Brief Note A Survey of the Helminth Fauna of Two Turtle Species from Northwestern Ohio

Author Institution: Department of Biology, Bowling Green State Universit

Description of \u3ci\u3eBuckarootrema goodmani\u3c/i\u3e n. g., n. sp. (Digenea: Pronocephalidae), a Parasite of the Freshwater Turtle \u3ci\u3eEmydura macquarii\u3c/i\u3e (Gray, 1830) (Pleurodira: Chelidae) from Queensland, Australia, and a Phylogenetic Analysis of the Genera of the Pronocephalidae Looss, 1902

Buckarootrema goodmani n. g., n. sp. is described from the small intestine of the Murray turtle, Emydura macquarii (Gray, 1830), from the vicinity of Warwick, Queensland, Australia. The distinctive taxonomic features include the vitellarium, which consists of two compact masses directly anterior to and occasionally overlapping the testes; the uterus with extensive pre- and postovarian coils; intestinal ceca with small, medial diverticula that terminate anterior to or at the anterior margin of the testes; a comma-shaped cirrus sac with both internal and external seminal vesicles. Phylogenetic systematic analysis of the genera of the Pronocephalidae including Buckarootrema and Notopronocephalus, the only other genus of pronocephalids reported from Australian freshwater turtles, indicates that Buckarootrema is the sister taxon of Neopronocephalus and Notopronocephalus is the sister group of the rest of the Pronocephalinae

Description of \u3ci\u3eBuckarootrema goodmani\u3c/i\u3e n. g., n. sp. (Digenea: Pronocephalidae), a Parasite of the Freshwater Turtle \u3ci\u3eEmydura macquarii\u3c/i\u3e (Gray, 1830) (Pleurodira: Chelidae) from Queensland, Australia, and a Phylogenetic Analysis of the Genera of the Pronocephalidae Looss, 1902

Buckarootrema goodmani n. g., n. sp. is described from the small intestine of the Murray turtle, Emydura macquarii (Gray, 1830), from the vicinity of Warwick, Queensland, Australia. The distinctive taxonomic features include the vitellarium, which consists of two compact masses directly anterior to and occasionally overlapping the testes; the uterus with extensive pre- and postovarian coils; intestinal ceca with small, medial diverticula that terminate anterior to or at the anterior margin of the testes; a comma-shaped cirrus sac with both internal and external seminal vesicles. Phylogenetic systematic analysis of the genera of the Pronocephalidae including Buckarootrema and Notopronocephalus, the only other genus of pronocephalids reported from Australian freshwater turtles, indicates that Buckarootrema is the sister taxon of Neopronocephalus and Notopronocephalus is the sister group of the rest of the Pronocephalinae

Redescription of neopolystoma liewi Du Preez and Lim, 2000 (Monogenea: Polystomatidae) from Cuora amboinensis (Testudines: Geomydidae) with notes on specimen preparation.

Neopolystoma liewi Du Preez and Lim, 2000, is redescribed on the basis of specimens collected from the type host, Cuora amboinensis, in Malaysia during 2008. Morphometric comparison of the new specimens with the original description revealed significant differences because of differences in specimen preparation. The current material was killed in hot formalin without coverglass pressure, whereas the specimens from the original description were killed and fixed with coverglass pressure. Coverglass pressure resulted in increases of 30%–70% in most measurements of body organs. Sclerotized structures (genital and haptoral hooks and eggs) or structur es with sclerotized supports (haptoral suckers) were not affected by coverglass pressure. The coefficient of variation of measurements from worms killed with hot formalin was low (,10%) for most structures. The authors recommend discontinuing the use of flattening in the preparation of monogenetic trematodes, with the exception of a small number of specimens necessary to accurately view structures not easily seen in unflattened material. Measurements from flattened specimens should not be used in species descriptions

Lymphatic vasculature mediates macrophage reverse cholesterol transport in mice

Reverse cholesterol transport (RCT) refers to the mobilization of cholesterol on HDL particles (HDL-C) from extravascular tissues to plasma, ultimately for fecal excretion. Little is known about how HDL-C leaves peripheral tissues to reach plasma. We first used 2 models of disrupted lymphatic drainage from skin — 1 surgical and the other genetic — to quantitatively track RCT following injection of [3H]-cholesterol–loaded macrophages upstream of blocked or absent lymphatic vessels. Macrophage RCT was markedly impaired in both models, even at sites with a leaky vasculature. Inhibited RCT was downstream of cholesterol efflux from macrophages, since macrophage efflux of a fluorescent cholesterol analog (BODIPY-cholesterol) was not altered by impaired lymphatic drainage. We next addressed whether RCT was mediated by lymphatic vessels from the aortic wall by loading the aortae of donor atherosclerotic Apoe-deficient mice with [2H]6-labeled cholesterol and surgically transplanting these aortae into recipient Apoe-deficient mice that were treated with anti-VEGFR3 antibody to block lymphatic regrowth or with control antibody to allow such regrowth. [2H]-Cholesterol was retained in aortae of anti–VEGFR3-treated mice. Thus, the lymphatic vessel route is critical for RCT from multiple tissues, including the aortic wall. These results suggest that supporting lymphatic transport function may facilitate cholesterol clearance in therapies aimed at reversing atherosclerosis

