Abstract:The sectionalization of rodent age have a far-reaching ecological significance for studying their age structure and population density variation. It is more convenience to identify rodent′s age by their body weight in the field study. Based on the systematic clustering method we weighed the body weight of five-toed jerboa captured in 2012﹣2014 and divided them into three different age groups (age group Ⅰ: 60﹣80 g; Age group Ⅱ: 80﹣110 g; Age group Ⅲ: > 110 g, Table 2). Then we established the relational model between weight and body characteristics, and group the captured ive-toed jerboa as three age groups: groupⅠ: WⅠ =﹣1.032 + 0.137LB + 0.259LT; age group Ⅱ: WⅡ = 0.072 + 0.099LB + 0.060LT + 0.214LP. Here, W is body weight, LB is body length, LT is tail length, Lp back feet length. Our results showed that the body characteristics, such body length, tail length, back feet were not simultaneously growing in their body growths process. One body characteristic may grow at a specific stage, such as the ear length was growing or growing slowly at the age. The body length and the tail length had a strong relationship with weight in the ageⅠ, then slowed down during the age stage Ⅱ. The Bacj feet length was strong related with body weight at age Ⅱ and accelerated growth rate at age Ⅱ. However the body length, tail length and back feed length eigher stopped growing or growing slow down at age Ⅲ.

Abstract:We recorded the calls of two male Odorrana tormotus and video-taped their interactions during a territorial combat at Fuxi, Mount Huangshan on 17 April, 2017. The combat lasted about eight minutes, and produced a winner and a loser. The winner emitted 16 calls during the combat and 7 calls after the combat. The loser uttered 5 calls during the combat. At one instant during the territorial encounter, both frogs emitted a call simultaneously. For this study, we used the software Praat to obtain various temporal and spectral parameters, and sheng employed T test to determine whether there was a significant difference in parameter of each call during the combat between two frogs. The winner produced multi-note calls mostly and his calls was with an average fundamental frequency of 8 150 ± 1 305 Hz; the maximum and minimum fundamental frequency was 9 741 ± 1 283 Hz and 5 809 ± 1 139 Hz. The difference between the maximum fundamental frequency and the minimum fundamental frequency was 3 932 ± 1 122 Hz. All the values above was higher than those of the loser′s made, especially on average fundamental frequency and the maximum fundamental frequency (P < 0.05). However, the differences in minimum fundamental frequency and maximum fundamental frequency and the in the minimum fundamental frequency were not significant (P > 0.05). But the dominant frequency produced by the winner was significantly lower than loser′s (P > 0.05). The total call durations of winner and loser were 0.57 ± 0.09 s and 0.51 ± 0.11 s, respectively. The time duration of calls of this species was longer than the duration of advertisement calls of non-combat O. tormota. Comparing to the winner the loser′s calls contained more abundant nonlinear phenomena (NLP); the duration of NLP segments was > 50% longer for the loser than for the winner. The total duration and NLP durarion of combat and post-combat calls for the winner were shorter (P < 0.05) than the loser, the average fundamental frequency was significant decrease (P < 0.05), the maximum fundamental frequency and the minimum fundamental frequency were all lower after winning the combat (P > 0.05), but the break duration was longer. The difference between the maximum fundamental frequency and the minimum fundamental frequency was greater (P > 0.05). It appeared that winner increased the call rate as well as the dominant frequency in order to fight off the opponent. This article described the calling characteristics of male O. tormotus during a territorial combat. It increases our knowledge of signal plasticity in this species.

Abstract:In 2012 and 2013, we collected six specimens of odorous frogs from Tianping Mountains located in Hunan Badagongshan National Nature Reserve. Results of morphological comparisons and molecular phylogenetic analyses showed that these specimens belong to the species Odorrana yizhangensis. These specimens presented almost same diagnosis of O. yizhangensis: body size smaller, Snout-vent length (SVL) of male 52.45 ± 2.54 mm (48.96﹣54.92 mm, n = 3), of female 73.11 ± 1.43 mm (71.26﹣74.74 mm, n = 3) (Table 2), which little bigger than those of types; irregular brown spots are big and crowded on dorsum of body; belly brown, with few stripes; hind side of thigh light in color with dark spots (Fig. 1a, b). Based on 16S rRNA gene data (502 bp), the phylogenetical analyses suggested that the specimens from Tianping Mountains were clustered together with other known populations into a monophyly corresponding to the species O. yizhangensis (Fig. 2a, b), the genetic distances between Mt. Tianping and other known populations of O. yizhangensis (0.002 0﹣0.008 1) were distinctly smaller than that between O. yizhangensis and O. lungshengensis (0.035 2﹣0.043 9) (Table 3); indicating that the odor frog specimens from Mt. Tianping should belong to the species O. yizhangensis. This work provided new information to the geographical distribution and systematics about the species.

