Diet Of Worms Research Articles

Pyrosequencing of prey DNA in reptile faeces: analysis of earthworm consumption by slow worms

Little quantitative ecological information exists on the diets of most invertebrate feeding reptiles, particularly nocturnal or elusive species that are difficult to observe. In the UK and elsewhere, reptiles are legally required to be relocated before land development can proceed, but without knowledge of their dietary requirements, the suitability of receptor sites cannot be known. Here, we tested the ability of non-invasive DNA-based molecular diagnostics (454 pyrosequencing) to analyse reptile diets, with the specific aims of determining which earthworm species are exploited by slow worms (the legless lizard Anguis fragilis) and whether they feed on the deeper-living earthworm species that only come to the surface at night. Slow worm faecal samples from four different habitats were analysed using earthworm-specific PCR primers. We found that 86% of slow worms (N=80) had eaten earthworms. In lowland heath and marshy/acid grassland, Lumbricus rubellus, a surface-dwelling epigeic species, dominated slow worm diet. In two other habitats, riverside pasture and calciferous coarse grassland, diet was dominated by deeper-living anecic and endogeic species. We conclude that all species of earthworm are exploited by these reptiles and lack of specialization allows slow worms to thrive in a wide variety of habitats. Pyrosequencing of prey DNA in faeces showed promise as a practical, rapid and relatively inexpensive means of obtaining detailed and valuable ecological information on the diets of reptiles.

Utilization of waste from a marine recirculating fish culture system as a feed source for the polychaete worm, Nereis virens

Two experiments were conducted to test the effect of feeding the polychaete worm Nereis virens with solid wastes collected from a marine recirculating system. In experiment 1, worms with an initial mean weight of 0.37 g were fed for 80 days with a commercial worm diet (CD), halibut fecal waste (FW), uneaten halibut feed pellets (PW) or a 1:1 mixture of fecal waste and feed pellet waste (MW). The resulting biomass and average weight of harvested worms was significantly higher in the PW group than in the other 3 groups (ANOVA, p < 0.05). Total fat levels in the worms from the MW and PW groups were higher than the CD group. In a similar setup for experiment 2, worms with an initial mean weight of 0.18 g were fed varying proportions of waste mixed with commercial worm diet. The CD group was fed only commercial diet, the W100 group fed only waste and two intermediate treatments fed 50% of each (W50) or 75% waste (W75). Total fat content of the worms was significantly higher in the W75 and W100 groups than the CD group. There were no significant differences in terms of biomass or average weight at the end of the experiment. CHN analysis of the remaining substrate after harvest revealed that little in the way of organic content was left behind. Certain fatty acids were abundant in worms from both experiments, specifically 16:0, 16:1, 18:1ω9, 18:2ω6, 20:5 ω3 (EPA) and 22:6 ω6 (DHA) and analysis revealed some treatment differences due to diet. The results demonstrate that production of N. virens using fish wastes is highly efficient. This species is an excellent candidate for integrated aquaculture and waste recycling.

The Trial of Martin Luther (1521): Selected Links and Bibliography

This is a bibliography of links focusing on the heresy trial of Martin Luther at the Imperial Diet of Worms in 1521. It includes links to selected works of Luther, the 95 thesis that he nailed to the church door in Wittenberg, links about Lutheranism and the Reformation and additional readings by and about Luther.

The Reformation between Deconstruction and Reconstruction: Reflections on Recent Writings on the German Reformation

