Experiencia educativa con blogs en el aula de Educación Primaria

En el siguiente artículo se relata la experiencia educativa en una escuela de educación primaria llevada a cabo durante el primer y segundo trimestre del curso escolar 2009.2010 basándonos en la creación y uso pedagógico de los blogs en el aula. En concreto se han elaborado 3 blogs, uno para cada ciclo de la etapa. Para situarnos haremos una breveThe following article describes the educational experience in an elementary education school conducted during the first and second quarter of the 2009.2010 school year based on the creation and educational use of blogs in the classroom. More specifically, three blogs have been developed, one for each cycle of the stage. To place, we will make a brief introduction to explain what we understand as a blog in our center, the applications we believe the blogs should have and the situation of ICT in our facult

Discovery of mass migration and breeding of the paintedlady butterfly Vanessa cardui in the Sub-Sahara: the Europe-Africa migration revisited

Migratory behaviour has repeatedly evolved across taxa as an adaptation to heterogeneity in space and time.However, insect migration is still poorly understood, partly because of the lack of field data. The painted ladybutterfly Vanessa cardui undertakes a long-distance annual migration between Europe and Africa. While springflights from the Maghreb to Europe are well characterized, it is not known how far the European autumnmigrants travel into Africa and whether they massively cross the Sahara Desert. We conducted fieldwork in fourAfrican countries (Chad, Benin, Senegal, and Ethiopia) in autumn and documented southward migrants incentral Chad and abundant breeding sites across the tropical savannah as far south as the Niger River in thewest and the Ethiopian highlands in the east. Given directionality and timing, these migrants probablyoriginated in Europe and crossed the Mediterranean, the Sahara and the Sahel, a hypothesis that implies thelongest (>4000 km) migratory flight recorded for a butterfly in a single generation. In the light of the newevidence, we revise the prevailing spatiotemporal model for the annual migration of V. cardui to incorporatetropical Africa, which could potentially be regarded as the missing geographic link between autumn (southwards)and spring (northwards) movements. © 2016 The Linnean Society of London, Biological Journal of the LinneanSociety, 2016.Funding was provided by the Committee for Research and Exploration of National Geographic (grant number 9528-14) and by the Spanish MINECO (project CGL2013-48277-P). G.T. is supported by the Marie Curie Actions FP7-PEOPLE-2013-IOF (project 622716) and by grant BP-A00275 (AGAUR-Generalitat de Catalunya).Peer Reviewe

Redescubrimiento de Mimoniades baroni (Godman & Salvin, 1895) (Lepidoptera: Hesperiidae: Pyrrhopyginae)

The rediscovery of Mimoniades baroni (Godman & Salvin, 1895) (Lepidoptera: Hesperiidae: Pyrrhopyginae), in Cajamarca, Peru, is reported herein. The species had not been recorded since its original description, almost 110 years ago.Se reporta el redescubrimiento de Mimoniades baroni (Godman & Salvin, 1895) (Lepidoptera: Hesperiidae: Pyrrhopyginae), en Cajamarca, Perú. La especie no había sido registrada desde su descripción original, hace casi 110 años

What is the phylogenetic signal limit from mitogenomes? The reconciliation between mitochondrial and nuclear data in the Insecta class phylogeny

