Pill Bugs Research Articles

Impact of technogenic pollution of urban environment on vitality indicators of urban biota (Mollusk fauna, soil mesofauna, epiphytic lichens)

Abstract—The article presents results of ecological, chemical, and bioindication assessment of the urban ecosystem of an industrial city in the South of Ukraine. The dynamics of physical and chemical parameters of soil, surface water, and air in various functional areas of the city was analyzed. The complex pollution index for environmental components was determined. Bioindicative assessment of the ecological condition of the urban ecosystem was performed based on vitality parameters of epiphytic lichen flora, soil mesofauna, and freshwater mollusk fauna. Based on bioindicators’ vitality, zones with different ecological conditions were demarcated. Toxic effects of various pollutants on living organisms and tolerance of some bioindicator species under anthropogenic pressure were analyzed. It was found that the amount of zoophages increases and homogenization of anamorphoscope composition of major mesopedobionts groups with the dominance of individual species is observed in anthropogenically transformed areas. In alkaline soils of functional areas of the urban ecosystem, prevalence of calcicole species—millipedes, pill bugs, and gastropods—was noted, which allows them to be used as soils’ alkalization level indicators. The degree of correlation between the viability of bioindicator groups and complex pollution index of basic components of the urban environment was determined. For instance, an inverse correlation between the vitality of epiphytic lichen flora (G, %) and the complex atmospheric air environmental contamination index (Pa) (–0.80, p < 0.05); and a direct correlation between the decline in the vitality of soil mesofauna (\(\overline G \), %) and complex soil contamination index (Zs) (0.84, p < 0.05) were discovered. Therefore, biomorphs of epiphytic lichen flora and some groups of mesopedobionts can be used as pollution indicators for urban environments. Based on the study results, an algorithm for complex ecological, chemical, and bioindication assessment of ecological condition of an urban ecosystem in an industrial city was proposed.

A Q&amp;A with Wang Anyi

WORLDLIT.ORG 43 One day, I accidentally wandered into an old longtang . Squeezed into a narrow crack between glass-walled skyscrapers, it was nothing but a vestigial segment. I looked around in a daze—I had no idea where I was, and I had to ask directions from an elderly man who just happened to be walking by. He’d been lost in thought, and when I called out to him, he jumped: “You scared the wits out of me!” He spoke with the same local accent I’d been surrounded by growing up—genuine Shanghainese , with his hun sounding like huo, so he gave me a bit of a surprise as well. The various sounds and scents of the lane welled up from the pavement and enfolded me, hot tears filled my eyes, and the obscure pathway that had been hidden deep beneath the surface sparkled for a moment in the blazing sun, before it once again sank back into the broken tiles of a dilapidated garden wall. Memories of experiences that were attached to physical things beckoned like objects in a lost and found, but only for an instant; for immediately afterward, with another sweep of the hand, they abandoned me. The day I left home as a young woman, I went to the freight-train depot on the edge of town. There was no platform. The ties and coarse gravel beneath them lay in plain view, black rails meandered into the far distance, and heaven and earth seemed infinitely high and wide. Those who had come to see us off stood beside the wheels of the carriages and reached up through the windows, just barely able to grasp the hands of those who were leaving. At that moment, the town suddenly seemed bold and fierce as it threw off its old habits, leapt out of its old rut, and assumed a new form. When the train sped forward, the city revealed its whole face. It seemed entirely possible that there was nothing standing between the spot where we had lived, off the beaten track, filled with nooks and crannies, and the wider world. I opened my eyes wide and saw that this city was just a little courtyard, overgrown with foxtails and plantagos, a tiny and desolate patch—and yet to me it seemed vast and teeming with life. An oleander extended its flowering twigs over the wall, and green loquats fell from a neighbor’s tree—this was my season of blossoming and harvesting. Pill bugs and earthworms multiplied in the poor, thin soil of this garden. Bounded by walls on four sides, this spot also provided space for human activity, a place for me to grow, until one day I discovered that it had become the ruins of an illusion. Translation from the Chinese By Andrea Lingenfelter A Q&A with Wang Anyi by Ping Zhu Q: Would you like to be called a “woman writer” or just a “writer”? A: When I was young, I didn’t like the title “woman writer”; but now I’ve accepted it, because that is what I am. Q: Which is your favorite period of Shanghai? A: I grew up and live in Shanghai, so it is a place I cannot view objectively. Because my experiences are connected to Shanghai, it is more about which period of my life, rather than which period of Shanghai, that I like most. In the 1980s, I was young, but there were a lot of problems in my life. Now I live a comfortable life, but I’m no longer young. Q: It seems that the longtangs in your works represent not only the unique urban layout of Shanghai but also its complex history. Are the longtangs both spatial and temporal? A: Novelists are not responsible for reality. The longtangs are a stage I set up for my fictional characters. Whether the longtangs are temporal or spatial, they are theatrical. Q: What constantly drives you to break through your limits so you can produce works with different styles? A: My love for imagination and words. I don’t think I’ve had breakthroughs; I just keep writing day by day. Q: Which work have...