Abstract:An ichthyological survey for the lower Yarlung Tsangpo River drainage in November 2016 found a new species of Garra, which is described in this study. Garra tibetana sp. nov., a new species of the subfamily Labeoninae, family Cyprinidae, is recognized from the Haguo River, a tributary of the Yarlung Tsangpo River in Motuo County, southeastern Tibet. The holotype and paratypes are both deposited at the Museum of Aquatic Organisms, Institute of Hydrobiology (IHB), Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wuhan, China. This species was once misidentified as Garra kempi Hora 1921 for a long period. It is distinguished from G. kempi by having a faint proboscis, the chest covered by scales, fewer branched anal-fin rays, a shallower body and a more slender caudal peduncle. In addition, based on the morphological data (Table 1), it could be distinguished from related congeners of Garra primarily by the following combination of characters: having a faint proboscis on the snout, the transverse lobe and lateral surface of snout covered with several unicuspid tubercles; the chest and belly covered by scales; branched dorsal-fin rays 7?﹣8?, branched anal-fin rays 4?; lateral-line scales 39﹣42, predorsal scales 13﹣14 and circumpeduncular scale rows 12﹣13; body depth 13.5%﹣17.6% of standard length, caudal-peduncle depth 8.8%﹣11.0% of standard length, distance from anus to anal fin 47%﹣56% of pelvic-anal distance. Principal diagnostic characters for G. tibetana and related congeners are shown in Table 2.

Abstract:The assessment of crab resources in Xiamen coastal waters can provide basic information for the sustainable utilization and management of crab resources in Xiamen coastal waters. Based on sampling data from bottom trawl surveys in the coastal waters along the Xiamen (24°21′﹣24°39′N, 117°54′﹣118°30′E) collected by shrimp trawls during May (spring), August (summer), November (autumn) in 2016 and February in 2017 (winter) (Fig. 1), species composition, composition of dominant species, species diversity and biomass distribution of crab in Xiamen sea area were studied. There were 32 species of crab, belonging to 12 families and 18 genera (Table 1), being identified in the survey area. The highest species diversity occurred in spring and lowest in autumn (Table 2). Of them 7 species are dominant, named Charybdis variegata, C. orientalis, Portunus sanguinolentus, P. hastatoides, Parthenope validus, C. japonica and Portunus pelagicus. However, temporal- spatial distribution of dominant species were obviously different, there were three in spring, four in summer, four in autumn and two in winter. Among them, C. japonica was dominant species in four seasons of the year (Table 3). The species richness index (D) was 1.46﹣4.09, the Shannon-Wiener index (H′) was 1.35﹣2.25, and the species evenness index (J′) was 0.59﹣0.73. The diversity index was the highest in spring and the lowest in autumn (Table 4). The average biomass was 101.56 kg/km2 in autumn and 24.61 kg/km2 in spring, which was the highest and lowest season in a year (Fig. 2), Jiulong River Estuary exhibited lowest crab biomass when compared to other sampling sites (Fig. 3). Again, the biomass also varied with water depth. The biomass of water depth above 10 m was smaller than that of water depth under or equal to 10 m (Fig. 4). Except winter, it was concluded that biomass of crab varied with the seasons, stations and water depth, which were closely related to Jiulong River runoff, water depth, water temperature and other environmental factors. Compared with 30 years ago, the number of crab species in Xiamen decreased by 45% and the dominant species have changed obviously (Fig. 5).

