offspring – Page 3 – Shamskm: A site to exchange knowledge and solutions

Predators Hunt for A Balanced Diet

By Guest PostJanuary 16, 2012Natureaarhus university, anchomenus dorsalis, ants, aphids, balance of nutrients, balanced diet, beetle larvae, butterfly larvae, calorie content, crickets, denmark, female beetles, food webs, fruit flies, garden insect, grasshoppers, ground beetle, kim jensen, massey university, moths, new zealand, nutritional value, offspring, omnivores, predators, predatory animals, slugs, university of exeter

Predators select their prey in order to eat a nutritionally balanced diet and give themselves the best chance of producing healthy offspring.

A University of Exeter and Oxford-led study published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B shows for the first time that predatory animals choose their food on the basis of its nutritional value, rather than just overall calorie content.

An international team of scientists from the Universities of Exeter and Oxford in the UK, University of Sydney (Australia), Aarhus University (Denmark) and Massey University (New Zealand) based their research on the ground beetle, Anchomenus dorsalis, a well-known garden insect that feasts on slugs, aphids, moths, beetle larvae and ants. (more…)

Fit Females Make More Daughters, Mighty Males Get Grandsons

By Guest PostJanuary 9, 2012Scienceanimal kingdom, broad horned flour beetle, daughters, david hosken, eggs, female, gender, gnatocerus cornutus, high quality females, Japan, kyushu university, large jaws, male flour beetles, mammals, manipulate the sex, masculine body shape, offspring, okayama university, university of exeter, vice-versa, weaker females

*Females influence the gender of their offspring so they inherit either their mother’s or grandfather’s qualities. ‘High-quality’ females – those which produce more offspring – are more likely to have daughters.*

*Weaker females, whose own fathers were stronger and more successful, produce more sons.*

The study, by scientists at the University of Exeter (UK), Okayama University and Kyushu University (Japan), is published today (9 January) in the journal Ecology Letters. It shows for the first time that females are able to manipulate the sex of their offspring to compensate for the fact that some of the genes which make a good male make a bad female and vice versa.

The research focuses on the broad-horned flour beetle, Gnatocerus cornutus, but the team believes the findings could apply to other species across the animal kingdom, even mammals. (more…)

Fossil Reveals Oldest Evidence of Live Birth in Reptiles

By Guest PostJuly 22, 2011Scienceaquatic groups, Beijing, blood supply to the embryos, chinese academy of sciences, early cretaceous period, eggs, embryos of modern lizards, fossil, fossil records, invertebrates, jehol biota, jehol group, lizards, mammals, marine ichthyosaurs, north eastern china, offspring, physiological adaptations, plants, rocks, snakes, squamate reptiles, susan evans, terrestrial reptiles, university college london, yabeinosaurus

*A fossil from north-eastern China has revealed that terrestrial reptiles were giving birth to live young at least as early as 120 million years ago.*

The newly discovered fossil of a pregnant lizard proves that some squamate reptiles (lizards and snakes) were giving birth to live young, rather than laying eggs, in the Early Cretaceous period – much earlier than previously thought. The fossil shows a pregnant female filled with the tiny skeletons of more than 15 baby lizards at a stage of development similar to that of late embryos of modern lizards. The mother lizard, which is 30 centimetres long (excluding her tail), probably died only a few days before giving birth.

The discovery is described in the journal Naturwissenschaften by scientists from UCL (University College London) and the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing. (more…)

You Are What Your Father Ate, New Study Says

By PravdaDecember 25, 2010Health, Scienceaustin, biochemistry, complex diseases, diabetes, diet, disease risk factors, father, genes, Health, heart disease, mice study, molecular pharmacology, next generation, offspring, oliver j rando, paternal diet, reprogrammes, researchers, university of massachusetts, university of texas

We are what our father ate before we were born! An international team of researchers has found that a father’s diet while growing up can affect his offspring’s future health.

Researchers, who specifically looked at the effects of paternal diet in their study, have discovered that a father’s lifestyle can be passed down to next generation because it “reprogrammes” his genes. (more…)

The Genetics of Self-Incompatibility

By Guest PostNovember 6, 2010Nature, Scienceantigens, female, fertilization, genes, genetic, immune response, inbreeding, male, offspring, organism, petunia, petunia pistil, petunia pollen, plant, pollen, proteins, rna, rna-destroying enzyme, seiji takayama, sexual organs, t-cell receptors, teh-hui kao

*Petunias show that the mechanisms behind inbreeding prevention are similar to immune response*

About the image: The female part of the petunia flower secretes an enzyme that is designed to deter pollen tube growth, thereby preventing fertilization. However, in the cases that the pollen has come from a genetically different plant, the pollen produces its own protein that combats the pistil’s enzyme. With the enzyme out of the way, the pollen tube can keep growing and fertilization can occur. Image credit: Zina Deretsky, National Science Foundation

Inbreeding is a bad strategy for any organism, producing weak and problematic offspring. So imagine the challenge of inbreeding prevention in a plant where male and female sexual organs grow right next to each other! Such is the genetic conundrum faced by the petunia. (more…)

Tag Archives: offspring

Predators Hunt for A Balanced Diet

Fit Females Make More Daughters, Mighty Males Get Grandsons

Fossil Reveals Oldest Evidence of Live Birth in Reptiles

You Are What Your Father Ate, New Study Says

The Genetics of Self-Incompatibility