Background: Efforts to solve higher-level evolutionary relationships within the class Insecta by using mitochondrial genomic data are hindered due to fast sequence evolution of several groups, most notably Hymenoptera, Strepsiptera, Phthiraptera, Hemiptera and Thysanoptera. Accelerated rates of substitution on their sequences have been shown to have negative consequences in phylogenetic inference. In this study, we tested several methodological approaches to recover phylogenetic signal from whole mitochondrial genomes. As a model, we used two classical problems in insect phylogenetics: The relationships within Paraneoptera and within Holometabola. Moreover, we assessed the mitochondrial phylogenetic signal limits in the deeper Eumetabola dataset, and we studied the contribution of individual genes. Results: Long-branch attraction (LBA) artefacts were detected in all the datasets. Methods using Bayesian inference outperformed maximum likelihood approaches, and LBA was avoided in Paraneoptera and Holometabola when using protein sequences and the site-heterogeneous mixture model CAT. The better performance of this method was evidenced by resulting topologies matching generally accepted hypotheses based on nuclear and/or morphological data, and was confirmed by cross-validation and simulation analyses. Using the CAT model, the order Strepsiptera was recovered as sister to Coleoptera for the first time using mitochondrial sequences, in agreement with recent results based on large nuclear and morphological datasets. Also the Hymenoptera-Mecopterida association was obtained, leaving Coleoptera and Strepsiptera as the basal groups of the holometabolan insects, which coincides with one of the two main competing hypotheses. For the Paraneroptera, the currently accepted non-monophyly of Homoptera was documented as a phylogenetic novelty for mitochondrial data. However, results were not satisfactory when exploring the entire Eumetabola, revealing the limits of the phylogenetic signal that can be extracted from Insecta mitogenomes. Based on the combined use of the five best topology-performing genes we obtained comparable results to whole mitogenomes, highlighting the important role of data quality. Conclusion: We show for the first time that mitogenomic data agrees with nuclear and morphological data for several of the most controversial insect evolutionary relationships, adding a new independent source of evidence to study relationships among insect orders. We propose that deeper divergences cannot be inferred with the current available methods due to sequence saturation and compositional bias inconsistencies. Our exploratory analysis indicates that the CAT model is the best dealing with LBA and it could be useful for other groups and datasets with similar phylogenetic difficulties

Expression, structure and evolution of H1 linker histones

Hem estudiat aspectes de l'expressió, l'estructura i l'evolució de les histones de la classe H1, que s'uneixen al DNA internucleosomal i participen en l'estabilització del nucleosoma i de la superestructura de la cromatina. Hem estudiat l'expressió dels subtipus de l'H1 a les neurones de l'escorça cerebral de rata. Durant el desenvolupament postnatal, els subtipus H1a, b, c i d són substituïts en diferents proporcions per l'H1e, que es converteix en el subtipus majoritari de les neurones madures. Diversos estudis de marcatge en viu han mostrat la importància del recanvi diferencial, juntament amb les tasses de síntesi, per a determinar les proporcions dels subtipus a la cromatina. L'expressió de l'H1o està associada a la diferenciació terminal neuronal. També és l'únic subtipus que respon a senyals externs en determinades poblacions neuronals. Hem estimat les velocitats de substitució nucleotídica no sinònima de diversos subtipus de l'H1. Les velocitats de substitució no sinònima varien al voltant d'un ordre de magnitud. Aquestes diferències de tolerància de les substitucions d'aminoàcids estan a favor de la diferenciació funcional dels subtipus de l'H1. Hem demostrat, mitjançant DC, 1H-NMR i espectroscòpia d'IR, que els dominis terminals de les H1 adquireixen estructura secundària quan interaccionen amb el DNA. Hem caracteritzat un element !- helicoïdal en el domini N- erminal de l'H1o i un motiu hèlicecolze en el domini C-terminal, ambdós contigus al domini globular. El domini N-terminal de l'H1e conté dues hèlices ! separades per un motiu Gly-Gly, que fa de frontissa.H1 linker histones bind to linker DNA and contribute to the stabilization of both the nucleosome and chromatin higherorder structure. We have studied aspects of the expression, structure and evolution of H1 linker histones. H1 presents multiple isoforms. In rat cerebral cortex neurons, the subtypes H1a,b,c,d are replaced, to varying degrees, by H1e during postnatal development. In vivo labelling experiments have shown the importance of differential turnover and synthesis rates in defining the H1a-e subtype composition of chromatin. H1o is regulated in a different way, its expression being linked to neuronal terminal differentiation; it is also the only histone subtype which is regulated by external signals in specific neuronal populations. We estimated the rates of nucleotide substitution for several H1 subtypes. The rates of nonsynonymous substitution differed among subtypes by almost one order of magnitude. Such a wide variation in the tolerance of amino acid substitutions is consistent with the functional differentiation of the subtypes. We showed, using CD, 1H-NMR and IR spectroscopy, that the H1 terminal domains acquire substantial amounts of secondary structure upon interaction with DNA. In H1o, we characterized an ahelical element in the N-terminal domain and a helix-turn motif in the C-terminal domain, both adjacent to the globular domain. The N-terminal domain of H1e contains two !-helices separated by a Gly-Gly motif, which behaves as a flexible linker