Abstract:Fire is one of the main disturbance factors for ecosystems, which directly affects the diversity of ground-dwelling soil fauna. This study aimed to examine the restoration of the ground-dwelling soil arthropods community in the burned area in The Daxing′anling Range. We investigated the ground-dwelling soil arthropod communities by pitfall traps in the Larix gmelinii - Betula platyphylla mixed forest at the locations suffered and not suffered the severe fire at all in the year 2006 at Songling in June and August ten years later (2016). Totally, we collected 17 460 individuals that belonged to 5 classes, 14 orders, 57 families, 85 genera (Appendix) in the burned and unburned sites. Of our collections, 55 genera were macro soil arthropods, belonged to 4 classes, 11 orders, 36 families, included 1 dominant group (Tetramorium); 30 genera were meso/micro soil arthropods, belonged to 2 classes, 3 orders, 18 families, included 1 dominant group (Hypogastrura). In general, the total number of ground-dwelling soil arthropods in the sampling site suffered severely burned was higher than that in the unburned sites. However, the individuals of soil macro arthropods in burned site were significantly less than that in the control site (P < 0.05). The ratio of meso/micro soil arthropods collected in August was significantly higher than that collected in June (P < 0.05). The diversity analysis showed that the ground-dwelling soil arthropods had no significant difference in the diversity indexes between severe burned and unburned sites (P > 0.05). Compared with August, the Shannon-Wiener index, Pielou evenness index and Margalef richness index of soil meso/micro arthropods (Table 2) were significantly lower in June, while Simpson dominance index was higher (P < 0.01). The Jaccard coefficient of soil arthropods in the burned and unburned sites was 0.78, and this value was 0.43 between June and August, which means the composition of ground-dwelling soil arthropods community has a little variance, but it changes with time. Soil arthropods had significant differences in the utilization of resources in the study area (P < 0.01), the types of resource were an increase in severely burned sites and a decrease in control. Thus, the dominant phenomenon was obvious, and the niche overlap index of major soil arthropod groups was increased due to the addition of available resources. Typical discriminant analysis (Fig. 1) showed that the ground-dwelling soil arthropod community was affected by the fire, and the affected degree was obvious change with seasons.

Abstract:In order to study the relationship between the zooplankton community structure and the water environmental factors in the Moguhu Reservoir, we conducted three detailed investigations in April, July and November in 2016. We used the Margalef ′s richness index and redundancy analysis method to analyze the density, biomass and dominance of zooplankton in different months, as well as the relationship between the structure of zooplankton community and the environment, the degree of nutrition of the reservoir. A total of 36 species of zooplankton were detected, including 7 species of protozoa, 18 species of rotifer, 4 species of Cladocera, and 7 species of Copepods (Table 4). The community structure of zooplankton was mainly dominated by rotifers and copepods in the three sampling. The average annual density of zooplankton was 3 574 ind/L, and the density variation range of each sampling point was 284﹣5 162 ind/L (Fig. 2); The annual biomass was 3.79 mg/L, and the range of biomass of each sampling point was 0.84﹣6.56 mg/L (Fig. 3). The density and biomass of zooplankton in three samplings reached the maximum in July, and the differences in density and biomass were significant at different periods (P < 0.01). Three surveys identified eight dominant zooplankton species (degree of dominance ≥ 0.2), including 5 species of rotifer, 2 species of Cladocera and 1 species of copepods (Table 5). The zooplankton community composition and environmental factors in the Mushroom Lake Reservoir were subjected to trend correspondence analysis (DCA) (Fig. 4), and the first axis gradient was tested, because the gradient of the three periods was less than 3, so the final selection redundancy analysis (RDA) was selected for the constrained sequencing. The test results show that water temperature, nitrate nitrogen, dissolved oxygen, pH, and chemical oxygen demand can affect the zooplankton community structure in April (wet season); Water temperature, dissolved oxygen, total phosphorus, chemical oxygen demand, and can affect the structure of zooplankton community in July (normal season). Water temperature, pH, and dissolved oxygen can affect zooplankton community structure in November (dry season). Water temperature and dissolved oxygen were the environmental factors that mainly affected the zooplankton community structure in three different periods.