A Q&amp;A with Wang Anyi

WORLDLIT.ORG 43 One day, I accidentally wandered into an old longtang . Squeezed into a narrow crack between glass-walled skyscrapers, it was nothing but a vestigial segment. I looked around in a daze—I had no idea where I was, and I had to ask directions from an elderly man who just happened to be walking by. He’d been lost in thought, and when I called out to him, he jumped: “You scared the wits out of me!” He spoke with the same local accent I’d been surrounded by growing up—genuine Shanghainese , with his hun sounding like huo, so he gave me a bit of a surprise as well. The various sounds and scents of the lane welled up from the pavement and enfolded me, hot tears filled my eyes, and the obscure pathway that had been hidden deep beneath the surface sparkled for a moment in the blazing sun, before it once again sank back into the broken tiles of a dilapidated garden wall. Memories of experiences that were attached to physical things beckoned like objects in a lost and found, but only for an instant; for immediately afterward, with another sweep of the hand, they abandoned me. The day I left home as a young woman, I went to the freight-train depot on the edge of town. There was no platform. The ties and coarse gravel beneath them lay in plain view, black rails meandered into the far distance, and heaven and earth seemed infinitely high and wide. Those who had come to see us off stood beside the wheels of the carriages and reached up through the windows, just barely able to grasp the hands of those who were leaving. At that moment, the town suddenly seemed bold and fierce as it threw off its old habits, leapt out of its old rut, and assumed a new form. When the train sped forward, the city revealed its whole face. It seemed entirely possible that there was nothing standing between the spot where we had lived, off the beaten track, filled with nooks and crannies, and the wider world. I opened my eyes wide and saw that this city was just a little courtyard, overgrown with foxtails and plantagos, a tiny and desolate patch—and yet to me it seemed vast and teeming with life. An oleander extended its flowering twigs over the wall, and green loquats fell from a neighbor’s tree—this was my season of blossoming and harvesting. Pill bugs and earthworms multiplied in the poor, thin soil of this garden. Bounded by walls on four sides, this spot also provided space for human activity, a place for me to grow, until one day I discovered that it had become the ruins of an illusion. Translation from the Chinese By Andrea Lingenfelter A Q&A with Wang Anyi by Ping Zhu Q: Would you like to be called a “woman writer” or just a “writer”? A: When I was young, I didn’t like the title “woman writer”; but now I’ve accepted it, because that is what I am. Q: Which is your favorite period of Shanghai? A: I grew up and live in Shanghai, so it is a place I cannot view objectively. Because my experiences are connected to Shanghai, it is more about which period of my life, rather than which period of Shanghai, that I like most. In the 1980s, I was young, but there were a lot of problems in my life. Now I live a comfortable life, but I’m no longer young. Q: It seems that the longtangs in your works represent not only the unique urban layout of Shanghai but also its complex history. Are the longtangs both spatial and temporal? A: Novelists are not responsible for reality. The longtangs are a stage I set up for my fictional characters. Whether the longtangs are temporal or spatial, they are theatrical. Q: What constantly drives you to break through your limits so you can produce works with different styles? A: My love for imagination and words. I don’t think I’ve had breakthroughs; I just keep writing day by day. Q: Which work have...

