摘要: In the struggle for survival, scatter-hoarding rodents are known to cache food and pilfer the caches of others. The extent to which rodents utilize auditory/visual cues from conspecifics to improve cache-pilfering is unknown. Here, Siberian chipmunks (Tamias sibiricus) were allowed to search for caches of Corylus heterophylla seeds (man-made caches and animal-made caches) after experiencing cues from a conspecific's cache-searching events. For each type of cache, 3 experimental scenarios were presented: (1) alone (control); (2) auditory/visual (hearing and seeing conspecific's cache-searching events); and (3) auditory only (hearing conspecific's cache-searching events only) with random orders. The subjects located man-made caches faster, harvested more caches, and hoarded more seeds both in the auditory/visual and the auditory only treatments compared to the control, while scatter-hoarding more seeds in the auditory/visual treatment but larder-hoarding more seeds in the auditory only treatment. Compared to the control, the animals spent less time locating animal-made caches, harvested more caches, ate fewer seeds, larder-hoarded more seeds and hoarded more seeds in total both in the auditory/visual and the auditory only treatments, while eating more seeds and hoarded fewer seeds in total in the auditory only treatment than in the auditory/visual treatment. The results also show that females spent less time locating the animal-made caches, but they scatter-hoarded fewer seeds than males in the auditory/visual treatment. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first report that visual and/or auditory cues of conspecifics improve cache-pilfering and hoarding in rodents.

摘要: Acoustic communication is essential for anuran survival and reproduction, and masking background noise can affect the effective acoustic communication. The larger odorous frog (Odorrana graminea) inhabits noise montane streams, and it has shown an ultrasound communication adaptation. However, the molecular mechanism underlying their ultrasonic hearing adaptation remains unknown. To characterize and investigate the molecular characteristics and evolution of the high-frequency hearing-sensitive gene (KCNQ4) in O. graminea, termed as OgKCNQ4, the rapid amplification of cDNA ends (RACE) was performed to amplify the cDNA of OgKCNQ4. Different bioinformatics analyses were used to investigate the molecular characteristics. Multiple nucleotide and amino acid sequence alignment were conducted, and phylogenies were reconstructed under the maximum likelihood and Bayesian approaches. The full-length cDNA of OgKCWQ4 was 2065 bp, and the open reading frame (ORF) was 2046 bp encoding for a putative protein with 681 amino acids. The relative molecular weight of OgKCNQ4 was 76.453 kD and the putative PI was 9.69. Secondary structure prediction analyses suggested 42.29% alpha helixes and 43.76% random coils in OgKCNQ4. Gene homology and Phylogenetic analyses revealed the closest relationship between OgKCNQ4 and KCNQ4 of Nanorana parkeri with 96.9% similarity and 95.0% identity. We first determined the full-length cDNA of OgKCNQ4 and the results here could provide foundations for further study on the evolution of KCNQ4 and its relationship to ultrasonic communication in amphibians.

摘要: Species from the Trimeresurus popeiorum complex (Subgenus: Popeia) is a very complex group. T. popeiorum is the only Popeia species known from China. During the past two years, five adult Popeia specimens (4 males, 1 female) were collected from Yingjiang County, Southern Yunnan, China. Molecular, morphological and ecological data show distinct differences from known species, herein we describe these specimens as a new species Trimeresurus yingjiangensis sp. nov Chen, Ding, Shi and Zhang, 2018. Morphologically, the new species distinct from other Popeia species by a combination of following characters: (1) dorsal body olive drab,without cross bands on the scales; (2) a conspicuous bicolor ventrolateral stripe present on each side of males, first row of dorsal scales firebrick with a white ellipse dot on posterior upper part in male. these strips absent in females; (3) eyes firebrick in both gender; (4) suboculars separated from 3rd upper labial by one scale on each side; (5) ventrals 164-168 (n = 5); (6) MSR 21.

摘要: Measuring climatic niche position and breadth may help to determine where species can occur over space and time. Using GIS-based and phylogenetic comparative methods, we investigated global patterns of variation in climatic niche breadth in lacertid lizards to test the following three hypotheses about climatic niche widths. First, does a species' temperature or precipitation niche breadth relate to its temperature or precipitation niche position (the mean value of annual mean temperature or annual precipitation across sampled localities in the range of each species)? Second, are there trade-offs between a species' temperature niche breadth and precipitation niche breadth? Third, does a species' temperature or precipitation niche breadth relate to altitude or latitude? We expect that: (1) species distributed in cold regions are specialized for low-temperature environments (i.e. narrow niche breadth center around low temperatures); (2) a negative relationship between species niche breadth on temperature and precipitation axes according to the trade-off hypothesis (i.e. species that tolerate a broad range of precipitation regimes cannot also tolerate a broad range of temperatures); (3) precipitation niche breadth decreases with altitude or latitude, whereas temperature climatic niche breadth increases with altitude or latitude. Based on the analytical results we found that: (1) temperature niche breadth and position are negatively related, while precipitation niche breadth and position are positively related; (2) there is no trade-off between temperature and precipitation niche breadths; and (3) temperature niche breadth and latitude/altitude are positively related, but precipitation niche breadth and latitude/altitude are not significantly related. Our results show many similarities with previous studies on climatic niche widths reported for amphibians and lizards, which provide further evidence that such macroecological patterns of variation in climatic niche breadths may be widespread.

摘要: Dispersal is an important area of ecological and evolutionary research. Although many studies have been conducted in mammals and birds, dispersal pattern in amphibians is still unclear. To verify dispersal patterns of amphibians, an endangered species the Emei Moustache Toad (Leptobrachium boringii) was selected. In this study, we analyzed six genetic parameters: inbreeding coefficient (F-IS), gene diversity (H-s), the mean of corrected assignment index (mAI(c)), the variance of corrected assignment index (vAI(c)), relatedness (r) for all three years together and each year separately based on eight highly polymorphic microsatellite loci. Data in totaled across years and each year for 581 individuals captured during 2013-2015 revealed a significant female-biased dispersal pattern. Significantly higher F-IS and H-s in females, and lower mAI(c) and r for each year separately in females support that L.boringii displays female-biased dispersal, although r for the total dataset and vAI(c )tests did not show significant differences between the sexes. Female-biased dispersal patterns may be explained by the local resource competition hypothesis.