We have come a long way since Thomas Carlyle could declare, ‘The Diet of Worms, Luther's appearance there on the 17th of April 1521, may be considered as the greatest scene in Modern European History; the point, indeed, from which the whole subsequent history of civilization takes its rise.’ The days when the sage of Ecclefechan could stylize Luther as the ‘Hero as Priest’ are long gone,1 and accounts of the Reformation which ascribed the victory of Protestantism to manifest destiny, or indeed to the hand of God, have expired and are now unlikely to be resurrected, except by right-wing American fundamentalists. Amongst historians, pluralism, gradualism and uncertainty have become watchwords in interpreting the spread of evangelical beliefs. Yet the cooling of religious ardour in a post-Christian age, when it has become politically incorrect to profess anything other than ecumenical principles, has led to no visible lessening of interest in the Reformation, whatever we understand it to be. A glance over the past fifteen years reveals a profusion of new textbooks with ambitious titles and encompassing agendas: Euan Cameron led the way with The European Reformation, Carter Lindberg followed with The European Reformations; then came James Tracy's Europe's Reformations, 1450–1650, Andrew Pettegree's The Reformation World, Peter Wallace's The Long European Reformation … 1350–1750, Ronnie Hsia's compendium, A Companion to the Reformation World, and most recently Diarmaid MacCulloch’s, Reformation: Europe's House Divided 1490–1700, Ulinka Rublack's Reformation Europe and Andrew Pettegree's Reformation and the Culture of Persuasion.2 The use of the plural by Lindberg and Tracy (not to mention the extra-European dimension consciously essayed in Hsia's and MacCulloch's volumes), and the increasingly attenuated chronological span evident in Wallace's and MacCulloch's subtitles, show that the Reformation is now seen not as an event but as a process, whose outcome was neither predictable nor predetermined. This view of the Reformation as a subset of Darwinian evolutionary biology may now be in the ascendant, but it has not been able entirely to submerge the historiography of the 1960s and 1970s, which focused on the Reformation's ‘storm years’ in the German cities, the raging pamphlet wars, and its links to social revolution. This early Reformation has been addressed within the last decade or so only by Andrew Pettegree's The Early Reformation in Europe, by Owen Chadwick's The Early Reformation on the Continent, by the avowedly cultural approach in Rublack's Reformation Europe, and for Germany by the papers edited by Bernd Moeller in Die frühe Reformation in Deutschland als Umbruch (‘The Early Reformation in Germany as Upheaval’).3

Diet of Worms

In many organisms, dietary restriction leads to an increased life span and a delay in various conditions associated with aging. Panowski et al . found that, unlike wild-type worms, Caenorhabditis elegans in which the pha-4 gene was inactivated failed to live longer under conditions in which the concentration of bacteria they were fed was limited. The effect on life span of pha-4 , which encodes a transcription factor implicated in foregut development that has a sequence similar to that of the mammalian Foxa transcription factors, was specifically related to dietary restriction. Loss of pha-4 had no effect on longevity associated with decreased insulin and insulin-like growth factor signaling, nor did it affect longevity associated with decreased activity of the mitochondrial electron transport chain. Moreover, the effect of pha-4 on longevity was independent of its role in foregut development. Real-time polymerase chain reaction studies determined that the abundance of PHA-4 mRNA was increased in response to dietary restriction. The authors created 11 individual C. elegans lines with increased abundance of PHA-4 and found a statistically significant increase in the longevity of nine of these lines. A restrictive diet resulted in the increased abundance of several mitochondrial superoxide dismutases, enzymes important in protecting cells from the oxidative damage that can cause aging. Expression of the genes for these enzymes was decreased in the absence of pha-4 . In another study, Bishop and Guarente found that mutant C. elegans lacking another transcription factor, SKN-1, had a decreased life span. SKN-1 is important in development, particularly in the intestine. The authors found that, similar to PHA-4, lack of SKN-1 prevented dietary-restriction-induced longevity. Lack of SKN-1 also had no effect on longevity associated with decreased insulin and insulin-like growth factor signaling. As well as being present in the intestine, SKN-1 is found in two sensory neurons (known as ASI neurons) in the head of C. elegans , and the authors found that it was this neuronal-associated SKN-1 that was responsible for mediating longevity. The abundance of SKN-1 in the ASI neurons was increased in C. elegans that had a restricted diet, compared with that in nonrestricted worms. The authors proposed that the increased abundance of SKN-1 causes the ASI neurons to release a hormonal signal that increases the rate of respiration of cells in the peripheral tissues, leading to longevity. The implications of these two studies are discussed by Antebi. S. H. Panowski, S. Wolff, H. Aguilaniu, J. Durieux, A. Dillin, PHA-4/Foxa mediates diet-restriction-induced longevity of C. elegans . Nature 447 , 550-555 (2007). [PubMed] N. A. Bishop, L. Guarente, Two neurons mediate diet-restriction-induced longevity in C. elegans . Nature 447 , 545-549 (2007). [PubMed] A. Antebi, When less is more. Nature 447 , 536-537 (2007). [PubMed]