Teaching Through Trade Books: Roly-Poly Pill Bugs

Teaching Through Trade Books: Roly-Poly Pill Bugs

Self-corrective behavior for turn alternation in pill bugs (Armadillidium vulgare)

Pill bugs (Armadillidium vulgare) demonstrate a behavior called turn alternation that keeps their overall direction of movement straight after obstacles in experimental settings force them to deviate from a course. For example, this behavior is seen when they alternate their path choice on successive trials of the T-maze test. However, sometimes pill bugs stop after turning and change their direction (directional change). The function of this directional change has not been investigated because such individuals are usually omitted from the data. The present paper shows that pill bugs use directional changes to prevent them from turning in the same direction on two successive turns, a behavior called turn repetition. We examined the behavior of 36 pill bugs that each completed 130 successive T-maze trials. Directional changes appeared more frequently when individuals had begun a turn repetition than when they had begun a turn alternation. Furthermore, after correcting for turn repetition, turn alternations increased. These results suggest that pill bugs have an inherent mechanism that acts to maintain turn-alternating behavior.

Animal weapons: the evolution of battle

Douglas J Emlen’s Animal Weapons is a hard-hitting campaign—a bit of a Blitzkrieg through major themes in evolutionary escalation, peppered with dazzling examples from across the spectrum of animals and their adaptations, from the horns of dung beetles to the guns of battleships. Although the major lessons of offensive and defensive weaponry, escalation, and sexual selection will be quite familiar to any biologist or biology teacher, Emlen is so intimately immersed in those subjects and such a good communicator that he easily weaves them into some clever new syntheses and clear comparative frameworks. Emlen convincingly shows that there is essentially no difference between the weapons of humans and those of all other species. All of the chapters are infused with examples from the animal world and the world of human technology, and a final section focuses on these parallels in the specific cases of human fortresses (of the land, sea, and air varieties) and weapons of mass destruction. Throughout, he shows that if certain conditions apply—if there are scarce and defensible resources and the opportunity for head-to-head combat— there will be escalation toward bigger and more dangerous weaponry. This parallelism holds up even though much of human weaponry evolves through conscious design and by sharing information laterally rather than through the natural process of descent with modification. Although he doesn’t dwell on it extensively, it is rather remarkable that discoveries of modern biology—particularly the more recent understandings of lateral gene transfer in bacteria, viral evolution, and epigenetics—bring the world of biological evolution even closer to the world of human systems evolution. I can’t go further without mentioning the illustrations by David J Tuss. They are dazzling, emotive, and highly informative. Especially when composed around intra- and inter-specific comparisons, they become far more than eye candy: they are real tools to aid Emlen’s various syntheses. An especially great example is a comparative study of the common curling-up defensive postures of species as far afield in time, space, and phylogeny as trilo bites, pill bugs, cuckoo bees, armadillos, and pangolins. Another comparative illustration, of same-age male elk and beetles with wildly different horn sizes, hammers home Emlen’s point that there are many ways to go about using (or not using) weaponry that your species and sex might be predisposed to produce. The overwhelming recurring theme of Animal Weapons is the multidirectional nature of evolution. Almost every example that Emlen discusses—horns on beetles, armor on knights, antlers on deer—gets bigger, smaller, bigger again, and/or altogether forgotten, depending on where and when you start to look. Weapons get larger and more ominous until they become too costly, or the environment changes, or some disruptive agent turns

