Heart Failure-Like Reaction Is Likely Involved in the Feeding Behaviour of Blood-Sucking Leeches

Medicinal leeches have been utilized in therapy for thousands of years. However, the adaptation physiology between leeches and hosts is not fully understand. To disclose the molecular mechanisms of adaptation between leech and host, the body transcriptomes of hunger and fed blood-sucking Poecilobdella javanica, Haemadipsa cavatuses, and Hirudo nipponia leeches were obtained by RNA sequencing, after comparison, a stratified unigenes group was obtained, which closely correlated to body distension. In the group, Rfamide receptor decreased significantly (P < 0.05) while serotonin receptor increased significantly (P < 0.05). Moreover, four KEGG (Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes) pathways, including cardiac muscle contraction, complement and coagulation cascades, renin-angiotensin system, and hypertrophic cardiomyopathy were significantly enriched. The unigenes annotation, neuroregulators correlation analysis and induced function of the KEGG pathways, were consistently supported the same result as: vasoconstriction and systole reaction enhance in hunger leeches and vice versa vasodilation and diastole increase in fed leeches, meanwhile, Interspecific comparison and correlative analyses of physiological function showed that the strongest reaction of induced heart failure from four KEGG occur in strongest reaction of systole in hungry P. javanica and in strongest reaction of diastole in fed H. nipponia. Overall, heart failure is likely a physiological function involved in feeding behaviour.

Short-term feeding behaviour sound classification method for sheep using LSTM networks

A deep learning approach using long-short term memory(LSTM)networks was implemented in this study to classify the sound of short-term feeding behaviour of sheep,including biting,chewing,bolus regurgitation,and rumination chewing.The original acoustic signal was split into sound episodes using an endpoint detection method,where the thresholds of short-term energy and average zero-crossing rate were utilized.A discrete wavelet transform(DWT),Mel-frequency cepstral,and principal-component analysis(PCA)were integrated to extract the dimensionally reduced DWT based Mel-frequency cepstral coefficients(denoted by PW_MFCC)for each sound episode.Then,LSTM networks were employed to train classifiers for sound episode category classification.The performances of the LSTM classifiers with original Mel-frequency cepstral coefficients(MFCC),DWT based MFCC(denoted by W_MFCC),and PW_MFCC as the input feature coefficients were compared.Comparison results demonstrated that the introduction of DWT improved the classifier performance effectively,and PCA reduced the computational overhead without degrading classifier performance.The overall accuracy and comprehensive F1-score of the PW_MFCC based LSTM classifier were 94.97%and 97.41%,respectively.The classifier established in this study provided a foundation for an automatic identification system for sick sheep with abnormal feeding and rumination behaviour pattern.

Biological parameters and feeding behaviour of invasive whelk Rapana venosa Valenciennes,1846 in the south-eastern Black Sea of Turkey

Objective:To determine length-weight relationships,growth type and feeding behavior of the benthic predator Rapa whelk at the coast of Camburnu,south-eastern Black Sea.Methods:Rapa whelk was monthly collected by dredge sampling on the south-eastern Black Sea at 20 m depth.The relationships between morphometric parameters of Rapa whelk were described by linear and exponential models.The allometric growth of each variable relative to shell length(SL)was calculated from the function Y=aSL^(b) or logY=loga_(+)blogSL.The functional regression b values were tested by t-test at the 0.05 significance level if it was significantly different from isometric growth.The total time spent on feeding either on mussel tissue or live mussels was recorded for each individual under controlled conditions in laboratory.Results:The length-weight relationships showed positive allometric growth and no inter-sex variability.Body size in the male population was significantly higher than in the individuals of the female.All characters in males and females showed a trend towards allometry rather than isometry.While the total time spent feeding increased with increasing prey size the total time that Rapana venosa spent feeding decreased with increasing Rapa whelk size.The total average feeding time needed by Rapa whelks was 160 min.But they took 310 min on live mussels in 27-28℃ in the laboratory conditions.Conclusions:Length and weight relationships,growth type,total time spent feeding of this species were explained in details for this region.It would be useful to sustainable management in the south-eastern Black Sea of Turkey.The results about the feeding behaviour of this species will contribute to the understanding of the role of this species within the ecosystem.