A NOSE FOR SURVIVAL

![Figure][1] ![Figure][1] Life can sometimes be pretty dangerous for larval California newts ( Taricha torosa ). If the adults' favourite diet of worms is scarce, they cannibalise their larvae for an alternative snack. Adult newts in turn avoid being munched by secreting the

Another diet of worms: the applicability of polychaete feeding guilds as a useful conceptual framework and biological variable

AbstractA fundamental question in guild studies is how to separate species into guilds. In a seminal manuscript, Fauchald &amp; Jumars [Oceanography and Marine Biology Annual Review17 (1979) 193] summarized polychaete feeding biology and proposed a conceptual framework to test hypotheses on the sympatric occurrence of congeners with limited morphological differentiation. Twenty‐six years after this publication, few studies have tested the validity and practical functioning of this scheme of polychaete feeding guilds and then only using part of the classification. The objective of the present study was to analyze the applicability of polychaete feeding guilds to ecological and environment assessments. Two data sets from Santa Catarina Island Bay, southern Brazil, were used. The first data set deals with spatial distribution of natural polychaete assemblages along the bay. The second data set treats fauna in urbanized versus relatively pristine mangroves. Multivariate analysis showed similar patterns in sample groups formed using guilds or densities and composition data. The role of feeding guilds in benthic systems was assessed through comparison with environmental variables. The polychaete assemblage from the Bay was related to sediment type. Motile and discretely motile carnivores and herbivores with jawed probosces matched coarse sands; surface deposit feeders and filter feeders were found in fine sands; and surface and subsurface deposit feeders and carnivores, all with soft probosces matched silt and clay sediments. The data analyses in mangroves showed surface deposit feeders and filter feeders in undisturbed sites and omnivorous species in disturbed ones. The polychaete feeding guilds appear relevant to assembly rules based on resource availability, to resource partitioning and to interspecific competition.

Opitz's Anno: The Middle High German 'Annolied' in the 1639 Edition of Martin Opitz by R. Graeme Dunphy (review)

MLRy 100.3, 2005 859 devote a whole book to the subject, although even his study, based on his Freiburg im Breisgau dissertation, focuses on a small segment of the history of the phenomenon, the years between the laureation of Conrad Celtis by Frederick III in 1487 and that of Nikolaus Mameranus by Charles V in 1555, and thus including the thirty-odd poets laureated by Maximilian I. Operating with the concept of 'field', a term derived largely from Pierre Bourdieu, and denoting a dynamic system of connections and influences, attractions and conflicting tensions (rather as in a magnetic field), Schirrmeister sees the poets as functioning within the context of a 'literarisches Feld' determined by a 'Feld der Macht', that is, the power relations of the world of the court (and other institutions) with its opportunities and challenges. Rather than focusing on the lives or output of the individualpoetae laureati, Schirrmeister's interest is in observing them as they func? tion, whether severally or collectively, both within the broader context of humanism and in their specific relation to court, Church, universities, publishers, and patrons. The firstmajor chapter views them in the tension between literature and the power structures ofthe court, examining their response to deaths, marriages, and other key events in their literaryoutput, the emerging literary groupings, and economic aspects of their work. The next chapter considers the poets' increasing autonomy as a group, investigating how they relate to individuals as evidenced by their correspondence, the dedications of their works (Rabelais, we are reminded, declared a book without a dedication to be acephalous, 'headless'), and their involvement in various loosely structured literary associations (sodalitates). Chapter iv examines the poets in their practical relations with the courts and their patrons: the need to have connections and to know how to exploit them in the interests of social advancement. The final section is informative about the actual practice of laureation, diplomas, and the involvement of patrons. Especially interesting is the discussion of why certain people were not laureated: for example, Helius Eobanus Hessus, whom some accounted the greatest Latin poet of his day, or Philipp Engelbrecht, who was thwarted in his ambition to be created poeta laureatus at the Diet of Worms in 1521. As a whole, the study offersa view of the growing self-awareness of the intellectuals in this period, of 'the triumph of the poet', as the title has it. Although Schirrmeister perhaps does not significantly repaint the overall picture of the poetae laureati, he succeeds remarkably well in bringing these largely for? gotten individual writers to life by adducing telling details and presenting them in their broader intellectual and social framework. Moreover, the book will repay study by anyone concerned with early German humanism, university history (especially Vienna, Cologne, Wittenberg, and Erfurt), and the history of the book. The dis? cussion of the sodalitates (pp. 170-82) is rewarding, not least for its reminder of Heinz Entner's suggestion to see them as the forerunners of the seventeenth-century Sprachgesellschaften. There are sixteen pages ofwell-chosen illustrations, an appendix with transcriptions of documents, an extensive bibliography, and indexes of concepts and names. Institute of Germanic and Romance Studies, London John L. Flood Opitz's Anno: The Middle High German 'Annolied'in thei6jg Edition ofMartin Opitz. By R. Graeme Dunphy. (Scottish Papers in Germanic Studies, ii) Glasgow: Scottish Papers in Germanic Studies. 2003. viii +189 pp. ?15. ISBN o907409 -11-3. Opitz's edition of the Annolied (c. 1077-81) interests us for two reasons. Firstly, it preserves the Annolied, for the single manuscript used by Opitz is lost. Secondly, 860 Reviews it bears witness to the rediscovery of older German texts by seventeenth-century scholars. Such texts were oftencited in that era to bolster cultural-patriotic arguments about the antiquity of German, though the seemingly degenerate German found in them was also seen as proof of its sorry,neglected state. Much, if not most, of this seventeenth-century scholarship is sadly inaccessible, as yet unreached by modern reprints or editions, though an exception noted by Dunphy is Manfred Zimmermann's photographic reprint edition of Goldast's Paraeneticorum veterumpars I (Goppingen: Kiimmerle, 1980). Dunphy's bilingual edition of Opitz...

