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In addition to the intrinsic genetic quality of the parents, the differential allocation of maternal investment in offspring is recognized as a crucial determinant of offspring fitness. Sex allocation theory posits that females should adjust their brood sex ratio in response to the varying benefits associated with increased maternal investment in sons versus daughters. This differential allocation may occur in direct relation to the mother's condition or in relation to the attractiveness or quality of their social mate or extra‐pair mates. In this study, we investigate whether the intrinsic quality of the mother, her social or extra‐pair mate, influences the offspring sex ratio and offspring residual body mass of the socially monogamous bearded reedling (Panurus biarmicus). Our findings indicate that female intrinsic quality, in terms of tarsus length, is positively correlated with the proportion of sons produced per brood. Additionally, maternal body mass and blood sedimentation rate (a health indicator) were associated with nestling conditions, specifically residual body weight. However, the quality or attractiveness of the social mate did not affect nestling sex ratio or condition in terms of residual body mass. Furthermore, the sex ratio of extra‐pair offspring did not deviate from an equal distribution; however, nestlings fathered by extra‐pair males were in better condition than their half‐siblings fathered by the female's social mate. Our results suggest that in bearded reedlings, offspring sex is related to maternal body size, which reflects intrinsic quality, but not to maternal health or body mass. Our results suggest that in bearded reedlings (Panurus biarmicus), offspring sex is related to maternal body size, which reflects intrinsic quality, but not to maternal health or body mass. The sex ratio of extra‐pair offspring did not deviate from an equal distribution; however, nestlings fathered by extra‐pair males were in better condition than their half‐siblings fathered by their social mate.

Exposing female house mice ( Mus musculus ) to male urinary scent accelerates their sexual development (Vandenbergh effect). Here, we tested whether exposing juvenile male mice to females’ urine similarly influences male growth and size of their sexual organs. We exposed three-week old male house mice to female urine or water (control) for ca. three months. We found that female-exposed males grew significantly faster and gained more body mass than controls, despite all males being reared on a controlled diet, but we detected no differences in males' muscle mass or sexual organs. In contrast, exposing juvenile males to male urine had no effect their growth. We tested whether the males' accelerated growth imposed functional trade-offs on males' immune resistance to an experimental infection. We challenged the same male subjects with an avirulent bacterial pathogen ( Salmonella enterica ), but found no evidence that faster growth impacted their bacterial clearance, body mass or survival during infection compared to controls. Our results provide the first evidence to our knowledge that juvenile male mice accelerate their growth when exposed to the urine of adult females, though we found no evidence that increased growth had negative trade-offs on immune resistance to infectious disease.

In order to test whether rooks (Corvus frugilegus) represent good indicators for the potential circulation of antibiotics in their native habitat, two populations with different migratory behavior were tested for the presence of beta-lactamase producing Enterobacteriaceae and methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA). In all, 54 and 102 samples of fresh feces of a migratory and a resident population were investigated. A total of 24 and 3 cefotaxime-resistant enterobacterial isolates were obtained from the migratory and resident population, respectively. In these isolates CTX-M-1 (n = 15), CTX-M-3 (n = 3), and CTX-M-15 (n = 3) genes were detected. TEM-1 and OXA-1 were associated with CTX-M in 3 and 2 isolates, respectively. In two E. coli isolates CMY-2 could be detected, where from one isolate displayed an overexpression of chromosomal AmpC as well. Among E. coli isolates the most common phylogenetic group was A (n = 11) and ST1683 (n = 5). In one E. coli of B2-ST131 the rfbO25b locus was detected. Three Enterobacter isolates were stably derepressed AmpC-producers. In five samples of the migratory population, PVL positive MRSA could be isolated. Two isolates were typed SCCmec IVa, spa type t127, and ST1. Three isolates carried a SCCmec type IVc, with spa type t852 and ST22. The highly significant difference of the occurrence of antibiotic resistance between the migratory population from eastern Europe compared to resident population in our study indicates that rooks may be good indicator species for the evaluation of environmental contamination with antibiotic resistant bacteria, especially due to their ecology, foraging behavior and differing migratory behavior.

Telomeres, the caps of eukaryotic chromosomes, control chromosome stability and cellular senescence, but aging and exposure to chronic stress are suspected to cause attrition of telomere length. We investigated the effect of social isolation on telomere length in the highly social and intelligent African Grey parrot (Psittacus erithacus erithacus). Our study population consisted of single-housed (n = 26) and pair-housed (n = 19) captive individuals between 0.75 to 45 years of age. Relative telomere length of erythrocyte DNA was measured by quantitative real-time PCR. We found that telomere length declined with age (p<0.001), and socially isolated parrots had significantly shorter telomeres compared to pair-housed birds (p<0.001) - even among birds of similar ages. Our findings provide the first evidence that social isolation affects telomere length, which supports the hypothesis that telomeres provide a biomarker indicating exposure to chronic stress.

