Floral associations of cyclocephaline scarab beetles

The scarab beetle tribe Cyclocephalini (Coleoptera: Scarabaeidae: Dynastinae) is the second largest tribe of rhinoceros beetles, with nearly 500 described species. This diverse group is most closely associated with early diverging angiosperm groups (the family Nymphaeaceae, magnoliid clade, and monocots), where they feed, mate, and receive the benefit of thermal rewards from the host plant. Cyclocephaline floral association data have never been synthesized, and a comprehensive review of this ecological interaction was necessary to promote research by updating nomenclature, identifying inconsistencies in the data, and reporting previously unpublished data. Based on the most specific data, at least 97 cyclocephaline beetle species have been reported from the flowers of 58 plant genera representing 17 families and 15 orders. Thirteen new cyclocephaline floral associations are reported herein. Six cyclocephaline and 25 plant synonyms were reported in the literature and on beetle voucher specimen labels, and these were updated to reflect current nomenclature. The valid names of three unavailable plant host names were identified. We review the cyclocephaline floral associations with respect to inferred relationships of angiosperm orders. Ten genera of cyclocephaline beetles have been recorded from flowers of early diverging angiosperm groups. In contrast, only one genus, Cyclocephala, has been recorded from dicot flowers. Cyclocephaline visitation of dicot flowers is limited to the New World, and it is unknown whether this is evolutionary meaningful or the result of sampling bias and incomplete data. The most important areas for future research include: 1) elucidating the factors that attract cyclocephalines to flowers including floral scent chemistry and thermogenesis, 2) determining whether cyclocephaline dicot visitation is truly limited to the New World, and 3) inferring evolutionary relationships within the Cyclocephalini to rigorously test vicarance hypotheses, host plant shifts, and mutualisms with angiosperms

Drying Kinetics in Solar Drying

From ancient times foods such as fruit, vegetables, meat or fish were dried by direct sunlight. The use of the sun as energy source is advantageous from the economic as well as environmental points of view. However, this procedure has many disadvantages concerning the efficiency and product safety and quality. The use of greenhouses can greatly minimize these problems Inside the greenhouses the air circulates by natural convection but they can also be equipped with chimneys for air outlet, thus increasing the airflow. In other cases, the efficiency of the drying system can be increased by incorporating a solar collector system, which uses panels for an efficient collection of the sun ray’s energy. Knowledge of the drying kinetics is of great importance for modeling the drying processes and to establish appropriate operating conditions. There are hundreds of mathematical models that were developed to represent the drying kinetics of foods, being mostly empirical, or semi-empirical or alternatively based on the Fick's second law of diffusion. This chapter presents the heat and mass transfer mechanisms that regulate the drying rate, the conditions in direct and indirect solar drying, the drying curves and the mathematical modeling of the solar drying processes, with application examples in various dominions.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Single Molecule Imaging Using X-ray Free Electron Lasers

The potential to image single molecules in action with a resolution sufficiently high to reveal atomic information at room temperature without the need for crystallization is one of the most exciting applications of X-ray free electron lasers. Significant progress has been made towards this goal over the past years. Here we discuss the current status and describe the steps still required to realize atomic resolution X-ray single particle imaging

Author Correction: CHD3 helicase domain mutations cause a neurodevelopmental syndrome with macrocephaly and impaired speech and language

The original version of this Article contained an error in the spelling of the author Laurence Faivre, which was incorrectly given as Laurence Faive. This has now been corrected in both the PDF and HTML versions of the Article