Abstract:Shennv Cave is a typical Karst cave and located in Songtao County in Guizhou Province. A part of it has been developed by the tourism. In order to record the animal resources in detail, we investigated on the animal community structure in the cave and took measurement on some environment factors in the mean time in July 2016. A total of 645 animal specimens and 9 soil samples (250 g/bag) were collected. The content of air temperature, humidity and content of gases CO, CO2, O2 and H2S were measured in the field. We identified the species and found out all the animal species belonging to 3 phyla, 8 classes, 13 orders, 24 families and 37 groups. Of them Diestrammena marmorata was the dominant species, and it is accounted for the entire group of 67.60%. We used the atomic absorption spectrometry to analyze content of heavy metals Pb and Cd, used and atomic fluorescence spectrometry method to determined the contents of Hg for the soil samples. The results showed that the pollution of Hg was more serious compared with the soil background value in China, and the comprehensive heavy metal pollution index was far more than the heavy pollution grade line. We analyzed the structure characteristics of the cave animal community by the method of correlation analysis with the diversity index. The homogeneity index J' and the dominance index C of the cave animal community had a significant correlation with the content of H2S in the air. The maximum diversity was significantly negatively correlated with the temperature. The correlation between the spatial distribution of the cave animals and the environmental factors was analyzed by canonical correlation analysis. The spatial distribution of Chilopoda, Amphibia, Mammalia had a little difference, and all were positively related to the content of CO2 in the air and the content of lead in the soil. The distribution of Arachnoidea was positively correlated with the content of O2. The distribution of Diplopoda was positively correlated with humidity, and the distribution of Gastropoda was positively related to the amount of H2S in the air.

Abstract:To understand the effect of water temperature on fish embryo development is important for its successful artificial rearing and domestication. Temperature has a great influence on the metamorphosis of fish embryos and larvae. Accordingly, the effects of temperature on embryonic development and growth traits of Oxygymnocypris stewartii larvae and juvenile were studied in the laboratory. The fertilized eggs of O. stewartii were randomly and averagely divided and raised at different water temperature groups (5, 8, 11, 14, 17 ℃), respectively. Morphological measurements included total length, long diameter of yolk and short diameter of yolk volume were measured by a stereo microscope with Nikon Image Analysis system (Nikon SMZ1500). We used one-way ANOVA and regression analysis to analyze the data by the SPSS 21 and Excel 2007 software. Accumulated temperature K = the time of a certain development stage × average temperature, hatching rate (%) = number of hatched larvae / number of fertilized eggs × 100%, fertilization rate = number of fertilized eggs / total number of eggs invested × 100%, yolk volume = (4 / 3) π × (long diameter of yolk / 2) × (short diameter of yolk / 2)2, temperature coefficient Q10 = (Incubation time at temperature T0 / Incubation time at temperature Ta)10(Ta - T0). Descriptive statistics was presented as mean ± standard error, and the significance level was set at P < 0.05. The results showed that the hatching time of the embryos was shortened and the development speed was accelerated with the increasing of water temperature. The hatching time of embryo was separately 530.78 h, 366.12 h, 214.22 h, 220.63 h, 153.95 h at different temperatures (5, 8, 11, 14, 17 ℃), the relationship between temperature and incubation time was in a power function style (Fig. 2). The minimum accumulated temperature at 11 ℃ was 2 356.4 h · ℃ (Fig. 4). The relationships between developmental periods and their accumulative time of O. stewartii embryo at different temperatures were all in an exponential function style (Table 2). The hatching rate showed a trend of decreasing firstly and increasing then with the rising of water temperature (Fig. 3). Compared with the Q10, the Q13 was closest to 2 when the temperature was 11﹣17 ℃ (Table 3). Total length of O. stewartii larvae at hatching and temperature did not show a significant cubic function, but the relationship between yolk volume of larvae at hatching and temperature was in a significant quadratic function style (Table 4). The results indicatethat the suitable temperature for early development of O. stewartii embryo is 11﹣17 ℃, and the suitable growth temperature for the larvae and juvenile is 14﹣17 ℃.

Abstract:The purpose of this study was to investigate the developmental dynamic changes in histological structure of diencephalic oculomotor nucleus in Leiothrix lutea nestling at different days of age. The microstructure of diencephalic oculomotor nucleus at one, five and nine days after hatching were observed and a special staining method-toluidine blue staining (TBS) was employed. The significance among different ages was analyzed by one-way analysis of variance analysis, and results were presented as mean ± standard deviation (Mean ± SD). The analysis was conducted using SPSS 16.0 for windows. The results suggested that there were four parts of nuclei, namely nucleus nervioculomotorii pars dorsolateralis (OMdl), nucleus nervi oculomotorri pars dorsomedialis (OMdm), nucleus nervioculomotorii pars ventralis (OMv) and nucleus of edinger-westphal (EW) (as shown in Table 1 and Fig. 1). Oculomotor nucleus of L. lutea nestling was comprised of small and large types of nerve cells, but the population, proportion and distribution of the two types of cells in different sub-regions were different as the days go by, and intracytoplasmic nissl bodies increased gradually with growth. There was no significant change in the relative position between different cerebellar nuclei, but both the interval and sectional area were increased from the age of 1 to 9 days (Fig. 2, 3 and 4). The results show that the structure of oculomotor nucleus matures with the growth of the L. lutea nestling, which is in accordance with its gradually improved neuroregulation of eye muscles.