環境教育に利用される身近な生き物への児童心象と生態系体感型学習の効果

A survey of elementary school students was conducted on preferences, catching behavior, and scariness (i.e., the child's impression for each wildlife creature commonly used for environmental education). As a result, we found that there were differences in children's impressions for each organism. The children's impressions of familiar wildlife can be shown in a triangular graph with the three sides representing likeability, playfulness, and evasion. Likeable creatures were, for example, fireflies, which were appealing, but difficult to capture. Typical playful creatures were pill bugs, which were not particularly appealing, but children would try to touch them when found. Evasive creatures were exemplified by spiders, which were not captured because they are scary; thus, not likeable. Furthermore, as a result of our analysis of the orientation of children's impressions of familiar wild creatures, as well as of groups possessed of similar cognate notional characteristics, it became clear that children's perceptions of Japanese rhinoceros beetles and stag beetles, as well as of lizards and mantises, were notionally similar. Results also showed that despite the different habitats of terrestrial grasshoppers and aquatic crayfish, terrestrial crickets and aquatic dragonfly larvae, and terrestrial cicadas and amphibious frogs, children imagined a notional affinity between the creatures in these respective pairs. Impressions also differed for creatures at different stages of life, such as dragonfly larvae and dragonflies or tadpoles and frogs

Total and monomethyl mercury in terrestrial arthropods from the central California coast.

The aim of this project was to obtain a baseline understanding and investigate the concentration of mercury (Hg) in the tissue of terrestrial arthropods. The 4-month sampling campaign took place around Monterey Bay, California. Total mercury (HgT) concentrations (x ± SD, dry weight) for the captured specimens ranged from 22 to 188 ng g(-1) in the Jerusalem crickets (Orthoptera: Stenopelmatidae); 65-233 ng g(-1) in the camel crickets (Orthoptera: Rhaphidophoridae); 25-227 ng g(-1) in the pill bugs (Isopoda: Armadillidiidae); 19-563 ng g(-1) in the ground beetles (Coleoptera: Carabidae); 140-441 ng g(-1) in the variegated meadowhawk dragonflies (Odonata: Libellulidae); 607-657 ng g(-1) in the pacific spiketail dragonflies (Odonata: Cordulegastridae); and 81-1,249 ng g(-1) in the wolf spiders (Araneae: Lycosidae). A subset of samples analyzed for monomethyl mercury (MMHg) suggest detrital pill bugs have a higher MMHg/HgT ratio than predatory ground beetles.

Genome sequence of a crustacean iridovirus, IIV31, isolated from the pill bug, Armadillidium vulgare.

Members of the family Iridoviridae are animal viruses that infect only invertebrates and poikilothermic vertebrates. The invertebrate iridovirus 31 (IIV31) was originally isolated from adult pill bugs, Armadillidium vulgare (class Crustacea, order Isopoda, suborder Oniscidea), found in southern California on the campus of the University of California, Riverside, USA. IIV31 virions are icosahedral, have a diameter of about 135 nm, and contain a dsDNA genome 220.222 kbp in length, with 35.09 mol % G+C content and 203 ORFs. Here, we describe the complete genome sequence of this virus and its annotation. This is the eighth genome sequence of an IIV reported.

Defensive enrolment in mantis shrimp larvae (Malacostraca: Stomatopoda)

We describe a possible new defensive behaviour of larval stages of mantis shrimps (Stomatopoda). Mantis shrimp larvae are rarely observed in nature, thus the study is based on postures of museum material and functional morphological aspects. Specimens described here are tightly enrolled, their pleon is bent forward, and the telson is locked into the frontal margin of the shield. This margin has two lobes into which the two posterolateral spines of the telson fit. The shield shows further adaptions to enrolment; e.g., the ventral gape of the shield perfectly matches the width of the pleon and leaves no major gaps when the pleon is bent forward. Based on these observations, we briefly discuss the possibilities to infer behavioural aspects from functional morphological aspects. Enrolment in modern day organisms is primarily known from terrestrial arthropods, e.g., pill bugs and pill millipedes, but in the Palaeozoic it was mainly performed by marine organisms such as trilobites, agnostines and their relatives. Stomatopod larvae that appear to be able to perform enrolling in a marine environment are therefore a potential functional equivalent for better understanding the functional aspects of enrolment in extinct marine arthropods.