Predictors and immunological correlates of sublethal mercury exposure in vampire bats

Mercury (Hg) is a pervasive heavy metal that often enters the environment from anthropogenic sources such as gold mining and agriculture. Chronic exposure to Hg can impair immune function, reducing the ability of animals to resist or recover from infections. How Hg influences immunity and susceptibility remains unknown for bats, which appear immunologically distinct from other mammals and are reservoir hosts of many pathogens of importance to human and animal health. We here quantify total Hg (THg) in hair collected from common vampire bats (Desmodus rotundus), which feed on blood and are the main reservoir hosts of rabies virus in Latin America. We examine how diet, sampling site and year, and bat demography influence THg and test the consequences of this variation for eight immune measures. In two populations from Belize, THg concentrations in bats were best explained by an interaction between long-term diet inferred from stable isotopes and year. Bats that foraged more consistently on domestic animals exhibited higher THg. However, relationships between diet and THg were evident only in 2015 but not in 2014, which could reflect recent environmental perturbations associated with agriculture. THg concentrations were low relative to values previously observed in other bat species but still correlated with bat immunity. Bats with higher THg had more neutrophils, weaker bacterial killing ability and impaired innate immunity. These patterns suggest that temporal variation in Hg exposure may impair bat innate immunity and increase susceptibility to pathogens such as bacteria. Unexpected associations between low-level Hg exposure and immune function underscore the need to better understand the environmental sources of Hg exposure in bats and the consequences for bat immunity and susceptibility

Scavenging by a Bobcat, Lynx rufus

There are few available reports of scavenging (carrion foraging) by Bobcats (Lynx rufus). We recovered the remains of a Gray Squirrel (Sciurus carolinensis) from the stomach of a road-killed female Bobcat in Dutchess County, New York. The presence of Blow Fly eggs on the squirrel remains indicate that it was consumed as carrion. To our knowledge this is the third confirmed instance of scavenging by a Bobcat

Winterkill and Biomass of the Painted Turtle in a South Dakota Wetland

Winterkill occurs when drought conditions expose hibernating turtles to desiccation and lethaly cold temperatures. Winterkill is thought to represent a major source of mortality in northern populations of the painted turtle (Chrysemys picta), but few field observations are available. We herein reported on catastrophic winterkill among western painted turtle (C. pieta bellii) at Limestone Butte Lake (LBL) in western South Dakota during the winter of 2003-2004. Additionally, we used the carcasses of winterkilled turtles (n = 86) to estimate the standing crop biomass of the painted turtle at LBL (0.6 kg/ha). This was the only estimate of biomass available for a painted turtle population in South Dakota and one of only two for the Great Plains; furthermore, it was the lowest estimate from anywhere in North America. We attributed this to several factors, including the painted turtle probably began emigrating from LBL in response to receding water levels before the winterkill event of 2003-2004

Inhibition in multiclass classification

The role of inhibition is investigated in a multiclass support vector machine formalism inspired by the brain structure of insects. The so-called mushroom bodies have a set of output neurons, or classification functions, that compete with each other to encode a particular input. Strongly active output neurons depress or inhibit the remaining outputs without knowing which is correct or incorrect. Accordingly, we propose to use a classification function that embodies unselective inhibition and train it in the large margin classifier framework. Inhibition leads to more robust classifiers in the sense that they perform better on larger areas of appropriate hyperparameters when assessed with leave-one-out strategies. We also show that the classifier with inhibition is a tight bound to probabilistic exponential models and is Bayes consistent for 3-class problems. These properties make this approach useful for data sets with a limited number of labeled examples. For larger data sets, there is no significant comparative advantage to other multiclass SVM approaches

Pleiotropy of FRIGIDA enhances the potential for multivariate adaptation.

An evolutionary response to selection requires genetic variation; however, even if it exists, then the genetic details of the variation can constrain adaptation. In the simplest case, unlinked loci and uncorrelated phenotypes respond directly to multivariate selection and permit unrestricted paths to adaptive peaks. By contrast, 'antagonistic' pleiotropic loci may constrain adaptation by affecting variation of many traits and limiting the direction of trait correlations to vectors that are not favoured by selection. However, certain pleiotropic configurations may improve the conditions for adaptive evolution. Here, we present evidence that the Arabidopsis thaliana gene FRI (FRIGIDA) exhibits 'adaptive' pleiotropy, producing trait correlations along an axis that results in two adaptive strategies. Derived, low expression FRI alleles confer a 'drought escape' strategy owing to fast growth, low water use efficiency and early flowering. By contrast, a dehydration avoidance strategy is conferred by the ancestral phenotype of late flowering, slow growth and efficient water use during photosynthesis. The dehydration avoidant phenotype was recovered when genotypes with null FRI alleles were transformed with functional alleles. Our findings indicate that the well-documented effects of FRI on phenology result from differences in physiology, not only a simple developmental switch