Abstract:The types and distribution patterns of skin mucous cells in three species of benthic freshwater fishes were analyzed with conventional paraffin sections and AB-PAS staining method. We divided the mucus cells into four groups, type Ⅰ cells were red, type Ⅱ cells were blue, type Ⅲ cells were amaranth, and the type Ⅳ cells were bluish violet (Fig. 1). The numbers of mucous cells in head, back, belly and tail of these three kinds of fishes were counted in 10 visual fields (the area of visual fields was 43.5 μm × 32.6 μm), and the average number of mucous cells was calculated. Using One-way Anova, we compared the number of four types of mucous cells in Perccottus glenii, Pelteobagrus fulvidraco, and Misgurnus anguillicaudatus. Results showed that representative mucous cell type was different in different kinds of fishes, which might be related to the pH of the water in which they live. The acidity and alkalinity of fish mucus was often balanced with the environment. In mucous cells of Perccottus glenii, the majority was type Ⅲ which contains plenty of neutral mucopolysaccharides and some acid mucopolysaccharides. Its number was 61.5% more than that of type Ⅰ cells, 85.8% more than that of type Ⅱ cells, 85.7% more than that of type Ⅳ cells. On the body surface of Pelteobagrus fulvidraco, the number of type Ⅰ mucous cells accounted for the majority, and they mainly contained neutral mucopolysaccharide. Their number was 9.9% more than that of type Ⅱ cells, 15.1% more than that of type Ⅲ cells, and 53.5% more than that of type Ⅳ cells. On the body surface of M. anguillicaudatus, type Ⅱ cells accounted for the most, and they contained a lot of acid mucopolysaccharides. Their number was 88.3% more than that of type Ⅰ cells, 33.1% more than that of type Ⅲ cells, and 83.5% more than that of type Ⅳ cells (Table 1). Acid mucopolysaccharides were widely distributed on the mucous surface of the skin in all three species of fishes, and they might have important immune function to fishes, helping to remove germs and harmful substances from the environment, and playing a vital role in normal physiological activities. The number of mucous cells varied from part to part, and forepart trended to have more mucous cells than the back. For Perccottus glenii, mucous cells were mainly distributed on head, the number of mucous cells in the back was 15.4% more than that in the back, 38.0% more than that in the abdomen, and 56.7% more than that in the tail. The mucous cells of Pelteobagrus fulvidraco were mainly centralized on the back, the number of mucinous cells in the head was 42.5% more than that in the head, 46.6% more than that in the abdomen, and 51.4% more than that in the tail. M. anguillicaudatus also possessed rich mucous cells on the back, the number of mucinous cells in the back was 49.9% higher than in the head, 50.6% higher than in the abdomen, and 43.8% higher than in the tail (Table 1). The total numbers of mucous cells in the three species were different. There were more mucous cells in non-phosphorous fish than in squamous fish. The whole body′s mucus cells of M. anguillicaudatus or Pelteobagrus fulvidraco were more than that of Perccottus glenii, and moreover, the total number of mucous cells on the body surface of M. anguillicaudatus accounted for the most, 38.9% more than that in the Perccottus glenii, and 39.1% more than that in the Pelteobagrus fulvidraco. The types of mucous cells on the body surface of different kinds of fishes were different, which may relate to the living environment or their own characteristics. The Acid-alkaline of fish mucous cells is the same as that of environment. In addition, the distribution of mucous cells is related to the species of fish and the location of distribution.

