Effects of prior contest experience and contest outcome on female reproductive decisions and offspring fitness

Winning or losing a prior contest can influence the outcome of future contests, but it might also alter subsequent reproductive decisions. For example, losers may increase their investment in the current breeding attempt if losing a contest indicates limited prospects for future breeding. Using the burying beetle Nicrophorus vespilloides, we tested whether females adjust their prehatching and posthatching reproductive effort after winning or losing a contest with a same-sex conspecific. Burying beetles breed on carcasses of small vertebrates for which there is fierce intrasexual competition. We found no evidence that winning or losing a contest influenced reproductive investment decisions in this species. Instead, we show that a female’s prior contest experience (regardless of its outcome) influenced the amount of posthatching care provided, with downstream consequences for the female’s reproductive output; both winners and losers spent more time provisioning food to their offspring and produced larger broods than females with no contest experience. We discuss the wider implications of our findings and present a conceptual model linking contest-mediated adjustments in parental investment to population-level processes. We propose that the frequency of intraspecific contests could both influence and be influenced by population dynamics in species where contest experience influences the size and/or number of offspring produced

S-fibulák a Közép-Duna-vidék langobard korában I. : korai S-fibulák - Stössen–Záluží, Poysdorf típus

The paper presents two of the earliest groups of S-shaped brooches (Stössen-Záluží and the Poysdorf types) from Lombard cemeteries in the Middle Danube region. The aim was to classify the types, to determine their style, characteristics, and to summarize the results of previous research. The number of small S-shaped brooches is significant in the Lombard period in the Middle Danube region: from 68 burials and 10 stray finds. Compared to the total of 138 graves containing brooches this is a very high number: half of the burials (49%) contained the S-shaped type. The Stößen–Záluží type may have developed in the Thuringian settlement area after the first third of the 5th century AD. Following the migrations from east to west and from north to south, the brooch type reached the Middle Danube region, more specifically the Bohemian Basin, during phase E1 (480–530 AD). They may have appeared in the Moravian Basin at the beginning of the 6th century AD, and they are also known from Pannonia and Slovenia. Most of the pieces in these regions are left-turning open-mouthed types, which can be classified into the typological group named by Jaroslav Tejral as Stößen–Záluží and by Hans Losert as Záluží. Different from these is the closed-mouthed and right-turning brooch pair from Plzeň–Doudlevce (Bohemian Basin), belonging to the Naumburg–Mochov group defined by J. Tejral. These types of brooches in the Middle Danube region were worn in the second half of the 6th century AD based on the accompanying finds. Outside the Bohemian Basin, the most significant distribution area of brooches is the Alemannic settlement area in southern Germany, starting from the late 5th century AD. In the Bavarian, Saxon and later Thuringian settlement regions the finds are less frequent. It appears that Stößen–Záluží type brooches were used in these areas until the second half of the 6th century AD. Poysdorf (Pysdorf–Holásky–Klučov) type brooches seem to have been developed in the Bohemian Basin by the turn of the 5th and the 6th or the beginning of the 6th century AD. These were the earliest brooches prepared by the goldsmiths of the independent Lombards in the Middle Danube region. Based on previous scholarship, two variants of the type can be distinguished: the early variants are the horizontally-ribbed pieces, and the late ones are the vertically-ribbed pieces. However, ornamental differences do not necessarily imply a chronological distinction. Though the ornamentation displays a great diversity, the shape of the brooches and the additional parts are the same in most cases. Furthermore, the dating of the finds in the Bohemian Basin, where these brooches were developed, is not precise enough to decide this question. Both variants might have evolved parallel in time, and most of the vertically-ribbed types reached the later settlement regions and the Western Merovingian area. However, there is a group in the cemeteries of the Moravian Basin and northern Lower Austria which can be dated for a later period, the beginning of the 6th century AD. The model of the brooch type was discovered in the Poysdorf cemetery, in grave No. 6. The decoration of these brooches differs from the previous groups: the body is vertically-ribbed in each case, the animal is depicted without ears, and the proportions of the body are different. Further analogies are known from Lower Austria and Pannonia. These variants could have been produced in the southern regions independently, without any connection. These later variants of the Poysdorf type brooches reached Pannonia and were used there until the end of the 6th century AD. The brooch type was also found in the Western Merovingian, Alemannic and Bavarian regions after the first third of the 6th century AD. In these areas the vertically-ribbed types were widespread

Helynévtörténeti vizsgálatok az ómagyar korból = Onomastic Research of the Old Hungarian Period

