We sourced house mice (Mus domesticus) from natural populations that differ in the level of sperm competition and sperm fertilizing selleck capacity, and manipulated the social experience of females during their sexual development to simulate conditions of either a future ‘risk’ or ‘no risk’ of sperm competition. Consistent with coevolutionary predictions, we found lower fertilization rates in ova produced by females from
a high sperm competition population compared with ova from a low sperm competition population, indicating that these populations are divergent in the fertilizability of their ova. More importantly, females exposed to a ` risk’ of sperm competition produced ova that had greater resistance to fertilization than ova produced by females reared in an environment with ` no risk’. Consequently, we show that variation in sperm competition risk during development generates phenotypic plasticity in ova fertilizability, which allows females to prepare for prevailing conditions during their reproductive life.”
“Despite centuries of anatomical studies, controversies and contradictions still exist in the literature regarding the definition, anatomical terminology and the limits of the abdominal wall. We conducted a systematic research of books published from 1901 until December 2012 in Google Books. After
the index screening, 16 remaining books were further assessed for eligibility. We decided to exclude journals. The aim of the study was to focus on surface landmarks and borders of the abdominal cavity. After this revision of the literature, we propose that the surface landmarks LY2606368 of the abdominal wall should be Selleck Linsitinib standardized.”
“Purpose The objective of this study was to investigate the effects of weather, rank, and home advantage on international
football match results and scores in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) region. Methods Football matches (n = 2008) in six GCC countries were analyzed. To determine the weather influence on the likelihood of favorable outcome and goal difference, generalized linear model with a logit link function and multiple regression analysis were performed. Results In the GCC region, home teams tend to have greater likelihood of a favorable outcome (P smaller than 0.001) and higher goal difference (P smaller than 0.001). Temperature difference was identified as a significant explanatory variable when used independently (P smaller than 0.001) or after adjustment for home advantage and team ranking (P smaller than 0.001). The likelihood of favorable outcome for GCC teams increases by 3% for every 1-unit increase in temperature difference. After inclusion of interaction with opposition, this advantage remains significant only when playing against non-GCC opponents. While home advantage increased the odds of favorable outcome (P smaller than 0.001) and goal difference (P smaller than 0.