Abstract:The main objective of this study was to better understand the characteristics of ITS2 sequence polymorphism in Pleuronectidae species. We cloned and sequenced ITS2 fragments in 10 species of Pleuronectidae, and then performed further analyses, including analysis of polymorphic statistics, calculation of Kimura-2-parameter (K2P) genetic distances, prediction of secondary structure and minimum free energy, and determination of recombinants. Finally, the phylogenetic relationship among different species was constructed by Maximum likelihood (ML) and Bayesian Inference (BI) method with Bothus myriaster as outgroup species. A total of 310 sequences were obtained from 10 species of Pleuronectidae. Among 6 of 10 species, Clidoderma asperrima (419﹣420 bp) and Hippoglossoides elassodon (419﹣420 bp) have the lowest variation in length, comparing to Lepidopsetta polyxystra (447﹣452 bp) and Limanda aspera (457﹣463 bp) with 5 bp and 6 bp variations, and Cleisthenes pinetorum (452﹣462 bp) and Verasper variegatus (465﹣479 bp) with 10 bp and 14 bp variations. For other four species, the biggest length variation of each species is 14﹣32 bp, resulting in longer, shorter or recombinant sequence types that are classified as types A, B and R. The biggest length variation occurs in Pseudopleuronectes yokohamae (454﹣486 bp), then Ps. herzensteini (433﹣458 bp), Eopsetta grigorjewi (420﹣439 bp), and Platichthys stellatus (466﹣480 bp) (Table 1). The K2P genetic distances of intra-species ranges from 0.002 to 0.027, except the high values in Pl. stellatus and Ps. herzensteini, up to 0.043 and 0.053, respectively; while the genetic distance of inter-species ranges from 0.046 to 0.180 (Table 2). The GC contents of ITS2 in the 10 species range from 63.95% to 70.16% (Table 1). The secondary structure has a uniform loop structure with five branches HelixⅠ﹣Ⅴ, except for V. variegatus with Helix Ⅳ-a and Ⅳ-b (Fig. 2). The phylogenetic trees constructed based on ITS2 sequences of 10 Pleuronectidae species show that the different clones of each species are clustered together (Fig. 3). According to the ITS2 sequence polymorphism characteristics, these four species Ps. yokohamae, Ps. herzensteini, E. grigorjewi, and Pl. stellatus with different types may be evolved in non-concerted evolution, while the other six species in concerted evolution. Although the K2P genetic distance of intra-species has overlap with that of inter-species, ITS2 is considered to be applicable for species identification among these species. The results of this study will enrich the ITS2 data of flatfish, and further provide a scientific reference for the researches on ribosomal RNA polymorphism of teleostean fishes.

Abstract:Carnitine acetyltransferase (CAT) is an enzyme that has effect on short-chain fatty acids. In this study, the open reading frame (ORF) of CAT was cloned from Chinese mitten crab Eriocheir sinensis by PCR, to analyze the CAT tissue-specific expression and the changing patterns of CAT expression levels in hepatopancreas and ovaries during different stages of ovarian development by quantitative real-time PCR (q-PCR). The results showed that the ORF of CAT was 1 929 bp in length and encoded 642 amino acids (Fig. 1) without transmembrane domain and signal peptide, with the predicted protein containing an Acyltransferases ChoActase conserved domain (40﹣56 aa) and a typical Carn-acyltransf superfamily domain (43﹣626 aa) (Fig. 2). For either males or females, CAT expressed in all detected tissues. In males, higher CAT expression levels were detected in hepatopancreas and muscle (Fig. 4). In females, the highest expression level was obseeved in hepatopancreas, followed by the ovaries and muscle (Fig. 5). The observed changes of CAT expression levels in hepatopancreas and ovaries significantly varied in different ovarian development stages (P < 0.05) (Fig. 6, 7), suggesting that CAT may play an important role in E. sinensis during its ovarian development.

