The Behavioral Consequences of Parents Presumed Media Influence on Restrictive Mediation and Co-viewing/Using Media

This study aims to fertilize research on parental mediation with the importance of parents＇ media attitudes in terms of parental third-person effects and its varieties. The explanatory power of these perceptions on behavioral consequences as types of parental mediation is analyzed with control for previously known factors. Data from a cross-sectional population survey in Sweden 2011 covered a representative sample of children, aged 2-17 years in total 1461. The results show that the parental second-person perceptions explain （i.e., general belief in media effects） more than parental third-person perceptions. Parental second-person perceptions together with the age of the child explain most of the restrictive mediation and the effects of parental second-person perceptions on restrictive mediation increase with the parents lesser control of the media type.

AN ANALYSIS OF EFFECTS OF FETAL ORDER AND PARENTAL AGE ON RETINOBLASTOMA

Seventy-eight cases of retinoblastoma (Rb) diagnosed at the Eye ENT Hospital, Shanghai Medical University from 1953 to 1985 were studied. The results of multiple logistic regression analysis and conditional probability model showed that high fetal order had a moderate risk (OR=1.28, P<0.05) of developing unilateral Rb. Both unilateral and bilateral cases were independent of parental ages, and no interaction could be found between fetal order and paternal of maternal age; also, the effect of fetal order was not confounded by parental ages.

Clonal Transgenerational Effects Transmit for Multiple Generations in a Floating Plant

Environmental conditions of a parent plant can influence the performance of their clonal offspring,and such clonal transgenerational effects may help offspring adapt to different environments.However,it is still unclear how many vegetative generations clonal transgenerational effects can transmit for and whether it depends on the environmental conditions of the offspring.We grew the ancestor ramets of the floating clonal plant Spirodela polyrhiza under a high and a low nutrient level and obtained the so-called 1^(st)-generation offspring ramets of two types(from these two environments).Then we grew the 1^(st)-generation offspring ramets of each type under the high and the low nutrient level and obtained the so-called 2^(nd)-generation offspring ramets of four types.We repeated this procedure for another five times and analyzed clonal transgenerational effects on growth,morphology and biomass allocation of the 1^(st)-to the 6^(th)-generation offspring ramets.We found positive,negative or neutral(no)transgenerational effects of the ancestor nutrient condition on the offspring of S.polyrhiza,depending on the number of vegetative generations,the nutrient condition of the offspring environment and the traits considered.We observed significant clonal transgenerational effects on the 6^(th)-generation offspring;such effects occurred for all three types of traits(growth,morphology and allocation),but varied depending on the nutrient condition of the offspring environment and the traits considered.Our results suggest that clonal transgenerational effects can transmit for multiple vegetative generations and such impacts can vary depending on the environmental conditions of offspring.

Adaptation of Drosophila species to climate change——A literature review since 2003

Global climate warming has been exerting impacts on agricultural pests. Pests also take some strategies to adapt to climate change. Understanding such adaptation could benefit more accurate predictions and integrated management of pest. However, adaptation to climate change has not been widely investigated in agricultural pests but has been well documented in model species, Drosophila, and reviewed by Hoffmann before 2003. To provide recent progress and references for agricultural entomologists who interested in thermal biology, here we have reviewed literatures since 2003 about adaptation to temperature changes under climate change. We mainly summarized thermal adaptation of Drosophila(especially to high temperatures) from three aspects, behaviors, plastic responses and micro-evolution and discussed how Drosophila increases their heat tolerance through these three mechanisms. Finally, we summarized the measures of thermotolerance and concluded the main progress in recent decade about the behavioral thermoregulation, mortality risks driven by limited evolutionary and plastic response under climate change, geographic distribution based on basal rather than plastic thermotolerance. We propose future work focus on better understanding adaptation of organisms including agricultural pests to climate change.

Fertility variation in endemic populations of Ehrami black pine (Pinus nigra Arnold. subsp. pallasiana var. pyramidata)

Fertility variation and effective number of parents were estimated in the 100 individuals from each of three plantation populations (P1, P2 and P3) of the endangered Pinus nigra. subsp. pallasiana var. pyramidata established in the Isparta-Golcuk district in southern Turkey in 1990. Potential relations between cone yield and growth characters (height, diameter at breast height, diameter at base and crown diameter) were also investigated. Large differences were found among populations and within populations for cone production and growth characters. Mean cone production was eight (ranging from 6.5 in P2 to 9.1 in P1) for the three populations. The 10 most productive individuals for cones produced 32% of the total cones in P1, 39% in P2 and 34% in P3; 21, 16 and 6 individuals, respectively did not produce any cones in the populations. According to the correlation analyses, the relation between cone yield and growth characters changed for the populations, while height, diameter at breast height and crown diameter were positively significantly correlated (r = 0.182, 0.135 and 0.209; p ≤ 0.05) with cone production for the three populations. Fertility variation was 1.81 in total of three populations, ranging from 1.72 in P3 to 3.45 in P1). Effective number of parents was 142 (55.2 of number of parents censused; 29%, P1; 49.8%, P2; 58.3%, P3).

Offspring diet supersedes the transgenerational effects of parental diet in a specialist herbivore Neolema abbreviata under manipulated foliar nitrogen variability

Diet quality influences organismal fitness within and across generations.For herbivorous insects,the transgenerational effecets of diet remain relatively underexplored.Usinga3×3×2 factorial experiment,we evaluated how N enrichment in parental diets of Neolemd abbreviata(Larcordaire)(C oleoptera:Chrysomelidae),a biological control agent for Tradescantia fluminensis Vell.(Commelinaceae),may influence life history and performance of Fi and F2 offspring under reciprocal experiments.We found limited transgenerational effects of foliar nitrogen variability among life-history traits in both larvae and adults.Larval weight gain and mortality were responsive to parental diet contrary to feeding damage,pupal weight and duration taken to pupate.There were significant parental diet x test interactions in larval feeding damage,weight gain,pupal weight and time to pupation.Generally,offspring from parents under high N plants performed better even under low N test plants.Adult traits including oviposition selection,feeding weight and longevity did not respond to the efects of parental diet nor its interaction with test diet as was the case in the larval stage.However,the main efects of test diet were more important in determining adult performance in both generations suggesting limited sensitivity to parental diet in the adult stage.Our results show conflicting responses to parental diet between larvae and adults ofthe same generation among an insec species with both actively feeding larual and adult life stagee These tranegeneratinonal efferte,or lack thereof,may have implications on the field performance of N.abbrevita under heterogencous nutritional landscapes.