consisting of two or ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Conoidasida
Conoidasida is a class of parasitic alveolates in the phylum Apicomplexa. The class was defined in 1988 by Levine and contains two subclasses – the coccidia and the gregarines. All members of this class have a complete, hollow, truncated conoid. Gregarines tend to parasitize invertebrates with the mature gamonts being extracellular; the coccidia mostly infect vertebrates and have intracellular gamonts. Description A conoid is found in most species and when present forms complete but truncated cone. Sexual and asexual reproduction are present in life cycle of all species. Each zygote normally forms an oocyst wall within which it undergoes meiosis. This is sometimes followed by mitosis. This process of sporogony produces mobile vermiform infectious sporozoites. Multiple mitotic divisions ( schizogony) also occur during merogony of the feeding stages (trophozoites) and during gametogony. Motility Microgametes of some species are flagellated. Locomotion of other gam ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Asclepias Incarnata
''Asclepias incarnata'', the swamp milkweed, rose milkweed, rose milkflower, swamp silkweed, or white Indian hemp, is a herbaceous perennial plant species native to North America. It grows in damp through wet soils and also is cultivated as a garden plant for its flowers, which attract butterflies and other pollinators with nectar. Like most other milkweeds, it has latex containing cardiac glycosides, toxic steroids, a characteristic that repels many species of insects and mammals. Description Swamp milkweed is an upright, tall plant, growing from thick, fleshy, white roots. Typically, its Plant stem, stems are branched and the clump forming plants emerge in late spring after most other plants have begun growth for the year. The oppositely arranged leaves are long and wide and are narrow and lanceolate, lance-shaped, with the ends tapering to a sharp point. The plants bloom in early through mid-summer, producing small, fragrant, pink to mauve (sometimes white) colored flowers ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Asclepias Curassavica
''Asclepias curassavica'', commonly known as tropical milkweed, is a flowering plant species of the milkweed genus, ''Asclepias''. It is native to the Neotropical realm, American tropics and has a pantropical distribution as an introduced species. Other common names include bloodflower or blood flower, cotton bush, hierba de la cucaracha, Mexican butterfly weed, redhead, scarlet milkweed, and wild ipecacuanha. It is grown as an Ornamental plant, ornamental garden plant and as a food source for some butterflies, however it may be harmful to the migration patterns of monarch butterfly, monarch butterflies when used in gardens outside of its native tropical range. Though public concern for the rapidly declining monarch population increased the demand and commercial availability of milkweed among nurseries in the US, the results have been mixed. While tropical milkweed may effectively sustain monarch larvae, the perennial growth of the plant takes ill effect on the monarchs' migratory ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Virulence
Virulence is a pathogen's or microorganism's ability to cause damage to a host. In most cases, especially in animal systems, virulence refers to the degree of damage caused by a microbe to its host. The pathogenicity of an organism—its ability to cause disease—is determined by its virulence factors. In the specific context of gene for gene systems, often in plants, virulence refers to a pathogen's ability to infect a resistant host. Virulence can also be transferred using a plasmid. The noun ''virulence'' (Latin noun ) derives from the adjective ''virulent'', meaning disease severity. The word ''virulent'' derives from the Latin word ''virulentus'', meaning "a poisoned wound" or "full of poison". The term ''virulence'' does not only apply to viruses. From an ecological standpoint, virulence is the loss of fitness induced by a parasite upon its host. Virulence can be understood in terms of proximate causes—those specific traits of the pathogen that help make the host ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Cardenolide
A cardenolide is a type of steroid. Many plants contain derivatives, collectively known as cardenolides, including many in the form of cardenolide glycosides (cardenolides that contain structural groups derived from sugars). Cardenolide glycosides are often toxic; specifically, they are cardiac arrest, heart-arresting. Cardenolides are toxic to animals through inhibition of the enzyme Na+/K+-ATPase, Na+/K+-ATPase, which is responsible for maintaining the sodium and Potassium in biology, potassium ion gradients across the cell membranes. Etymology The term derives from ''card-'' "heart" (from Greek language, Greek καρδία ''kardiā'') and the suffix , referring to the lactone ring with double bond at C17. Cardenolides are a class of steroids (or aglycones if viewed as cardiac glycoside constituents), and cardenolides are a subtype of this class (see Wikipedia:MeSH D04#MeSH D04.808.155 --- cardenolides, MeSH D codes list). Structure Cardenolides are C(23)-steroids with methyl ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Ecology (journal)