First Record of the Introduced Ant Myrmica specioides In the Eastern United States

The ant Myrmica specioides Bondroit, 1918 (Hymenoptera: Formicidae) is first reported from the Eastern United States. This species is native to the West Palearctic region and has previously been known as an introduced species in Northwestern North America. It was found 2013 in the Boston metropolitan area. The species was identified by morphometric comparison to type specimens and DNA-barcoding. The distribution and invasive potential of M. specioides are discussed

Josep Miquel Ramis (ed.), «Epistolari Sebastià Juan Arbó - Joan Sales (1966-1982)», Barcelona, Publicacions de l’Abadia de Montserrat («Textos i Estudis de Cultura Catalana», 221), 2018, 167 pp.

Book review: Josep Miquel Ramis (ed.), Epistolari Sebastià Juan Arbó - Joan Sales (1966-1982), Barcelona, Publicacions de l’Abadia de Montserrat («Textos i Estudis de Cultura Catalana», 221), 2018, 167 pp., ISBN: 978-84-9883-956-2

Historical and contemporary factors generate unique butterfly communities on islands

Vodă, Raluca et al.The mechanisms shaping island biotas are not yet well understood mostly because of a lack of studies comparing eco-evolutionary fingerprints over entire taxonomic groups. Here, we linked community structure (richness, frequency and nestedness) and genetic differentiation (based on mitochondrial DNA) in order to compare insular butterfly communities occurring over a key intercontinental area in the Mediterranean (Italy-Sicily-Maghreb). We found that community characteristics and genetic structure were influenced by a combination of contemporary and historical factors, and among the latter, connection during the Pleistocene had an important impact. We showed that species can be divided into two groups with radically different properties: widespread taxa had high dispersal capacity, a nested pattern of occurrence, and displayed little genetic structure, while rare species were mainly characterized by low dispersal, high turnover and genetically differentiated populations. These results offer an unprecedented view of the distinctive butterfly communities and of the main processes determining them on each studied island and highlight the importance of assessing the phylogeographic value of populations for conservation.This research was supported by the Spanish Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad (Project CGL2013-48277-P) and from the European Union’s Seventh Framework programme for research and innovation under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No 609402 - 2020 researchers: Train to Move (T2M) postdoctoral fellowship to R. Vodă, and by the projects “Barcoding Italian Butterflies” and “Barcoding Butterflies of the Tuscan Archipelago National Park.” V. Dincă was supported by a Marie Curie International Outgoing Fellowship within the 7th European Community Framework Programme (project no. 625997). L. Dapporto was supported by European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie grant (project no. 658844 Eco-PhyloGeo).Peer Reviewe

Morphological and chemical analysis of male scent organs in the butterfly genus Pyrgus (Lepidoptera: Hesperiidae)

Chemical communication in the family Hesperiidae (Lepidoptera) is practically unstudied, even though this group includes approximately 4,000 species and represents a fifth of the world's butterfly fauna. We present the first comparative morphological and chemical analysis of scent organs for nine species in the genus Pyrgus, the most species-rich hesperiid genus in the Palearctic region. Our results show that the morphology of the two main male scent organs - the costal fold and the tibial tufts - does not differ between species. The chemical analyses detected a total of 125 different compounds exclusively present in these organs. We document great interspecific differences and much narrower intraspecific variability in the chemical profiles. The dynamics of chemical versus genetic distances indicate two different phases: a faster (but more variable) initial chemical divergence at lower genetic divergences (probably related to speciation) and a slower but more constant differentiation (drift). As a result most species can be identified based on their chemical profiles, except for a closely related species pair (P. malvae/P. malvoides) for which hybridisation is common in the contact zone. Our results suggest that the Hesperiidae is a group with great potential for the study of chemical communication that deserves further attention. © 2014 Gesellschaft für Biologische Systematik.Funding for this research was provided by Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (project EME2007-33 to J.L.H.-R., R.B. and R.V.) and by the Spanish Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación (project CGL2010-21226/BOS to J.L.H.-R. and R.V. and project CGL2004-04680-c10-08/BOS to M.L.M.).Peer Reviewe