Abstract:This study explored the effect of Eisenia fetida on the soil bacterial community structure, to facilitate selecting earthworms to improve soil quality. After 10 days of incubation by E. fetida in both lateritic red and paddy soil, 16S rDNA Illumina Miseq high-throughput sequencing technique was employed to analyze the bacterial community structure compositions and diversities of the soils with or without earthworms. Sequence splicing and statistical analysis of OTU abundance were calculated by FLASH and UCHIME, and OTU species classification and Alpha community abundance index were analyzed using R and mothur. The results showed that the bacterial community structure of the soils with earthworms varied, compared to that of the soils without earthworms, indicating that E. fetida changed the soil bacterial community structure. In lateritic red soil, 5 non-dominant phyla were newly added at the presence of the earthworms, which were FBP, Fibrobacteres, OP11, Tenericutes and Thermi. In addition, it could be observed that Cytophagia, Spartobacteria and Verrucomicrobiae in lateritic red soil incubated by E. fetida turned into dominant classes, while Solibacteres became a non-dominant class (Fig. 2 & Fig. 3). In paddy soil that incubated with E. fetida, it was noted that Poribacteria was newly added as a non- dominant phylum, that Spirochaetes became a dominant phylum, as well as that the non-dominant phyla involving SBR1093, SC4, WS4 and WS5 died out (Fig. 4). Besides, Spirochaetes and Verrucomicrobiae became dominant classes while Planctomycetia declined to be a non-dominant class (Fig. 5). In general, the dominant bacteria in both lateritic red and paddy soil with the incubation of E. fetida included Acidobacteria, Actinobacteria, Bacteroidetes, Chloroflexi, Firmicutes, Planctomycetes, Proteobacteria and Verrucomicrobia (Fig. 2 & Fig. 4). The relative abundance of Acidobacteria significantly decreased by 44.90% but the relative abundance of Bacteroidetes significantly increased by 14.88% in the lateritic red soil with the incubation of E. fetida (Table 3). In contrast, the relative abundances of Acidobacteria, Chloroflexi, Gemmatimonadetes, Nitrospirae, Planctomycetes and Verrucomicrobia significantly decreased by 49.05%, 20.44%, 64.01%, 35.00%, 33.56% and 24.38% respectively while Bacteroidetes and Spirochaetes significantly increased by 28.85% and 154.17% in the paddy soil incubated by earthworms (Table 4). The variations on the abundances of the bacteria in the two types of soils were different. In detail, it was increased in lateritic red soil but decreased in paddy soil at the presence of the earthworms. Moreover the bacterial diversities in both lateritic red and paddy soils decreased (Table 5). It revealed that E. fetida changed the community structure compositions and diversities of bacteria in the two types of soils and thus this study offered a theoretical foundation for further understanding of earthworm digestion and its interactions with microorganisms.

Abstract:Rhesus Monkeys (Macaca mulatta) were used to provide a better benign prostate hyperplasia (BPH) model, and to explore the optimal conditions. A total of 12 male rhesus monkeys were divided into treatment and control groups at random and were administrated testosterone propionate (TP) through hypodermic injection for eight weeks after castration. Three treatment groups were given 0.8, 2.5, 7.5 mg/(kg?d) TP respectively, and the control group was given the same volume of vehicle. The prostate volumes of rhesus monkeys were measured with ultrasonic diagnosis instrument before castration, at eight weeks after castration, at four weeks and eight weeks after being given TP. Then, the serum of monkeys at all these experimental stages were separated and collected. Eight weeks later of being given TP, the rhesus monkeys were killed and the prostates were prepared. After the wet weight and volume of prostate were measured, paraffine section of BPH was stained by the H.E methods. Pictures were taken by digital camera under microscope, and all the pictures were analyzed by computer for epithelial cell height and acinar luminal area of prostate with micro image analysis soft ware. And then, the dihydrotestosterone (DHT) level of serum and prostate were detected with ELISA kit. The comparison of difference between groups was analyzed with independent-samples T test method using SPSS 13.0. The ultrasonic results showed that the prostate volumes of all the rhesus monkeys at eight weeks after castration were smaller than before castration (P < 0.05). After having been administrated TP for four weeks and for eight weeks, the prostate volumes of all treatment groups were larger than the control group (P < 0.05), and the best was mid-dose group (P < 0.01). But with TP administration for four weeks and for eight weeks, there were no significant differences between treatment groups (P > 0.05) (Table 1). The wet weights and volumes of the prostate of all treatment groups were higher than those of the control group (P < 0.05), and the maximum was mid-dose group (Table 3). The results of micro image analysis showed that the acinar luminal area and the epithelial cell height of prostate of all treatment groups were increased than the control group (P < 0.01) (Table 4, Fig. 2). The DHT level of serum (P < 0.01) and prostate (P < 0.05) of the rhesus monkeys of all treatment groups were increased than the control group, and the maximum was mid-dose group. But with TP administration for four weeks and for eight weeks, there were no significant differences between treatment groups (P > 0.05) (Table 2 and 4 ). It is practicable to establish BPH model in rhesus monkeys with TP administration. It is initially determined that the suitable conditions for the TP dose of 2.5 mg/(kg?d), and for the delivery time of 4 weeks.

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