A pályázat futamideje alatt megjelentettünk 5 könyvet (2 monográfiát, illetve a folyóirattá alakuló Helynévtörténeti Tanulmányok c. sorozat 3 kötetét, a negyedik kötete, a HT. 5. pedig megjelenés alatt van), illetve 60 tanulmányt. További 2 monográfia (Hoffmann István akadémiai doktori és Póczos Rita PhD-értekezése) szintén közvetlenül a megjelenés előtt áll. Elkészítettük a Korai magyar helynévszótár 2., illetve a Helynévtörténeti adatok a korai ómagyar korból 3. és 4. adatbázisát, és lezárult a szócikkek megszerkesztése is. A KMHsz. 2. és a HA. 3. nyomdai előkészítése folyamatban van, mindkét kötet 2010-ben megjelenik. A szótári munkálatokhoz kapcsolódóan az Árpád-kori vármegyék digitális térképei (modern térinformatikai programmal, georeferált térképekként) ugyancsak elkészültek. A pályázat résztvevői hazai és nemzetközi konferencián egyaránt előadásokkal szerepeltek: valamennyi pályázati résztvevő előadást tartott a 2006-os Nemzetközi Hungarológiai Kongressuson (Debrecen), illetve a 2007-es VI. Magyar Névtudományi Konferencián (Balatonszárszó). A program két résztvevője részt vett a 2008-as Nemzetközi Névtudományi Konferencián (Torontó) is. Minden évben megrendeztük a helynévtörténeti szemináriumot, amelynek megszerkesztett és lektorált előadásait a Helynévtörténeti Tanulmányok köteteiben adtuk közre (a legutóbbi, a 2009. évi szeminárium anyaga a HT 5.-ben jelenik meg, e kötetnek a nyomdai munkálatai jelenleg zajlanak). | During the course of the project, we published 5 books (2 monographs and Volume 3 of the series Helynévtörténeti Tanulmányok (HT, Studies in the Field of the History of Toponyms) which is now published as a journal and its 4th volume, HT 5 is in press now), and 60 papers. 2 more monographs (the academy doctor?s thesis of I. Hoffmann and the PhD thesis of R. Póczos) is just about being published. We prepared the 2nd database of Korai magyar helynévszótár (KMHsz, Dictionary of Early Hungarian Toponyms), and the 3rd and 4th databases of Helynévtörténeti adatok a korai ómagyar korból (HA., Toponym History Data from the Early Old Hungarian Age) and the edition of the dictionary entries was completed, too. The 2nd database of KMHsz and the 3rd one of HA are in press already and both are expected to be published in 2010. Related to the dictionary, the digital maps of the comitats of the age of the Árpád dynasty (using modern geoinformation programmes, prepared as georeferenced maps) were also prepared. Participants of the project appeared with lectures at conferences in Hungary and abroad. All of them delivered lectures at the 2006 International Congress of Hungarology (Debrecen), and the National Conference of Onomastics in 2007 (Balatonszárszó). Two members of the programme participated at the International Conference of Onomastic Sciences (Toronto, 2008), too. We organised the Toponym History Seminar in every year, lectures of which were published in the volumes of HT

Additional polymorphic microsatellite loci for detailed population genetic studies of Lethrus apterus (Coleoptera: Geotrupidae)

In this study we attempted to isolate 13 additional microsatellites from the beetle Lethrus apterus and then to use them to screen for polymorphisms in 35 specimens collected from the northern Hungarian mountains. The newly developed markers presented in this paper are polymorphic, including between two and seven detected alleles per locus. The observed and expected heterozygosity per locus ranged between 0.057 and 0.686 and between 0.056 and 0.756, respectively, while two loci showed significant deviations from Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium. These deviations can be explained by the presence of null alleles. All loci cross- amplified in at least two out of four congeneric Lethrus species (L. bituberculatus, L. scoparius, L. strymonensis and L. perun). The polymorphic microsatellite markers we present for L. apterus will be valuable for future population genetic studies

Additional polymorphic microsatellite loci for detailed population genetic studies of Lethrus apterus (Coleoptera: Geotrupidae)

L

Infantilis haemangioma: klinikai és demográfiai jellemzők, kezelésében és gondozásában szerzett tapasztalatok az SZTE Bőrgyógyászati és Allergológiai Klinikán

