Female Reproductive Body Research Articles

Effect of body size, body mass, and body condition on reproduction of female South African fur seals (Arctocephalus pusillus) in Namibia

The relationships between female reproductive parameters (fertility, pregnancy, and lactation status) and body mass, body condition, and body length in South African fur seals (Arctocephalus pusillus) were investigated over 4 years. Ovulation rate in every year was 100% despite interannual differences in female body condition index (BCI). The overall pregnancy rate was 79%. The proportion of pregnant females was related to BCI but not to body mass or body length. In good years, BCI decreased through the first part of the reproductive cycle to a minimum at implantation and increased again through pregnancy. In 1989, BCI declined over the whole reproductive cycle, and there was a higher proportion of nonpregnant females and failures of lactation. Thus, poor nutritional conditions may affect reproductive success through failure to rear a pup, and pup production the following year may also be reduced. This lower rate of pregnancy is partly explained by an increase in the incidence of spontaneous abortions, but other parameters such as a lower implantation rate are also likely to be involved.

Body‐images and the pornography of representation

In this paper, I would l ike to (try and) take some of the issues involved in the medicalization of the female reproductive body and situate them within the area of contemporar y feminist theories of subjectivity. This problem-area refers to the project of enacting and theorizing an alternative female subjectivity and of finding adequate forms of representation for it .

Prince Hal's Falstaff: Positioning Psychoanalysis and the Female Reproductive Body

ESPITE THE SPECIFIC MEANINGS WE MAY ASCRIBE historically to the female reproductive body, its biological potential remains irrefutable, ineffable. In our own cultural tradition the female reproductive body is simultaneously an object of terror (fears of maternal engulfment) and idealization (the Virgin Mother). A dark continent traversed by every infant, whence we are conceived, labored, and delivered, it exists in our pre-natal memories-before culture, language, law, before knowledge of the father, before the Law of the Father.

Differentiation of the female reproductive body in the colonial hydroidCampanularia flexuosa

A comparison of two genetic stocks ofCampanularia flexuosa revealed consistent differences with respect to (1) the number of eggs present in the maturefemale reproductive body (gonangium), (2) the level on each upright stem at which the first gonangium forms, and (3) their preference for the formation of reproductive versusvegetative (side-branch) structures.Alterations in food intake established the optimum feeding level for maximal production of structurally normal gonangia and also showed differences between stocks in the effects of reduced food intake on gonangial versus vegetative growth.A staging series for gonangiogenesis was developed from observations of filling of the gonangium with primordial egg cells (PEC), gonangial elongation, funnel maturation and oogenesis.When upright segments bearing immature gonangia are isolated from the stolon the gonangia frequently resorb, transform into vegetative outgrowths, or form structurally abnormal gonangia bearing fewer germ cells than normal. These responses, and the observed accumulation of PEC at sites of presumptive gonangial outgrowth, support a stolonic origin hypothesis for PEC and implicate PEC and oocytes in the initiation, maintenance and maturation of structurally normal gonangia. In addition, continued differentiation of the gonangial structure appears to be necessary for oocyte maturation.Possible mechanisms for somatic and gametic cell recruitment, and the theoretical importance of cellular proliferation, aging, cell-shape changes, cell movement and cellular interactions in normal gonangial differentiation are discussed.

Water Stress of Free‐Living Peromyscus Truei

The water relations of a Peromyscus truei population from a xeric environment, chamise chaparral, were studied in the field during two periods, midsummer and late summer, and in the laboratory. Animals were maintained in the laboratory on three water regimens that represented a gradient of water stress, but food was available ad libitum. When subjected to increasing degrees of water stress, urine osmotic concentrations increased, feces became drier, and body—water turnover rates, determined with tritiated water, decreased. When subjected to the severest water stress, diurnal torpor occurred and apparently caused a decline in urine concentration and an increase in fecal water content during the daytime. Urine osmotic concentrations and fecal water contents of midsummer mice in the field were similar to values for mice subjected to severe water stress in the laboratory. In late summer, however, the values indicated low water stress. The lower water exchange during midsummer, as determined by tritiated—water turnover, indicated that the greater water stress at this time was at least partly due to a reduced availability of water compared to late summer. During both periods food was the only apparent source of water. Mice in midsummer were feeding primarily on insects, foliage, and fungi, but during late summer, when acorns became available, they switched to this as the predominant dietary component. Acorn utilization was accompanied by onset of female reproductive activity and body weight increases for both sexes. It is suggested that water stress was alleviated by the acorn diet and was responsible for the lack of reproductive activity and depressed body weights for several months during summer.

Zinc transport in rabbit tissues. Some hormonal aspects of the turnover of zinc in female reproductive organs, liver and body fluids.

1. To investigate the influence of hormonal conditions upon the kinetics of zinc transport, specific radioactivity of (65)Zn was determined in certain tissues and fluids from unmated or pregnant rabbits during the first half of gestation. 2. Compartmental analysis was used to find the simplest mathematical model that simulated satisfactorily tracer behaviour. Models were fitted to experimental results by a numerical procedure using a computer. 3. The kinetics of zinc exchange in most tissues investigated could adequately be described by a three-compartment model, in which total tissue zinc content was divided into a rapidly exchanging pool, with a turnover time of about 1h, and a slowly exchanging pool, the turnover time of which was in liver 15h, in peak-stage corpus luteum 8h, and in the other tissues 30-70h. 4. In rabbit endometrium zinc transport varied with hormonal conditions, the turnover rate being higher in non-pregnant than pregnant endometrium. 5. Uptake of (65)Zn by uterine fluid was slow, and in the free-lying embryos (blastocysts) slower still, in keeping with uterine fluid acting as carrier of zinc into the unimplanted embryos. 6. In placental tissue zinc transport varied with gestational stage. Foetal placenta exchanged zinc with blood plasma four times faster than maternal placenta. In foetuses zinc turnover time and flux equalled that of the slow zinc compartment in foetal placenta. 7. Corpus luteum on days 5-6 of gestation showed peak specific radioactivity and zinc flux values, which exceeded those of all other tissues. 8. In liver the slow zinc compartment had a higher rate of turnover than corresponding compartments in tissues other than peak-stage corpus luteum, but no hormone-dependent changes were observed. 9. Zinc uptake by erythrocytes was the slowest of all examined.