Klaus Conermann , Gabriele Ball , Andreas Herz (review)

MLR, ioo.i, 2005 247 Many of them will provide excellent introductions for students unacquainted with the works in question?the pieces on Melusine, Die schone Magelone, and Susanna, in fact, were all firstpublished as 'Nachworte' in Roloff's editions of these works in Reclams Universalbibliothek?and the essay Artes et doctrina: Struktur und Inten? tion des Faust-Buchs von 1587' must surely be accounted one of the best and most sympathetic discussions of this work yet to have appeared. From among the essays focusing on Reformation propaganda there are two which are particularly deserving of mention. The firstis the one on the polemical intention behind much early sixteenthcentury editing, in which Roloff rightly calls for much more research on the aims and methods of editing in this period, when the printed book was really coming into its own for the firsttime; he illustrates his point with compelling examples, includ? ing Sebastian Brant, Erasmus's Novum instrumentum,Ulrich von Hutten's edition of Lorenzo Valla's denunciation of the Donation of Constantine as a forgery,and Otto Brunfels's edition of texts of Jan Hus. The second essay also deals with Hus: Roloff deftly demonstrates how the figure of Hus served as a point of reference in Refor? mation polemics, especially at the time of the Diet of Worms, and sets out in some detail the polemical function of editions of Hus's writings. One senses that Roloff has real understanding of the temper of the sixteenth century. Thus in his discussion of Wickram, whom Gervinus dismissed as an 'unbedeutender Vielschreiber',he perceptively shows how his work provides real insights into attitudes ofthe period. Perhaps the most important essay is 'Thomas Naogeorg und das Problem von Humanismus und Reformation', where Roloff tellingly demonstrates that the supposed antinomy ofhumanism and Reformation is really a false dichotomy created by modern historio? graphy. He calls for much more detailed research at the micro-level: that is to say, close study of the texts themselves in their contemporary intellectual context. How this should be done Roloff has himself exemplified, not only in the essay on the 1587 Faust book and in several of the other pieces in this volume, but especially well in his analysis of Naogeorg's anti-papal polemic Pammachius, a play which had as one of its sources the Vitae Romanorum pontificum(Wittenberg, 1536) of Luther's Eng? lish friend Robert Barnes, who, like Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury, to whom Naogeorg dedicated his play, would burn at the stake for his faith. Institute of Germanic and Romance Studies, London John L. Flood Briefe der Fruchtbringenden Gesellschaft und Beilagen: Die Zeit Fiirst Ludwigs von Anhalt-Kothen 161J-1650, series Ia (Kothen), vol. m. Ed. by Klaus Conermann with Gabriele Ball and Andreas Herz. Tubingen: Niemeyer. 2003. 753 pp. ?118. ISBN 3-484-17607-5. In their documentation of the activities of the first German academy, the Fruchtbringende Gesellschaft, the editors have progressed well into the correspondence of Kothen, the home base of its founder, Ludwig von Anhalt. This third volume covers the timespan 1630-36; thus around half the Kothen material has now been published since 1991. Naturally there have been changes in editorial personnel since then, but the name of Klaus Conermann has been continuous. The present reviewer has already commented on previous volumes (in MLR, 90 (1995), 95 (2000), and 96 (2001)), and here unnecessary reduplication is avoided. The period covers the central years of the Thirty Years War, including one of the war's turning points in 1635, when the Elector of Saxony made a separate peace with the Emperor. Thus not only literary and intellectual life is reflected here, but also contemporary political topics, making the volume especially valuable for historians. Sixty-two letters and thirty-fivefurtherassociated documents are included; together 248 Reviews with their commentaries they make up 534 pages of the whole (pp. 131-664). The remainder consists of introductory material, including lists of correspondents and addressees, and at the end indexes of words and names, on the model of previous volumes. Fewer texts in foreign languages occur here, but there are some passages in French and Latin, the latter preceded by a translation or...

