Assessing thermal adaptation of a global sample of Aspergillus fumigatus: Implications for climate change effects.

Aspergillus fumigatus is a common environmental mold and a major cause of opportunistic infections in humans. It's distributed among many ecological niches across the globe. A major virulence factor of A. fumigatus is its ability to grow at high temperature. However, at present, little is known about variations among strains in their growth at different temperatures and how their geographic origins may impact such variations. In this study, we analyzed 89 strains from 12 countries (Cameroon, Canada, China, Costa Rica, France, India, Iceland, Ireland, New Zealand, Peru, Saudi Arabia, and USA) representing diverse geographic locations and temperature environments. Each strain was grown at four temperatures and genotyped at nine microsatellite loci. Our analyses revealed a range of growth profiles, with significant variations among strains within individual geographic populations in their growths across the temperatures. No statistically significant association was observed between strain genotypes and their thermal growth profiles. Similarly geographic separation contributed little to differences in thermal adaptations among strains and populations. The combined analyses among genotypes and growth rates at different temperatures in the global sample suggest that most natural populations of A. fumigatus are capable of rapid adaptation to temperature changes. We discuss the implications of our results to the evolution and epidemiology of A. fumigatus under increasing climate change.

Reproductive Biology of Leptocybe invasa Fisher & La Salle (Hymenoptera: Eulophidae).

Leptocybe invasa Fisher & La Salle (Hymenoptera: Eulophidae) is an invasive pest in Eucalyptus plantations around the world. The successful colonization of L. invasa is possibly related to its reproductive biology. The objective of this study was to examine the reproductive biology of L. invasa. In Guangxi Province, the sex ratio (proportion of female, 0.99) of L. invasa was female-dominant throughout the year based on natural and artificial infestation. This result was similar to the ratios observed for other geographic populations in China, including those in Fujian (0.99), Guangdong (0.98), Hainan (0.95), Jiangxi (0.96), and Sichuan (0.99). The offspring sex ratio favored females. A large number of females emerged from the galls produced by females, with few males found. Galls on the petioles and midribs of Eucalyptus plants could be caused by newly emerged females with mature eggs. The lengths of the ovariole, spermatheca, common oviduct, and reproductive glands did not differ among L. invasa females, but their lateral oviducts showed differences from 0 to 42 h after emergence, indicating that this insect is proovigenic. These results could explain why L. invasa populations can rapidly increase in invaded areas.

Geographic variation on biological parameters of Meccus picturatus (Usinger), 1939 (Hemiptera: Reduviidae).

The biological parameters related to the life cycles of three populations of Meccus picturatus (Usinger) (Hemiptera: Reduviidae), one of the main vectors of Trypanosoma cruzi Chagas (Trypanosomatida: Trypanosomatidae), were evaluated. A cohort of each of three populations from geographically isolated localities in western Mexico was maintained under similar laboratory conditions, after which all three populations were compared to each other. In each cohort, 50.9 to 72.1% of nymphs completed the cycle. The average time from N1 to adult was approximately 175 days and different for the three studied cohorts. The number of blood meals between molts varied from one to three. The hatching rates as well as the fecundity per female per day were different among the three studied populations. Our results show that the three isolated populations are statistically different in some parameters from each other, which points to the importance of studying the biological characteristics of local populations of triatomines for estimating their capacity of transmitting T. cruzi to reservoir hosts.

Finite size scaling in the local abundances of geographic populations

We analyzed the statistical distribution of intra-specific local abundances for a set North American breeding bird species. We constructed frequency plots for every species and found that they showed long-tail power-law behavior, truncated at an upper abundance cut-off value. Based on finite size scaling arguments, we investigated whether frequency curves may be considered scaled copies of each other. Data collapse was possible after taking powers of the total abundance of each species, in order to correct deviations from the underlying universal finite size scaling function (UFSS). The UFSS power law exponent oscillated in time within the regime of unbounded variance, which is consistent with the wild fluctuations that characterize ecological phenomena. We speculate that our results may eventually be linked to other law-like macroecological phenomena, such as energetic constraints reported in allometric scaling.