Cladistic analysis of the suborder Conulariina Miller and Gurley, 1896 (Cnidaria, Scyphozoa; Vendian-Triassic)

Results of a cladistic analysis of the suborder Conulariina Miller and Gurley, 1896, a major extinct (Vendian-Triassic) group of scyphozoan cnidarians, are presented. The analysis sought to test whether the three conulariid subfamilies (Conulariinae Walcott, 1886, Paraconulariinae Sinclair, 1952 and Ctenoconulariinae Sinclair, 1952) recognized in the Treatise on Invertebrate Paleontology ( TIP) are monophyletic. A total of 17 morphological characters were scored for 16 ingroup taxa, namely the genera Archaeoconularia, Baccaconularia, Climacoconus, Conularia, Conulariella, Conularina, Ctenoconularia, Eoconularia, Glyptoconularia, Metaconularia, Notoconularia, Paraconularia, Pseudoconularia, Reticulaconularia, Teresconularia and Vendoconularia. The extant medusozoan taxa Cubozoa, Stauromedusae, Coronatae and Semaeostomeae served as outgroups. Unweighted analysisof the data matrix yielded 1057 trees, and successive weighting analysis resulted in one of the 1057 original trees. The ingroup is monophyletic with two autapomorphies: (1) the quadrate geometry of the oral region; and (2) the presence of a mineralized (phosphatic) periderm. Within the ingroup, the clade (Vendoconularia, Teresconularia, Conularina, Eoconularia) is supported by the sinusoidal longitudinal geometry of the transverse ridges, and the much larger clade (Baccaconularia, Glyptoconularia, Metaconularia, Pseudoconularia, Conularia, Ctenoconularia, Archaeoconularia, Notoconularia, Climacoconus, Paraconularia, Reticulaconularia) is supported by the presence of external tubercles, which, however, were lost in the clade (Notoconularia, Climacoconus, Paraconularia, Reticulaconularia). As proposed by Van Iten et al. (2000), the clade (Notoconularia, Climacoconus, Paraconularia, Reticulaconularia) is supported by the termination and alternation of the transverse ribs in the corner sulcus. The previously recognized subfamilies Conulariinae, Paraconulariinae and Ctenoconulariinae were not recovered from this analysis. The diagnostic features of Conulariinae (continuation of the transverse ornament across the corner sulcus and lack of carinae) and Ctenoconulariinae ( presence of carinae) are symplesiomorphic or homoplastic, and Paraconulariinae is polyphyletic. The families Conulariellidae Kiderlen, 1937 and Conulariopsidae Sugiyama, 1942, also recognized in the TIP, are monogeneric, and since they provide no additional phylogenetic information, should be abandoned.

Phytochrome controls achene germination in Bidens pilosa L. (Asteraceae) by very low fluence response

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)

Achene dimorphism in Bidens pilosa L. (Asteraceae) as determined by germination test

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)

Heat Exchange from the Toucan Bill Reveals a Controllable Vascular Thermal Radiator

Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)

Reinterpretation of Malvinoconularia cahuanotensis (Braniša and Vaněk) from the Devonian Altiplano and Western Andean Cordillera, Bolivia, South America

The holotype of Malvinoconularia cahuanotensis (Braniša and Vaněk) (Devonian, Bolivia), the type species of the monospecific genus Malvinoconularia Babcock et al., is redescribed and refigured. M. cahuanotensis exhibits several gross morphological features that together are uniquely shared with Reticulaconularia baini (Babcock and Feldmann). In both taxa, the transverse ribs are nodose, the inter-spaces bear longitudinal ridges (bars or crests) that are collinear (line up) across the transverse ribs, and the longitudinal centerline (midline) of the faces is marked by a subdued ridge. Additionally, the two species may also be similar in the anatomy and external ornament of the corner sulcus. The slightly undulose geometry of the transverse ribs of M. cahuanotensis also is exhibited by certain specimens of Reticulaconularia; however, whether this feature is primary or taphonomic in origin is unclear at present. Together, these similarities suggest that the genus Malvinoconularia probably is a junior synonym of the genus Reticulaconularia. © Asociación Paleontológica Argentina.

