Can we enhance amphibians' habitat restoration in the post-mining areas?

The study was aimed to evaluate the selected improvements of nature restoration in a depleted gravel pit. The study site consisted of four water reservoirs of different shapes and sizes, flooded after the gravel extraction ended. Ecological succession monitoring, conducted by the Warsaw University of Life Sciences students associated in the Student Scientific Association of Animal Sciences Faculty since the completion of mining, have focused on amphibians. A twofold approach upheld amphibian species population dynamics, as well as selected habitat elements. The restoration practices dedicated to habitat conditions enhancing have been proved to be definitely effective and useful for similar sites.

Mites and internal parasites associated with the common dung beetle Geotrupes (Anoplotrupes) stercorosus (Hartmann in Scriba, 1791) in Poland.

Common dung beetles collected in the "Sobieski Forest" (eastern border of Warsaw suburbs) were examined for the occurrence and prevalence of infections or infestations with intestinal parasites and phoretic mites in relation to soil characteristics and quality of the forest habitat. Endoparasitic fauna was represented by gregarines Didymophyes paradoxa, microsporidians Plistophora geotrupina and cysticerkoids of 2 tapeworms - Ditestolepis diaphana and Staphylocystis furcate. Prevalence of these infections was higher for beetles collected from rich habitats. Acarofauna was represented by hypopodes of Sancassania geotruporum (Astigmatina, Acaridae) and the following taxa of mesostigmatic mites: Alliphis halleri, Macrocheles glaber, Parasitus coleoptratorum and unidentified juvenile Laelapidae representative. Mites were most abundant in June, July and September. They were only slightly more numerously found on dung beetles from the rich habitats. Nonmetric multidimensional scaling, MDS (2D stress = 0.13) revealed significant similarities in the distribution of mite taxa between poor and rich sites and among the investigated months (June, July and September).

Synthesis and peptide incorporation of an unnatural amino acid containing activity-based probe for protein tyrosine phosphatases.

An unnatural amino acid was synthesized to incorporate a quinone methide-generating activity-based probe for protein tyrosine phosphatases (PTPs) and then integrated into a PTP1B-specific substrate. The resulting probe led to preferential labeling of PTP1B in cell lysates in the presence of PTP4A3.