Zhurnal obshchei biologii最新文献

Density compensation effect (DCE) is qualified as increase of some species abundance after dropping of other species out of a community, as a consequence of unutilized resources appearance and interspecies competition abatement. DCE was first noticed about 50 years ago but till now the questions on causes of its origin, its scale and intensity remain open due to the lack of field data as well as methodological problems. In the article, these questions have been tested using arboreous tier of the West Caucasus forest phytocenoses as a case study. An analysis of actual data is conducted by means of numerical experiments. Three scenarios have been modeled: in the first one there has been assumed no manifestations of compensatory processes; in the second, after dropping some species out of community, all the other species rose in abundance; in the third, DCE was manifested through abundance increase of dominant species only. Model predictions on the analyzed parameters relationships have been checked against actual measurements. The results obtained suggest that for the DCE to occur, the absolute number of species in a community is not so much important as the ratio between their specific capacities, which is determined by environmental conditions, and the actual number of species, which may not match the capacity due to interference of regional processes (e.g., the history of cenoses formation, isolation, etc.). Thus, DCE does not appear to be an invariable consequence of environmental extremity and may occur in cenoses consisted of both many and few species.

Southern African succulents of tribe Senecioneae are likely to have come from non-succulent inhabitants neighbour mesic to semi-arid areas of S to SE Africa. Four phyla are believed to have evolved successively in situ by colonizing arid regions of SW Africa. The Senecio medley-woodii-phylum must have been the first one to have developed the succulent syndrome. Its members are densely pubescent leaf-succulent herbs without special water-storage tissue in their leaves. This phylum seems to have been followed by Othonna-phylum which has mostly developed caudex/bulbous growth habit with annual hemi-succulent to non-succulent shoots. Some Othonna species are stem succulents and a few ones are leaf-succulents. No one species has dense indumentum, however. Curio species and some succulent Senecio ones constitute the unit alias Curio-phylum. Interrelationships between these species remain still unresolved. The Curio-phylum might have evolved a little bit later than the Othonna-phylum. Contrary to the latter, only 2 representatives of the Curio-phylum are bulbous herbs with annual hemi-succulent shoots and only 1 species is a stem succulent. The 3 species mentioned all occupy territories outside areas of Othonna species of similar growth habits. None of them has indumentum. Most members of the Curio-phylum are glabrate leaf succulents with special water-storage tissue in their leaves. We believe that specific succulent syndrome of each phylum indicates specific adaptive zone it occupies in arid regions of SW Africa (though we are unable to characterize these zones distinctively). These differences in succulent syndromes must enable the 3 phyla to coexist in numerous arid areas of SW Africa. Moreover, the differences evidently enable them to "close" competitively these areas to the latest Kleinia-phylum. Then, the species of the Kleinia-phylum inhabit semi-arid areas of SE Africa and semi-arid to arid areas of E & N Africa, Canary Islands and Arabia. Only a few stem succulent Kleinia species live in those arid areas of the SW Africa where there are neither stem succulent othonnas nor stem succulent curios. Evolution of the succulence in Southern African Senecioneae thus outlined fits the Gause's competitive exclusion principle.

As a description of altitude-belt zonality of wood vegetation, a model of ecological second-order transitions is proposed. Objects of the study have been chosen to be forest cenoses of the northern slope of Kulumyss Ridge (the Sayan Mauntains), while the results are comprised by the altitude profiles of wood vegetation. An ecological phase transition can be considered as the transition of cenoses at different altitudes from the state of presence of certain tree species within the studied territory to the state of their absence. By analogy with the physical model of second-order, phase transitions the order parameter is introduced (i.e., the area portion occupied by a single tree species at the certain altitude) as well as the control variable (i.e., the altitude of the wood vegetation belt). As the formal relation between them, an analog of the Landau's equation for phase transitions in physical systems is obtained. It is shown that the model is in a good accordance with the empirical data. Thus, the model can be used for estimation of upper and lower boundaries of altitude belts for individual tree species (like birch, aspen, Siberian fir, Siberian pine) as well as the breadth of their ecological niches with regard to altitude. The model includes also the parameters that describe numerically the interactions between different species of wood vegetation. The approach versatility allows to simplify description and modeling of wood vegetation altitude zonality, and enables assessment of vegetation cenoses response to climatic changes.

The extinction of large northern herbivores is a puzzle for many biologists. It is long debated whether climate change or human activity was the main factor of the extinction. The survival of the weak trophic competitors should reject the climatic hypothesis. Extant species of Pleistocene communities allow testing this explicitly. Up to date, reindeer and musk ox coexist in the Arctic territory. Their island populations provide a unique natural experiment to assess the role of competition. On Wrangel Island, their population sizes show the opposite trends and the same situation recurs on other Arctic islands--the reindeer population size decreases with the muskoxen population increasing. We have shown that the trends are defined by food-web structure. Niche overlap between species is found to .be considerable and cannot be facilitated by habitat partitioning. The number of plant species in the muskoxen diet was higher than in the reindeer. The exclusive part of the muskoxen diet was higher as well. Food webs in all of the habitat types showed the same relation. However, the changes in herbivores distribution during the Pleistocene demonstrate the opposite pattern. Therefore, the competitive advantage could not save the Palaearctic musk ox, and the extinction seems to be a result of selective overkill. Conclusively, the human activity may be considered as the main factor of the Late Pleistocene herbivore extinctions, and the musk ox reintroducing should be coupled with extensive conservational measures.