Wolves have large spatial requirements and their expansion in Europe is occurring over national boundaries, hence the need to develop monitoring programs at the population level. Wolves in the Alps are defined as a functional population and management unit. The range of this wolf Alpine population now covers seven countries: Italy, France, Austria, Switzerland, Slovenia, Liechtenstein and Germany, making the development of a joint and coordinated monitoring program particularly challenging. In the framework of the Wolf Alpine Group (WAG), researchers developed uniform criteria for the assessment and interpretation of field data collected in the frame of different national monitoring programs. This standardization allowed for data comparability across borders and the joint evaluation of distribution and consistency at the population level. We documented the increase in the number of wolf reproductive units (packs and pairs) over 21 years, from 1 in 1993–1994 up to 243 units in 2020–2021, and examined the pattern of expansion over the Alps. This long-term and large-scale approach is a successful example of transboundary monitoring of a large carnivore population that, despite administrative fragmentation, provides robust indexes of population size and distribution that are of relevance for wolf conservation and management at the transnational Alpine scale.

Background Animal mitochondria play a central role in energy production in the cells through the oxidative phosphorylation (OXPHOS) pathway. Recent studies of selection on different mitochondrial OXPHOS genes have revealed the adaptive implications of amino acid changes in these subunits. In hares, climatic variation and/or introgression were suggested to be at the origin of such adaptation. Here we looked for evidence of positive selection in three mitochondrial OXPHOS genes, using tests of selection, protein structure modelling and effects of amino acid substitutions on the protein function and stability. We also used statistical models to test for climate and introgression effects on sites under positive selection. Results Our results revealed seven sites under positive selection in ND4 and three sites in Cytb . However, no sites under positive selection were observed in the COX1 gene. All three subunits presented a high number of codons under negative selection. Sites under positive selection were mapped on the tridimensional structure of the predicted models for the respective mitochondrial subunit. Of the ten amino acid replacements inferred to have evolved under positive selection for both subunits, six were located in the transmembrane domain. On the other hand, three codons were identified as sites lining proton translocation channels. Furthermore, four codons were identified as destabilizing with a significant variation of Δ vibrational entropy energy between wild and mutant type. Moreover, our PROVEAN analysis suggested that among all positively selected sites two fixed amino acid replacements altered the protein functioning. Our statistical models indicated significant effects of climate on the presence of ND4 and Cytb protein variants, but no effect by trans-specific mitochondrial DNA introgression, which is not uncommon in a number of hare species. Conclusions Positive selection was observed in several codons in two OXPHOS genes. We found that substitutions in the positively selected codons have structural and functional impacts on the encoded proteins. Our results are concordantly suggesting that adaptations have strongly affected the evolution of mtDNA of hare species with potential effects on the protein function. Environmental/climatic changes appear to be a major trigger of this adaptation, whereas trans-specific introgressive hybridization seems to play no major role for the occurrence of protein variants.

Cytochromes P450 (CYPs) are a group of monooxygenases that can be found in almost all kinds of organisms. For CYPs to receive electrons from co-substrate NADPH, the activity of NADPH-Cytochrome-P450-oxidoreductase (CPR) is required as well. In humans, CYPs are an integral part of liver-based phase-1 biotransformation, which is essential for the metabolization of multiple xenobiotics and drugs. Consequently, CYPs are important players during drug development and therefore these enzymes are implemented in diverse screening applications. For these applications it is usually advantageous to use mono CYP microsomes containing only the CYP of interest. The generation of mono-CYP containing mammalian cells and vesicles is difficult since endogenous CYPs are present in many cell types that contain the necessary co-factors. By obtaining translationally active lysates from a modified CHO-CPR cell line, it is now possible to generate mono CYPs in a cell-free protein synthesis process in a straightforward manner. As a proof of principle, the synthesis of active human CYPs from three different CYP450 gene families (CYP1A2, CYP2B6 and CYP3A4), which are of outstanding interest in industry and academia was demonstrated. Luciferase based activity assays confirm the activity of the produced CYPs and enable the individual adaptation of the synthesis process for efficient cell-free enzyme production. Furthermore, they allow for substrate and inhibitor screenings not only for wild-type CYPs but also for mutants and further CYP isoforms and variants. As an example, the turnover of selected CYP substrates by cell-free synthesized CYPs was demonstrated via an indirect luciferase assay-based screening setup.