An Evolutionary Analysis of Flightin Reveals a Conserved Motif Unique and Widespread in Pancrustacea

Flightin is a thick filament protein that in Drosophila melanogaster is uniquely expressed in the asynchronous, indirect flight muscles (IFM). Flightin is required for the structure and function of the IFM and is indispensable for flight in Drosophila. Given the importance of flight acquisition in the evolutionary history of insects, here we study the phylogeny and distribution of flightin. Flightin was identified in 69 species of hexapods in classes Collembola (springtails), Protura, Diplura, and insect orders Thysanura (silverfish), Dictyoptera (roaches), Orthoptera (grasshoppers), Pthiraptera (lice), Hemiptera (true bugs), Coleoptera (beetles), Neuroptera (green lacewing), Hymenoptera (bees, ants, and wasps), Lepidoptera (moths), and Diptera (flies and mosquitoes). Flightin was also found in 14 species of crustaceans in orders Anostraca (water flea), Cladocera (brine shrimp), Isopoda (pill bugs), Amphipoda (scuds, sideswimmers), and Decapoda (lobsters, crabs, and shrimps). Flightin was not identified in representatives of chelicerates, myriapods, or any species outside Pancrustacea (Tetraconata, sensu Dohle). Alignment of amino acid sequences revealed a conserved region of 52 amino acids, referred herein as WYR, that is bound by strictly conserved tryptophan (W) and arginine (R) and an intervening sequence with a high content of tyrosines (Y). This motif has no homologs in GenBank or PROSITE and is unique to flightin and paraflightin, a putative flightin paralog identified in decapods. A third motif of unclear affinities to pancrustacean WYR was observed in chelicerates. Phylogenetic analysis of amino acid sequences of the conserved motif suggests that paraflightin originated before the divergence of amphipods, isopods, and decapods. We conclude that flightin originated de novo in the ancestor of Pancrustacea > 500 MYA, well before the divergence of insects (~400 MYA) and the origin of flight (~325 MYA), and that its IFM-specific function in Drosophila is a more recent adaptation. Furthermore, we propose that WYR represents a novel myosin coiled-coil binding motif.

Monitoring the heat production of small terrestrial animals by a twin calorimeter

Calorimetric investigations of terrestric animals of smaller size were performed in (1) Calvet‐type isoperibol twin instruments of up to 100 mL in content, (2) a “poor man's calorimeter” of up to 24 L in volume, in single and twin setups for colonies of honeybees, stingless bees, bumblebees, and hornets, and (3) a roundabout flight calorimeter for smaller insects. Special questions of metabolism concerning sleep and heat output rates of different castes in honeybees or of increasing numbers of individuals in a group were of interest. The most simple animals in these investigations were soil‐living species like earthworms, woodlice, pill bugs, and carabid beetles; they were investigated for their routine heat production rates and the rates under the influence of the effective uncoupler of oxidative phosphorylation, pentachlorophenol. The highest animals were lacertide lizards and snails, which were monitored for their standard metabolism and for stimulated reactions, to gather information about their scope of metabolism.

Mechanical properties of terrestrial isopods

Terrestrial isopods have developed a lightweight exoskeleton to the demands of different predation possibilities, for example fast escaping behavior (runner) to rolling into a ball to withstand external forces. However, detailed mechanical investigations onto them are not available yet. Therefore, the aim of this study is the characterization of the mechanical properties of different terrestrial isopods to create new biomimetic impact materials. Pill bugs and woodlice show a gradual change of the mechanical properties from the outer to the innermost part of the cuticle, which was measured by nanoindentation. These tests showed a young’s modulus of 10–30 GPa and a hardness from 0·1 GPa to more than 2·0 GPa in Porcellio scaber and a higher hardness in Armadillidium vulgare. These results will serve as basis for further biomimetic investigations.