Nervous and immune systems have many general features in their organization and functioning in various animal species from insects to mammals. These systems are capable to regulate effectively each other by exchange of information through rather small molecules like oligopeptides, cytokines, and neuropeptides. For many such molecules, that function as transmitters or signaling peptides, their origin and receptors are common within nervous and immune systems. Development of nervous and immune systems during ontogenesis and their functions in various species are controlled by the ubiquitous HYPERLINK "http://slovari.yandex.ru/proteolytic/en-ru/Medical/" 1 "longvo/" proteolytic ubiquitin-proteasome system (UPS). UPS regulates key biochemical processes in both systems by providing formation of synaptic connections and synaptic plasticity, and governs immune responses. In the review, the molecular mechanisms of functioning and interaction between nervous and immune systems are considered in different species of invertebrats and vertebrats. The role of UPS in these processes in the main subject of this review.

Trophic links of soil animals are extensively diverse but also flexible. Moreover, feeding activity of large soil saprotrophs often cascades into a range of ecosystem-level consequences via the ecological engineering. Better knowledge on the main sources of energy utilized by soil animals is needed for understanding functional structure of soil animal communities and their participation in the global carbon cycling. Using published and original data, we consider the relative importance of dead organic matter and saprotrophic microorganisms as a basal energy source in the detritus-based food chains, the feeding of endogeic macrofauna on the stabilized soil organic matter, and the role of recent photosynthate in the energy budget of soil communities. Soil food webs are spatially and functionally compartmentalized, though the separation of food chains into bacteria- and fungi-based channels seems to be an over-simplification. The regulation of the litter decomposition rates via top-down trophic interactions across more than one trophic level is only partly supported by experimental data, but mobile litter-dwelling predators play a crucial role in integrating local food webs within and across neighboring ecosystems.

Strong intensification of the protective function of the fore wing in Coleoptera has made their flight apparatus a posteromotoric one and invited an apparatus responsible for folding the hindwings beneath the elytra to develop. Folding apparatus could hardly develop without higher deformability of veins or their parts, which diminished strength properties of the wing support. The effect was stressed by folds that intersected veins. Organization of the folds into a system confined this negative influence to a few wing regions and some veinal sections. This having happened, wing support and folding pattern evolved interrelated, the former into being more flexible, with no or minimum loss of rigidity, and the latter towards being less harmful for the supporting elements, especially axial ones. Monofunctionality, together with very simple structure and little specialization of constituent parts, made the folding pattern very labile during evolution. The folding pattern evolved more rapidly than wing venation, thus defining transformations of the latter. Evolutionary conservatism of wing venation stemmed from that many veins were strongly specialized in performing two conflicting functions. An adaptive compromise was necessary for the conflict to be solved, which determined the wing to orthogenetic development. The main evolutionary trends for wing venation and folding pattern were those towards simplification and a higher complexity, respectively. The beetle wing has passed through two main evolutionary stages. Among them, the first resulted in the development of the "Archostemata" wing type, the second started from the "cantharoid" structural plan. The main evolutionary factors were the infancies of wing posteromotorism at the first stage while the wing strongly influenced by size evolution, with the main trend towards miniaturization, at the second. The archostematan and "cantharoid" morphofunctional wing types differ fundamentally. In the wing of the former kind, folding and flight apparatus, because of considerably overlapping supporting systems, constitute a lasting coadaptive ensemble, with only minor deviations from the ground-plan occurring through evolution. The uprise of the "cantharoid" wing type was an upgrade of morpho-functional organization. The region of maximum transverse deformations having been extruded from the remigium basal part, chief supporting axes of the wing increased their rigid properties. The supporting systems of the two wing apparatus became more autonomous, having been separated. This expanded the adaptive zone for the wing strongly, which a great variety of derived wing types have emerged from.

Zoological diagnostics of soils was conceived by M.S. Ghilarov as a part of soil zoology and intended to be closely related to pedology. He considered zoo-agents as an ecological factor, one among many others, of soil formation. Contemporary soil diagnostics pursues mostly utilitarian goals and is based on conservative properties of the stable part of soil substrate. However, it is admitted that these properties are generated by specific combinations of biological, chemical, and physical phenomena that are called "elementary soil processes" (ESP) and occur nowhere but in soils. Certain ESPs are associated with distinctive combinations of biota, including invertebrates. Pedobionts act as producers of detritus and contribute to humus formation, which is necessary for any ESP starting, thus being its active party. That is why animals, being the most complex and active part of the ESP system, may be treated not only as its indicators but also as its navigators. Monitoring and studying of ESPs in soil is complicated because of inevitable disturbance of soil profile natural composition. Zoo-agents, at the same time, can be registered without habitats changing. Taking into account ecological potency of soil invertebrates that participate in an ESP, spectra of their eco-groups, life forms, and results of their activity, it is possible to diagnose a soil state at different stages of certain ESPs development, with their different combinations, and in different regions or parts of natural environmental gradients.

A review is presented of academician M.S. Ghilarov's principal works dealing with general problems of the evolutionary biology. His main attention in the analysis of phylogenetic relationships in invertebrates and regularities of the evolution of main organ systems has been paid to the significance of ecological factors and functional properties of morphological structures. Taking this approach as the basis, M.S. Ghilarov considered ways of animals' adaptation to the terrestrial mode of life through soil as the transit environment. He has developed new approaches to the interpretation of aromorphic and idioadaptive changes in animals' organization and to the origin of the insect metamorphosis. Patterns, being common for all groups of animals, were revealed with regard to the processes of phylogeny and mechanisms of their control by the principle of positive feedbacks.