Calling behavior and parasite intensity in Treefrogs, Hypsiboas prasinus

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)

Desenvolvimento vegetativo de quatro espécies de grama irrigadas com efluente de estação de tratamento de esgoto doméstico

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)

Variable assessment of wing colouration in aerial contests of the red-winged damselfly Mnesarete pudica (Zygoptera, Calopterygidae)

Wing pigmentation is a trait that predicts the outcome of male contests in some damselflies. Thus, it is reasonable to suppose that males would have the ability to assess wing pigmentation and adjust investment in a fight according to the costs that the rival may potentially impose. Males of the damselfly Mnesarete pudica exhibit red-coloured wings and complex courtship behaviour and engage in striking male– male fights. In this study, we investigated male assessment behaviour during aerial contests. Theory suggests that the relationship between male resource-holding potential (RHP) and contest duration describes the kind of assessment adopted by males: self-assessment, opponent-only assessment or mutual assessment. A recent theory also suggests that weak and strong males exhibit variations in the assessment strategies adopted. We estimated male RHP through male body size and wing colouration (i.e. pigmentation, wing reflectance spectra and transmission spectra) and studied the relationship between male RHP and contest duration from videodocumented behavioural observations of naturally occurring individual contests in the field. The results showed that males with more opaque wings and larger red spots were more likely to win contests. The relationships between RHP and contest durations partly supported the self-assessment and the mutual assessment models. We then experimentally augmented the pigmented area of the wings, in order to evaluate whether strong and weak males assess rivals’ RHP through wing pigmentation. Our experimental manipulation, however, clearly demonstrated that strong males assess rivals’ wing pigmentation. We finally suggest that there is a variation in the assessment strategy adopted by males

Variable assessment of wing colouration in aerial contests of the red-winged damselfly Mnesarete pudica (Zygoptera, Calopterygidae)

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)

A ornamentação contemporânea em arte e design: função estética, anagógica, terapêutica

Taking as a starting point the reflection on the ornament, is delineated an interpretative analysis of delimitation between art and design in the extent of the aesthetics. Presupposing the ornament as an elementary and universal form of the all aesthetics’ manifestations, trying to work, through recent contributions and in an unified way, concepts regarding the aesthetics in parallel with the phenomenon of the perception. The ornament as element previously “ordered” front to the organization need that the interpretation demands, it constitutes fertile philosophical instrument, for all the art forms and of design, which seeks to provide an aesthetic sensation. Returned to the thoughtful function, the ornament has as essential purpose to stimulate the aesthetic experimentation, capable to induce the perception to subtler states of conscience similar of to the ecstasy, where the spirit from whom contemplates, can live experiences of extreme freedom and intense pleasure. . Establishing semiotics foundations capable of evidencing a function anagogic-therapeutics in the action of conceiving and to meditating, alternately, an object with function strictly ornamental (aesthetics), also intending the reflection of moral stamp on the ornamental concept of the decency as conciliatory solution in the intersection between art and design, concerning the creativity of the formative process.

A lógica matemática da arte ornamental: uma relação de equivalência a partir da estrutura atômica dos cristais

Based in aesthetic relationship between concepts of content and form intends to establish an relationship of analogy between ornaments and crystals. With the objective of building an theoretical investigation of relating the dynamics that happens in the crystals´ atoms to the symmetrical intervals of the ornamental patterns, it tries to draw a reasoning line that is going from the ‘Idea’ of Plato and ‘poiésis’ of Aristotle, until Hegel's philosophical enlargement, that admits the aesthetics as a science of the art integrated in a metaphysical process. Inherent to this question intends, in interrelation terms between aesthetics and metaphysics, content as being intelligent beginning, energy, and form as primitive element, matter, in order to evidence the possibility to calculate the same present symmetries in the ornamental arts like in the nature.

Sincretismo cultural na joalheria afro-brasileira

Body adornment has been used as a ornament, ritualistic object, religious icon or as symbol demonstration of status and power in many different cultures. In Brazil, own visuality develops from the cultural syncretism. Thus, together with the mode of dress, the african-Brazilian jewelry acquires peculiarities derived from cultural identities that coexist. This paper proposes a look at africanBrazilian jewelry through visual representation in some works of Jean-Baptiste Debret - French painter member of the French Artistic Mission that registered objects and everyday scenes of slaves and freemen, of poor whites and aristocrats of Rio de Janeiro in the early nineteenth century. We are looking for jewelry as a historical record of lifestyles from a time and place with a social, economic and cultural local configuration.