Absztrakt: Bevezetés: Az infantilis haemangioma a leggyakoribb csecsemő- és kisdedkori vascularis tumor; speciális, különleges klinikai lefolyásának, magas spontán remissziós hajlamának köszönhetően általában nem igényel bőrgyógyászati kezelést. A tumorok 10–15%-a azonban komoly szövődményeket okozhat, ezen utóbbi esetek speciális kezelést és szoros utánkövetést igényelnek. Célkitűzés: A szerzők célkitűzése az volt, hogy négy és fél éves vizsgálati periódus során feldolgozzák a Szegedi Tudományegyetem Bőrgyógyászati és Allergológiai Klinikájának Gyermekbőrgyógyászati Szakrendelésén infantilis haemangioma miatt kezelt betegek adatait, és bemutassák a kezelést igénylő esetek kapcsán szerzett tapasztalataikat. Módszer: Részletesen vizsgálták a csecsemők demográfiai adatait (nem, gesztációs kor és gesztációs súly, perinatalis anamnézis, édesanya terhességi kórtörténete), az infantilis haemangioma miatt bőrgyógyászati szakrendelésen való megjelenés idejét, a tumorok számát, klinikai altípusát és anatómiai lokalizációját, a tumorokkal kapcsolatosan jelentkező szövődményeket. Ezt követően részletesen elemezték a kezelés módját, időtartamát, eredményességét és a gyógyszeres kezelés során fellépő mellékhatásokat. Eredmények: A vizsgálati periódus alatt 96 gyermeket észleltek infantilis haemangioma diagnózissal összesen 163 tumorral. 54 esetben elegendő volt a rendszeres obszerváció, míg 42 gyermek esetén helyi vagy szisztémás béta-blokkoló kezelés beállítása volt indokolt. A kezelt csoportban valamennyi esetben a tumorok regressziója következett be, mellékhatás mindössze hat esetben jelentkezett. A béta-blokkoló kezelést igénylő gyermekek átlagos gesztációs kora és gesztációs súlya szignifikánsan alacsonyabb volt a kezelést nem igénylő gyermekekéhez képest. Következtetések: A komplikált infantilis haemangiomák kezelésében jelenleg a szisztémás propranololkezelés az első vonalbeli terápia. Eredményeink egyértelműen megerősítik a gyógyszer kiváló terápiás effektusát. Jelentős probléma, hogy a gyermekek sok esetben későn kerülnek a tumorok kezelésében jártas bőrgyógyászati centrumokba. A korai életkorban elkezdett terápia jelentősége hangsúlyozandó. Orv Hetil. 2017; 158(39): 1535–1544. | Abstract: Introduction: Infantile haemangiomas are the most common vascular tumours of infancy. The vast majority of the lesions do not require dermatological treatment due to their unique clinical course and the high rate of spontaneous regression. Approximately 10–15% of the tumours result in severe complications and sequale, requiring special management and close follow-up. Aim: The aim of the present study was to assess the data of the patients treated with infantile haemangiomas, and to summarize the results of the therapy during 4.5 years of study period, in the Paediatric Dermatology Outpatient Clinic of the Department of Dermatology and Allergology, at the University of Szeged. Method: Demographic data of the infants (gender, gestational age and weight, perinatal history of the infant and medical history of mothers), exact date of the visits at Paediatric Dermatology Outpatient Clinic and tumour characteristics (number, subtype, anatomical localisation and complications) were analysed in details. Treatment modalities and therapy intervals, outcomes and the adverse events of the therapies were also discussed in the survey. Results: During the study period, 96 infants with 163 infantile haemangiomas were observed. 54 patients required regular observations, while 42 infants required local or systemic beta-blocker therapy. All of the tumours treated with local or systemic therapy showed marked clinical regression; adverse effects were observed in only 6 cases. The gestational age and gestational weight of infants requiring beta-blocker therapy was significantly lower as compared to children needed only observation. Conclusions: Systemic propranolol is currently the first-line treatment modality for complicated infantile haemangiomas. Our results confirm the significant therapeutic efficacy of propranolol. Early introduction of the treatment is relevant; unfortunately a great proportion of patients are referred late to Paediatric Dermatology Centres. Orv Hetil. 2017; 158(39): 1535–1544

Distribution of Lethrus apterus (Laxmann, 1770) in Hungary (Coleoptera: Geotrupidae)

Asurvey of the records of Lethrus apterus (Laxmann, 1770) in Hungary is given. The localities (before and after 1985) are provided in two maps

Evaluation of potential reference genes for real-time qPCR analysis in a biparental beetle, Lethrus apterus (Coleoptera: Geotrupidae)

L