Diet of Worms

Diet of Worms

‘I was a stranger, and ye took me in’: Polish Religious Refugees in England and English Refugees in Poland in the Sixteenth Century

From the moment of Luther’s defiance of both Pope and Emperor at the Diet of Worms the sixteenth century became a period par excellence of cuius regio, eius religio, and of nowhere was this more true than for the very different societies of England and Poland. In England, for that time a highly centralized country, the nation’s religious fate oscillated wildly with the change of monarchs and their respective governments, mildly reformist under Henry VIII so long as Thomas Cromwell held power, indisputedly Protestant during the rule of the boy king, Edward VI, as indisputedly Roman Catholic in the equally short reign of Mary I, and then Protestant, as it turned out permanently, on the accession of Elizabeth. In Poland, where, because of its proximity to Wittenberg, Luther’s teachings began taking root at least within the German communities considerably earlier than in England, the spread first of Lutheranism and then Calvinism depended far more on the attitude of the nobility than of the monarch, though the succession of the more tolerant Sigismund Augustus in 1548 certainly accelerated the process. Apart from the five years between 1547 and 1553 in England, in neither country was life easy for converts to the Swiss version of Protestantism before 1560, and at different times both Polish and English Protestants suffered quite severe episodes of persecution: this essay traces the fortunes of the Poles who found a refuge in England and of the English who sought a temporary haven in Poland on account of their religion in the mid-sixteenth century.

Foraging behaviour of oystercatchers Haematopus ostralegus during a diet switch from worms Nereis diversicolor to clams Scrobicularia plana

On the mudflats of the Exe Estuary in southwest England, oystercatchers Haematopus ostralegus switched from eating worms Nereis diversicolor to clams Scrobicularia plana during autumn. A decline in the profitability of worms (from 17 to 4 mg/s handling time) and the food intake of oystercatchers eating worms (from 1300 to &lt; 200 mg/15 min) occurred prior to and during the switch to clams. Declines in profitability and food intake rate were due to seasonal changes in the size and food value of worms available to oystercatchers. Capture rate on worms varied little prior to, or during, the switch. Oystercatchers appeared to switch diets in response to changes in the reward offered by worms rather than in response to relative changes in the reward offered by the two prey species. This is because individual oystercatchers were never observed eating a mixed diet of worms and clams, and may explain why it took 6 weeks (11 October to 25 November) for the population to complete the switch.

Trophic transfer of benzo[a]pyrene metabolites between benthic marine organisms

This study was undertaken to determine the potential for trophic transfer of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) metabolites from infaunal organisms to bottom-feeding fish. Winter flounder, Pseudopleuronectes americanus, were given single oral doses of ground polychaetes (Nereis virens), either treated with pure [ 14C]henzo[a]pyrene (BaP) or containing a mixture of naturally produced radiolabeled BaP and BaP metabolites. Fish were sacrificed 24 h after feeding and total accumulated radioactivity and metabolite class profiles determined in major organs. Metabolites produced by worms were absorbed by flounder, although as a percentage of dose given they were less available than parent BaP. Comparison of metabolite profiles in the worm diet and in target organs in the fish indicated that metabolites accumulated through the diet can be further modified by the prey organism and can lead to the formation of bound residues. These results demonstrate that PAH metabolites in the diet are available for accumulation. Furthermore, metabolites absorbed appear to be susceptible to metabolic alteration by consumer organisms.

