In a new Ideas and Perspectives paper in Ecology Letters, Bogdziewicz et al. review the most relevant proximate drivers of masting and outline a research agenda that takes the biology of masting from a largely observational field of ecology to one rooted in mechanistic understanding. They divide the experimental framework into three main processes: resource [...]
Our recent study, done by an international team of scientists led by Marcos Fernandez Martinez from the University of Antwerp, is now published in Nature Plants. In the paper, we used a huge dataset of seed production and nutrient status of plants and showed that plants that are nutrient-poor show stronger masting (larger year-to-year variability) [...]
In the last issue of the Journal of Medical Entomology (Q1 in Entomology), you can find a paper by Leszek Rychlik (Department of Systematic Zoology) and collaborators from three institutions in Warsaw and Košice (Slovakia) on competition between immatures (larvae and nymphs) of two tick species (Ixodes ricinus and Dermacentor reticulatus) for rodent hosts. The [...]
The major histocompatibility complex (MHC) is central for self-/non–self-recognition and acquired immunity. The extreme polymorphism of MHC genes, promoted by parasite-mediated selection, contrasts with limited within-individual diversity. The prevailing explanation is a trade-off between increased pathogen recognition and the anti-autoimmune T cell receptor (TCR) depletion mechanism. However, the predicted inverse relationship between individual MHC diversity [...]
A paper by Leszek Rychlik (Department of Systematic Zoology) and collaborators (from Aristotle University of Thessaloniki) about arboreal locomotion in the feathertail glider (Acrobates pygmaeus) appeared in the Journal of Human Evolution (Q1 in Anthropology). The authors demonstrate a strong preference of A. pygmaeus for small and horizontal substrates, avoidance of large and vertical [...]
Jacek Radwan, Magdalena Migalska and Alvaro Sebastian, in collaboration with colleagues from Institute of Nature Conservation PASand Lund University, in a paper published in Molecular Ecology, documented selection acting on major histocompatibility complex (MHC) genes in sedge warbler (Acrocephalus schoenobaenus). MHC proteins are crucial in pathogen recognition, it is still poorly under-stood how pathogen-mediated selection promotes and maintains MHC diversity, and especially [...]
In the Journal of Mammalogy (Q1 in Zoology), Rafał Zwolak, Michał Bogdziewicz and Leszek Rychlik (Department of Systematic Zoology), and collaborators from the Museum and Institute of Zoology PAS, published a paper on the influence of beech masting on the cross-habitat dispersal (from forests to meadows) of competing rodents in Bieszczady Mts. Authors tested 3 [...]
In Journal of Mammalogy (Q1 in Zoology), Krzysztof Kowalski and Leszek Rychlik (Department of Systematic Zoology) published a paper on the role of venom in hunting larger prey and food hoarding by the Eurasian water shrew Neomys fodiens (Soricidae). Authors showed, among others, that N. fodiens required significantly less time than the common shrew [...]
In the journal Comparative Biochemistry and Physiology, Part C (Q1 in Zoology), Krzysztof Kowalski, Leszek Rychlik (Department of Systematic Zoology), and co-authors from the Institute of Experimental Biology, Paweł Marciniak and Grzegorz Rosiński (Department of Animal Physiology and Development) recently published a paper with the new results demonstrating strong cardio- and myotropic properties, and low [...]
One widely accepted fitness advantage of being a masting plant (instead of just producing seeds every year) is the predator satiation. According to this mechanism, masting helps to increase seed survival through starving predators in non-mast years (famine cause the predator population to go decrease in numbers), and sparse predators are easy satiated in mast [...]
