Most Interesting Papers of the Week/CCD
October 1, 2012
From: Teaching Biology
Bowing down to popular opinion again, I’ve changed this so that only interesting papers are put in. People complained about there being too many frivolous papers that aren’t of general interest outside of a narrow field of specialists. So from now on, I’m attempting to include only papers that aren’t specific case studies and that may be of public or interdisciplinary interest. Please understand that I have a lot of trouble relating to what other people find interesting though, so YMMV! If you prefer the old-style, let me know so I can tally up votes.
These are papers that may be of general interest published this week. No specific case studies or taxonomic papers. Papers ordered only by their appearance in my inbox. For PDFs, e-mail me, I get most of them. You can request an in-depth analysis of any paper and I’ll do it as I get the time.
Open-access papers, those that are free to read/download even without an academic connection, are tagged with [OA] for easy finding with your browser’s text search (Ctrl+F).
Arthropods:
Of the many, many causes being proposed for colony collapse disorder, parasitism by Varroa mites is one of the more plausible hypotheses. They are worldwide pests of honeybees that can kill off a colony within 1 or 2 years noth through its own parasitic effect and by acting as a vector for viruses (see Yang & Cox-Foster, 2005). As such, any research into its effects on honeybees is deemed important. This paper hitns that Varroa affects the maturation of ebes during the pupal stage by limiting their nutritional resources.
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