Effects of size, sex, temperature and condition on activity metabolism and defence behaviour of the viperine snake, Natrix maura

The activity metabolism (aerobic and anaerobic), performance (burst speed and endurance) and defence behaviour (static or active) of the snake Natrix maura were investigated in relation to size, sex, temperature and fasting. Conditions which reduced performance (low temperature, fasting) promoted the use of static defensive behaviour. Aerobic scope for activity decreased with increasing size, but this was compensated for by increased capacity for anaerobic metabolism. Burst speed (as lengths time‐1) was slightly lower in large snakes; endurance was much lower in small snakes. Increased use of static defence by small snakes is related to their predators, which are likely to take occasional snakes in a diet of worms; a balled, still snake may not provide a stimulus for feeding. Large snakes have predators which feed on vertebrates and may recognize them as food in any position, and so they are better off trying to escape.Aerobic scope was not maximal at the mean selected body temperature (25 °C), but increased right up to near lethal temperatures (&gt; 35 °C). Anaerobic metabolism (lactate production) was less temperature‐sensitive, and accounted for about 80 and 50% of the energy produced during 30 and 5 min of maximal activity, respectively. Resting and active oxygen consumption were weight‐dependent, VO2∝ W0·75, the same exponent as that of interspecific comparisons. This exponent was independent of temperature and acclimation state. Acclimation to a variable or constant temperature regime had no effect on maximal oxygen consumption, but there was a significant effect on resting metabolic rate, possibly attributable to energy conservation when inactive. There were no differences in activity metabolism, performance or defence behaviour between similar‐sized snakes of different sexes.

Growth and Survival of Juvenile Toads, Bufo woodhousei, Maintained on Four Different Diets

The nutritional qualities of four laboratory diets were compared by monitoring the growth and survival of juvenile toads (Bufo woodhousei fowleri). Sixty toads were randomly as- signed to mealworm, cabbage looper, cricket, or combination diet groups. Each toad was maintained at 25?C and was fed thrice weekly for nine weeks. Overall survival was 80%, and there was no significant correlation with diet. Although all diets were capable of supporting growth, the meal- worm diet was markedly superior to the other three. The combination group was second, due largely to growth spurts following mealworm feedings. Most of the observed differences in growth stemmed from the initial 21 day interval. Growth of the toads over the full nine week period increased linearly with prey biomass ingestion. Responses to dietary differences were influenced by differing water contents among these insect prey species. The X- and Y-intercepts of linear regressions of toad growth versus prey ingestion provide useful insights into the energetics of juvenile toads.

Humor in the Scientific Literature

Eoörnis pterovelox gobiensis, the Rhinogradentia, Brunus edwardii, Apus duras, the Schuss-yucca, Mammillaria busonii, Unowottia, Chimonobambusa quadrangularis, the Loch Ness monster, the Diet of Worms, the fizzing of coffee, thiotimolene, armpitin, deumbilification, strapless evening gowns, and various publications including The Auklet, Dopeia, The Tea Phytologist, and The Journal of Irreproducible Results, are briefly reviewed.

A diet of worms

A diet of worms

Confrontation at Worms: Martin Luther and the Diet of Worms

Confrontation at Worms: Martin Luther and the Diet of Worms

Emser's "Emendation" of Luther's New Testament: Galatians I

gustinian, outlawed and excommunicated, had scored a major victory. Friend and foe alike were acquiring his New Testament and praising it explicitly or implicitly. It was obvious to those who objected to Luther's New Testament that something had to be done to stop its alarming spread. One of Luther's mightiest and most inveterate opponents took the initiative in this unexpected new struggle with the irrepressible Reformer, whom his enemies thought they had disposed of at the Diet of Worms. Duke George of Saxony not only forbade the sale of Luther's New Testament in his lands but also instructed his secre-

Luther's Progress to the Diet of Worms, 1521. By Gordon Rupp. S.C.M. Press. 9s.

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