Behavioral evidence for internal factors affecting duration of conglobation in pill bugs (Armadillidium vulgare, Isopoda, Crustacea)

Pill bugs individually walked an experimental pathway, then were induced to conglobate with a puff of air. After recovering, they were stimulated again. Sixty of 80 pill bugs conglobated both times, first moving either antennae (A) or legs (L) during recovery. Both AA and LL groups showed a significant positive correlation between first (t1) and second (t2) conglobation times. In the AL group, pathway locomotion time (t0) was significantly positively correlated to both t1 and t2. We conclude that pill bugs determine conglobation time based partly on their previous states.

공벌레의 보행패턴 분석을 통한 소형로봇의 주행 메커니즘 설계

Reconnaissance robots can reduce the danger of hazardous places by providing information before human personnel take action. For the usage, robot platform should be small and light. However, this fact leads to a scaling issue with terrain that landscape poses a huge obstacle for the vehicle. The problem can be solved by the inspiration of nature. This paper presents design of the locomotive mechanism inspired by Pill bugs. The mechanism was designed by the principles of a pill bug's locomotion and experiments were conducted to validate the mechanism.

ONISCOPHAGOUS ARACHNIDS: OR EATING ROLLERS

![Figure][1] Woodlice – slow-moving terrestrial isopods also known as `pill bugs'– would appear to be a juicy treat for any predator. They are the main component of many ground-dwelling fauna and can be found in large numbers. But it appears that, in general, these isopods have few

2A1-E18 オカダンゴムシにおける、アンテナを利用した距離知覚の生成(認知ロボティクス)

2A1-E18 オカダンゴムシにおける、アンテナを利用した距離知覚の生成(認知ロボティクス)

3P332 触角に人工的な付属器を装着されたオカダンゴムシの探索行動(その2)(バイオイメージング、行動、発生・分化、分子遺伝、その他,口頭発表,第45回日本生物物理学会年会)

3P332 触角に人工的な付属器を装着されたオカダンゴムシの探索行動(その2)(バイオイメージング、行動、発生・分化、分子遺伝、その他,口頭発表,第45回日本生物物理学会年会)

Feeding of a Shore-Inhabiting Ground Beetle, Scarites aterrimus (Coleoptera: Carabidae)

The feeding ecology of Scarites aterrimus Morawitz (Coleoptera: Carabidae), an endangered shore-inhabiting species, was studied by field observations and laboratory experiments. S. aterrimus adults fed on a dead Anisolabis maritima (Bonelli) earwig and dead Armadillidium vulgare (Latreille) pill bug on a beach at night in central Japan. In the laboratory, the adults frequently fed on the carcasses of an earwig, the maggots of the fly species Phaenicia sericata (Meigen), the sandhopper Platorchestia joi Stock & Biernbaum and the pill bug A. vulgare. Predatory behavior was restricted to live fly larvae and pill bugs, occasionally live earwigs and sandhoppers. Similar results were obtained for S. aterrimus larvae. S. sterrimus seems to be a scavenger of various invertebrates and also a predator of slow-moving, less-defended invertebrates.

オカダンゴムシの交替性転向反応とその逃避行動としての意味

The pill bug Armadillidium vulgare shows clear turn alternation behavior. As the mechanism underlying the behavior, the bilateral asymmetrical leg movement (BALM) hypothesis has been proposed. Pill bugs, however, showed a longer following when in a zigzag pathway than in a straight pathway, suggesting the presence of an innate turning pattern in their neural system. On the other hand, they showed clear thigmotaxis: they walked a similar distance along a single side-wall as along a straight pathway. The adaptive significance of this behavior was analyzed in an artificial arena. The turn alternation was more frequent in an escaping situation than in voluntary walking, and also the walking speed was faster when escaping than voluntary walking. These results suggest that the turn alternation of the pill bug functions as a behavior for effective escape from natural enemies.