Accuracy of guided insertion of orthodontic temporary anchorage devices comparing two different 3D printed surgical guide designs: a randomized controlled trial.

Temporary anchorage devices (TADs) provide maximum anchorage in orthodontic therapy. Surgical guides can be used to accurately achieve pre-planned TAD positions. The objective of this study was to assess the accuracy of guided TAD insertion in the anterior palate, comparing two 3D printed surgical guide designs.

Data on visitation records from wild bees and plants along a land use gradient in Germany and Belgium: laboratory work and protocol description for barcoding.

The dataset contains information on plant-bee interactions in an agricultural landscape with diverse intensities of land use management, in Germany and Belgium. It was collected during spring and early summer in 2020 and 2021 using two complementary types of sampling: standardized transects (5 transects of 50 m long in 1 h of netting) and targeted sampling in which flowers were observed for diverse periods of times, anywhere in an area of 50 to 150 m. The species identity was obtained with field keys and DNA barcoding.

The Significance of Genetic Relatedness and Nest Sharing on the Worker-Worker Similarity of Gut Bacterial Microbiome and Cuticular Hydrocarbon Profile in a Sweat Bee.

The cuticular hydrocarbon (CHC) profile and the gut microbiome (GM) are crucial traits which have a significant impact on the life of bees. In honey bees, the CHC profile and the GM interact finely through trophallaxis, such that the characteristics of the GM are partially defined by the chemical recognition among sisters. However, most of the known primitively eusocial bees show simpler social traits, including moderate genetic relatedness among colony members, often due to workers' nest drifting or dispersal, and lack of trophallaxis.

Urban bumblebees diversify their foraging strategy to maintain nutrient intake.

Anthropogenic ecosystems can alter individual functions and ecological processes such as resource use and species interactions. While variability of morphological traits involved in diet and resource use has been observed between urban and non-urban populations of pollinators, the consequences on the dietary and pollen-transport patterns remain poorly understood. Here, we investigate the variability in the diet breadth of rural and urban individuals of two bumblebee species and the consequences for nutrient intake and pollen transport.

Unveiling Heterospecific Pollen Deposition in Plants Along a Land-Use Gradient Through DNA Metabarcoding.

Animal pollination, the transfer of pollen by animal agents, is essential for plant reproduction. Methods like microscopy and DNA metabarcoding have been used to investigate pollen transport and plant-pollinator interactions. DNA metabarcoding, in particular, is a reliable method to identify the origins of mixed pollen samples.

Exploring climate-related gut microbiome variation in bumble bees: An experimental and observational perspective.

Rising temperatures negatively affect bumble bee fitness directly through physiological impacts and indirectly by disrupting mutualistic interactions between bees and other organisms, which are crucial in determining species-specific responses to climate change. Gut microbial symbionts, key regulators of host nutrition and health, may be the Achilles' heel of thermal responses in insects. They not only modulate biotic interactions with plants and pathogens but also exhibit varying thermal sensitivity themselves.

Net primary productivity but not its remote-sensing proxies predict mammal diversity in Andean-Amazonian rainforests.

Tropical forests are disappearing, but we have a limited understanding of the factors driving species coexistence in mammal communities of old-growth forest ecosystems. The total energy that is bound by plants is assumed to be a key factor determining mammalian species richness, but accurately measuring energy flows in complex ecosystems is difficult, and most studies therefore rely on remote-sensing-based surrogates of net primary productivity (NPP). We monitored mammal species richness across three seasons using camera traps on 26 study plots along a forested, elevational gradient from 245 to 3588 m above sea level in southeastern Peru for which a unique dataset on field-measured NPP exists.

Data on the diet and nutrition of urban and rural bumblebees.

Land-use changes, driven by agricultural intensification and urbanization, are major contributors to biodiversity loss, altering habitats and reducing available resources. These changes impact species' foraging strategies, particularly in human-modified ecosystems. While dietary shifts due to land-use changes have been well-studied in vertebrates, similar research in invertebrates, such as wild bees, remains limited.

Direct and indirect effects of land use on microbiomes of trap-nesting solitary bee larvae and nests.

Introduction: The global decline in biodiversity and insect populations highlights the urgent need to conserve ecosystem functions, such as plant pollination by solitary bees. Human activities, particularly agricultural intensification, pose significant threats to these essential services. Changes in land use alter resource and nest site availability, pesticide exposure and other factors impacting the richness, diversity, and health of solitary bee species.

Cold waves in the Amazon rainforest and their ecological impact.

Cold waves crossing the Amazon rainforest are an extraordinary phenomenon likely to be affected by climate change. We here describe an extensive cold wave that occurred in June 2023 in Amazonian-Andean forests and compare environmental temperatures to experimentally measured thermal tolerances and their impact on lowland animal communities (insects and wild mammals). While we found strong reductions in activity abundance of all animal groups under the cold wave, tropical lowland animals showed thermal tolerance limits below the lowest environmental temperatures measured during the cold wave.

Bumble bee microbiota shows temporal succession and increase of lactic acid bacteria when exposed to outdoor environments.

Question: The large earth bumble bee () maintains a social core gut-microbiota, similar as known from the honey bee, which plays an important role for host health and resistance. Experiments under laboratory conditions with commercial hives are limited to vertically transmitted microbes and neglect influences of environmental factors or external acquisition of microbes. Various environmental and landscape-level factors may have an impact on the gut-microbiota of pollinating insects, with consequences for pollinator health and fitness in agroecosystems.

Nutrients or resin? - The relationship between resin and food foraging in stingless bees.

Stingless bees are important pollinators in tropical forests. Yet, we know little about their foraging behavior (e.g.

Semi-automated sequence curation for reliable reference datasets in ITS2 vascular plant DNA (meta-)barcoding.

One of the most critical steps for accurate taxonomic identification in DNA (meta)-barcoding is to have an accurate DNA reference sequence dataset for the marker of choice. Therefore, developing such a dataset has been a long-term ambition, especially in the Viridiplantae kingdom. Typically, reference datasets are constructed with sequences downloaded from general public databases, which can carry taxonomic and other relevant errors.

Opportunistic Bacteria of Grapevine Crown Galls Are Equipped with the Genomic Repertoire for Opine Utilization.

Young grapevines (Vitis vinifera) suffer and eventually can die from the crown gall disease caused by the plant pathogen Allorhizobium vitis (Rhizobiaceae). Virulent members of A. vitis harbor a tumor-inducing plasmid and induce formation of crown galls due to the oncogenes encoded on the transfer DNA.

Microbes, the 'silent third partners' of bee-angiosperm mutualisms.

While bee-angiosperm mutualisms are widely recognized as foundational partnerships that have shaped the diversity and structure of terrestrial ecosystems, these ancient mutualisms have been underpinned by 'silent third partners': microbes. Here, we propose reframing the canonical bee-angiosperm partnership as a three-way mutualism between bees, microbes, and angiosperms. This new conceptualization casts microbes as active symbionts, processing and protecting pollen-nectar provisions, consolidating nutrients for bee larvae, enhancing floral attractancy, facilitating plant fertilization, and defending bees and plants from pathogens.

Contrasting patterns of foraging behavior in neotropical stingless bees using pollen and honey metabarcoding.

Stingless bees are major flower visitors in the tropics, but their foraging preferences and behavior are still poorly understood. Studying stingless bee interactions with angiosperms is methodologically challenging due to the high tropical plant diversity and inaccessibility of upper canopy flowers in forested habitats. Pollen DNA metabarcoding offers an opportunity of assessing floral visitation efficiently and was applied here to understand stingless bee floral resources spectra and foraging behavior.

cGAS-STING drives ageing-related inflammation and neurodegeneration.

Low-grade inflammation is a hallmark of old age and a central driver of ageing-associated impairment and disease. Multiple factors can contribute to ageing-associated inflammation; however, the molecular pathways that transduce aberrant inflammatory signalling and their impact in natural ageing remain unclear. Here we show that the cGAS-STING signalling pathway, which mediates immune sensing of DNA, is a critical driver of chronic inflammation and functional decline during ageing.

From Alien Species to Alien Communities: Host- and Habitat-Associated Microbiomes in an Alien Amphibian.

Alien species can host diverse microbial communities. These associated microbiomes may be important in the invasion process and their analysis requires a holistic community-based approach. We analysed the skin and gut microbiome of Eleutherodactylus johnstonei from native range populations in St Lucia and exotic range populations in Guadeloupe, Colombia, and European greenhouses along with their respective environmental microbial reservoir through a 16S metabarcoding approach.

Comparing the succession of microbial communities throughout development in field and laboratory nests of the ambrosia beetle .

Some fungus-farming ambrosia beetles rely on multiple nutritional cultivars (Ascomycota: Ophiostomatales and/or yeasts) that seem to change in relative abundance over time. The succession of these fungi could benefit beetle hosts by optimal consumption of the substrate and extended longevity of the nest. However, abundances of fungal cultivars and other symbionts are poorly known and their culture-independent quantification over development has been studied in only a single species.

Inter- and intraspecific phytochemical variation correlate with epiphytic flower and leaf bacterial communities.

Microbes associated with flowers and leaves affect plant health and fitness and modify the chemical phenotypes of plants with consequences for interactions of plants with their environment. However, the drivers of bacterial communities colonizing above-ground parts of grassland plants in the field remain largely unknown. We therefore examined the relationships between phytochemistry and the epiphytic bacterial community composition of flowers and leaves of Ranunculus acris and Trifolium pratense.

Sugar perception in honeybees.

Honeybees () need their fine sense of taste to evaluate nectar and pollen sources. Gustatory receptors (Grs) translate taste signals into electrical responses. experiments have demonstrated collective responses of the whole Gr-set.

Force behaviour of elastic chains during a simulated gap closure in extraction therapy cases.

Objective: Tooth movement with elastic chains requires defined force magnitudes. This study assessed the force behaviour of different elastic chains at different configurations of gap width.

Methods: Self-ligating brackets of teeth 5 & 6 and 2 & 3 were bonded to two movable aluminium plates.

Evidence for a chemical arms race between cuckoo wasps of the genus Hedychrum and their distantly related host apoid wasps.

Background: Brood parasites can exert strong selection pressure on their hosts. Many brood parasites escape their detection by mimicking sensory cues of their hosts. However, there is little evidence whether or not the hosts are able to escape the parasites' mimicry by changing these cues.

Bacterial gut microbiomes of aculeate brood parasites overlap with their aculeate hosts', but have higher diversity and specialization.

Despite growing interest in gut microbiomes of aculeate Hymenoptera, research so far focused on social bees, wasps, and ants, whereas non-social taxa and their brood parasites have not received much attention. Brood parasitism, however, allows to distinguish between microbiome components horizontally transmitted by spill-over from the host with such inherited through vertical transmission by mothers. Here, we studied the bacterial gut microbiome of adults in seven aculeate species in four brood parasite-host systems: two bee-mutillid (host-parasitoid) systems, one halictid bee-cuckoo bee system, and one wasp-chrysidid cuckoo wasp system.