Background In Europe, golden jackals ( Canis aureus ) have been expanding their range out of the southern and southeastern Balkans towards central Europe continually since the 1960s. Here, we investigated the level of functional diversity at the MHC class II DLA-DQA1 exon 2 in golden jackal populations from Bulgaria, Serbia, and Hungary. Specifically, we tested for positive selection on and geographic variation at that locus due to adaptation to supposedly regionally varying pathogenic landscapes. To test for potential fitness effects of different protein variants on individual body condition, we used linear modeling of individual body mass indexes (bmi) and accounted for possible age, sex, geographical, and climatic effects. The latter approach was performed, however, only on Serbian individuals with appropriate data. Results Only three different DLA-DQA1 alleles were detected, all coding for different amino-acid sequences. The neutrality tests revealed no significant but positive values; there was no signal of spatial structuring and no deviation from the Hardy–Weinberg equilibrium across the studied range of expansion. However, we found a signal of trans-species polymorphism and significant test results for positive selection on three codons. Our information-theory based linear modeling results indicated an effect of ambient temperature on the occurrence of individual DLA-DQA1 genotypes in individuals from across the studied expansion range, independent from geographical position. Our linear modeling results of individual bmi values indicated that yearlings homozygous for DLA-DQA1*03001 reached values typical for adults contrary to yearlings carrying other genotypes (protein combinations). This suggested better growth rates and thus a possible fitness advantage of yearlings homozygous for DLA-DQA1*03001 . Conclusions Our results indicate a demographic (stochastic) signal of reduced DLA-DQA1 exon 2 variation, in line with the documented historical demographic bottleneck. At the same time, however, allelic variation was also affected by positive selection and adaptation to varying ambient temperature, supposedly reflecting geographic variation in the pathogenic landscape. Moreover, an allele effect on body mass index values of yearlings suggested differential fitness associated with growth rates. Overall, a combination of a stochastic effect and positive selection has shaped and is still shaping the variation at the studied MHC locus.

In wild boar, Sus scrofa, from Europe, domestic pig-typical ancestry is traced at varying levels. We hypothesised wild boar with pig-typical gene pool characteristics, i.e., “introgression”, congregate more in peri-urban habitats, because of less shyness and better adaptation to anthropogenic stress. We used 16 microsatellites to study introgression levels of 375 wild boar from peri-urban Vienna, Austria, and rural regions in comparison to commercial slaughter pigs, Mangaliza, and Turopolje pigs. We also expected more introgression in locations of warmer climates and lower precipitation. Despite discrimination of wild boar and pigs with 99.73% and 97.87% probability, respectively, all wild boars exhibited pig-typical gene pool characteristics, mostly at a very low level. Recent hybridisation was suspected in only 0.53% of wild boar, corresponding to the current largely indoor pig breeding/rearing in the region, with no chance of natural gene exchange between pigs and wild boar. Rather, pig ancestry in wild boar stems from incomplete gene pool differentiation during domestication and/or historical introgressions, when free-ranging pig farming was common. Individual introgression levels were lower in wild boar from peri-urban habitats, possibly reflecting the largely historical absence of pig farms there. Moreover, a marginal precipitation effect, but no temperature effect on introgression was observed. The latter, however, needs to be explored further by a more comprehensive data set.

The two-humped Bactrian camel ( ) is a large, even-toed ungulate native to the steppes of Central Asia. Domestic Bactrian camels are economically important in Mongolia and other Central Asian countries. These animals are used for transport, milk and meat production, and camel racing which is a great culture of nomads. Eimeriosis, also known as coccidiosis, is considered as an economically important parasitic diseases in Bactrian camels. There is still considerable lack of data concerning the spectrum of monoxenous species, their epizootiology as well as their precise life cycles in Bactrian camels. This study was performed to determine the prevalence of species in camelids from southern part of Mongolia. A total of 536 fresh camel fecal samples (  = 536) collected from herds located in five different Aimags (provinces) of Mongolia were examined. spp. oocysts were isolated using the sugar flotation technique, and after sporulation, oocysts were identified by morphometric evaluation. We identified the most common species infecting Mongolian Bactrian camels: (22.3%), (37.3%) and (27.7%). Interestingly, mixed infections were detected in 24.8% (  = 133) of the samples, while 39.0% (  = 209) were negative for coccidian stages. To investigate the immunogenetic response of the Mongolian Bactrian camels to spp. infection, we screened the genetic diversity in a functional important immune response gene of the major histocompatibility complex (MHC). We detected two polymorphic sites in the MHC class II exon 2, which translated into one non-synonymous and one synonymous amino acid (aa) change. The resulting aa alleles were not significantly associated with any of the three detected species infections, nor could we show heterozygote advantage in non-infected Mongolian Bactrian camels. Further investigations on molecular epidemiology, culture, pathogenicity and host-parasite interactions will be necessary to better understand the impact of eimeriosis in Bactrian camels.