''Ecology'' is a scientific journal that publishes research and synthesizes papers in the field of ecology. It was founded in 1920 as the continuation of ''Plant World'', and is published by the Ecological Society of America. According to the ''Journal Citation Reports,'' it is currently ranked 15th out of 136 journals in the Ecology Ecology () is the natural science of the relationships among living organisms and their Natural environment, environment. Ecology considers organisms at the individual, population, community (ecology), community, ecosystem, and biosphere lev ... category. References External links * Ecology journals English-language journals Academic journals established in 1920 {{ecology-journal-stub ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Culling
Culling is the process of segregating organisms from a group according to desired or undesired characteristics. In animal breeding, it is removing or segregating animals from a breeding stock based on a specific trait. This is done to exaggerate desirable characteristics, or to remove undesirable characteristics by altering the genetic makeup of the population. For livestock and wildlife, culling often refers to killing removed animals based on their characteristics, such as their sex or species membership, or as a means of preventing infectious disease transmission. In fruits and vegetables, culling is the sorting or segregation of fresh harvested produce into marketable lots, with the non-marketable lots being discarded or diverted into food processing or non-food processing activities. This usually happens at collection centres located at, or close to farms. Etymology The word ''cull'' comes from the Latin verb , meaning "to gather". The term can be applied broadly to m ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Journal Of Invertebrate Pathology
The ''Journal of Invertebrate Pathology'' is a peer-reviewed scientific journal publishing research on the induction and pathogenesis of diseases of invertebrates, owned by Academic Press (part of Elsevier). The journal publishes the results of physiological, morphological, genetic, immunological, and ecological studies as related to the etiologic agents of diseases of invertebrates, including the suppression of diseases in beneficial species, and the use of diseases in controlling undesirable species. It was founded by American microbiologist Edward Arthur Steinhaus in 1959 as the ''Journal of Insect Pathology'', renamed in 1965, and in 1968 adopted as the official journal of the Society for Invertebrate Pathology shortly after it was also founded by Steinhaus. See also * Arbovirus Arbovirus is an informal name for any virus that is Transmission (medicine), transmitted by arthropod Vector (epidemiology), vectors. The term ''arbovirus'' is a portmanteau word (''ar''thropo ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Vertical Transmission
Vertical transmission of symbionts is the transfer of a microbial symbiont from the parent directly to the offspring. Many metazoan species carry symbiotic bacteria which play a mutualistic, commensal, or parasitic role. A symbiont is acquired by a host via horizontal, vertical, or mixed transmission. Fitness benefits Vertical transmission, passage of symbiotic microflora from parents to offspring, is common in species of animals which have parental care. There are fitness benefits in providing youths with established microorganism community early on. # Immune system development: parents microbes prime young immune system. # Disease resistance: because skin is already colonized by parental microbes, pathogen flora has a harder time to establish itself. # Digestive help: parental microbes might help with digestion, as a result, the young ones can survive on a diet which would not meet their nutritious needs otherwise. # Environmental adaptation: microflora might help t ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Eclosion
A pupa (; : pupae) is the life stage of some insects undergoing transformation between immature and mature stages. Insects that go through a pupal stage are holometabolous: they go through four distinct stages in their life cycle, the stages thereof being egg, larva, pupa, and imago. The processes of entering and completing the pupal stage are controlled by the insect's hormones, especially juvenile hormone, prothoracicotropic hormone, and ecdysone. The act of becoming a pupa is called pupation, and the act of emerging from the pupal case is called eclosion or emergence. The pupae of different groups of insects have different names such as ''chrysalis'' for the pupae of butterflies and ''tumbler'' for those of the mosquito family. Pupae may further be enclosed in other structures such as cocoons, nests, or shells. Position in life cycle The pupal stage follows the larval stage, or in some cases a prepupal stage, and precedes adulthood ('' imago'') in insects with compl ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |