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Megapodes are characterized by using means other than body heat to incubate their eggs. The Maleo Macrocephalon maleo is endemic to Sulawesi where it is Endangered, and lays its eggs in pits excavated in soil heated by geothermal sources. A novel method used to incubate Maleo eggs at the Bronx Zoo/Wildlife Conservation Society, NY, USA, is reported here. Using a forced-air hatcher, the eggs rest on a bed of plastic beads inside a plastic container. Incubation parameters were 32·5°C and 89–90% relative humidity, with an 83% hatch success after an incubation period of c. 70 days. A strong correlation was found between higher incubation temperature and shorter incubation period. The eggs lost an average of 21% of their initial weight between evaporation through the shell during incubation and the liquid discharged from the egg at hatching. The rate of weight loss changed during incubation, starting very slowly and increasing dramatically at the end of the period. Further studies should investigate the effects of humidity on hatchability and survival of chicks, the effect of temperature on the sex ratio of hatchings, as well as the effect of the orientation of the egg during incubation on hatchability.

The Horned guan Oreophasis derbianus is one of the most threat cracids but the species has always been scarce in captivity. By the end of 2007, the International Studbook registered a global population of 70 individuals in human care. This population is genetically compromised, as most of the potential founders are not yet represented. In the last 6 years, Africam Safari's breeding programme has hatched nearly 50% of the individuals bred in collections, contributing to the knowledge about husbandry and the biology of the species.

Objective The contribution of seizures to cognitive changes remains controversial. We tested the hypothesis that a single episode of neonatal seizures (sNS) on rat postnatal day (P) 7 permanently impairs hippocampal-dependent function in mature (P60) rats because of long-lasting changes at the synaptic level. Methods sNS was induced with subcutaneously injected kainate on P7. Learning, memory, mossy fiber sprouting, spine density, hippocampal synaptic plasticity, and glutamate receptor expression and subcellular distribution were measured at P60. Results sNS selectively impaired working memory in a hippocampal-dependent radial arm water-maze task without inducing mossy fiber sprouting or altering spine density. sNS impaired CA1 hippocampal long-term potentiation and enhanced long-term depression. Subcellular fractionation and cross-linking, used to determine whether glutamate receptor trafficking underlies the alterations of memory and synaptic plasticity, demonstrated that sNS induced a selective reduction in the membrane pool of glutamate receptor 1 subunits. sNS induced a decrease in the total amount of N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor 2A and an increase in the primary subsynaptic scaffold, PSD-95. Interpretation These molecular consequences are consistent with the alterations in plasticity and memory caused by sNS at the synaptic level. Our data demonstrate the cognitive impact of sNS and associate memory deficits with specific alterations in glutamatergic synaptic function. Ann Neurol 2007

Field observations and anatomical adaptations of wild Loriinae show a high degree of diet specialization. Although these birds are commonly maintained in captivity, there are limited data about adequate diet and nutritional requirements. The aim of this study is to make qualitative and quantitative reviews of the diet and nutrition of these birds at Loro Parque, Tenerife, and identify possible nutrient excesses or deficiencies, in order to provide a basis for future investigations and improved feeding and nutrition of lories and lorikeets in captivity. The daily maintenance diet of 35 pairs of four genera (Chalcopsitta, Eos, Lorius and Trichoglossus) was analysed over 10 days and the amounts of various food items ingested were recorded in order to deter mine the nutritional content of the diet consumed. Daily intake values for each food were calculated from the difference between the mass of each item offered and the mass left over, corrected for evaporative wet-mass loss. The concentrations of 36 essential nutrients of diets offered and ingested were calculated and compared with the requirements for psittacines recommended in the literature. Each pair ingested a daily average of: 26.3 × 3.1 g fruit and vegetables (c. 53% of the amount offered), 18.3 × 5.2 g pellet (c. 80% of the amount offered) and 153.4 × 7.3 ml nectar (c. 99% of the amount offered). The analyses show important differences in the nutritional content between the diet offered and the diet ingested, and nutritional deficiencies and excesses in the diet ingested.

Baseline data for 17 behaviours grouped into six categories were collected for ten captive and nine soft-released Scarlet macaws Ara macao, in order to analyse daily activity budgets. Most of the birds were captive-bred and hand-reared. The captive birds spent less time on Socializing and Feeding behaviours than the released birds but spent more time on Maintenance behaviour and No Activity. The observation protocol developed here is a useful tool for monitoring the birds during pre-release training and, once released, to determine quantitatively whether a bird was properly prepared for survival in the wild.

In Brazil the wild population of Purple-bellied parrot Triclaria malachitacea is in decline. The species is seldom found in zoological collections because it is difficult to maintain in captivity. At the beginning of 1998 Loro Parque Fundacion, Tenerife, maintained 21 (9.10.2) birds, c. 35% of the T. malachitacea population maintained in captivity outside the country of origin. Analyses of the basic diet offered, the food that was not consumed and the excrement of five pairs of birds over 5 days were carried out to determine the nutritional content of the diet offered and consumed. The ingested diet was found to have an excessive concentration of metabolizable energy and crude protein, and the calcium/phosphorous ratio was found to be lower than the minimum recommended in the literature. The digestibility values for dry matter, crude protein, crude fat, crude fibre, NfE (nitrogen free extract) and starch were calculated for T. malachitacea.

Depolarization promotes the survival of cerebellar granule neurons via activation of the transcription factor myocyte enhancer factor 2D (MEF2D). Removal of depolarization induces hyperphosphorylation of MEF2D on serine/threonine residues, resulting in its decreased DNA binding and susceptibility to caspases. The subsequent loss of MEF2-dependent gene transcription contributes to the apoptosis of granule neurons. The kinase(s) that phosphorylates MEF2D during apoptosis is currently unknown. The serine/threonine kinase, glycogen synthase kinase-3β (GSK-3β), plays a pro-apoptotic role in granule neurons. To investigate a potential role for GSK-3β in MEF2D phosphorylation, we examined the effects of lithium, a non-competitive inhibitor of GSK-3β, on MEF2D activity in cultured cerebellar granule neurons. Lithium inhibited caspase-3 activation and chromatin condensation in granule neurons induced to undergo apoptosis by removal of depolarizing potassium and serum. Concurrently, lithium suppressed the hyperphosphorylation and caspase-mediated degradation of MEF2D. Moreover, lithium sustained MEF2 DNA binding and transcriptional activity in the absence of depolarization. Lithium also attenuated MEF2D hyperphosphorylation and apoptosis induced by calcineurin inhibition under depolarizing conditions, a GSK-3β-independent model of neuronal death. In contrast to lithium, MEF2D hyperphosphorylation was not inhibited by forskolin, insulin-like growth factor-I, or valproate, three mechanistically distinct inhibitors of GSK-3β. These results demonstrate that the kinase that phosphorylates and inhibits the pro-survival function of MEF2D in cerebellar granule neurons is a novel lithium target distinct from GSK-3β.

To assess the role of cdc42 during neurite development, cmyc-tagged constitutively active (CA) and dominant negative (DN) cdc42 were expressed in dissociated primary chick spinal cord neurons using adenoviral-mediated gene transfer. Three days after in- fection, >85% of the neurons in infected cultures ex- pressed cdc42 proteins, as detected by indirect immuno- fluorescence against cmyc. Growth cones of infected neurons displayed 1.83- (CAcdc42) and 1.93-fold (DNcdc42) higher cmyc immunofluorescence per square micrometer than uninfected controls. CAcdc42 expres- sion stimulated growth cones, almost doubling growth cone size and number of filopodia, and increased neurite growth rates by 65- 89%. In neurons plated onto fi- bronectin, the percent of growth cones with both filop- odia and lamellipodia increased from 71 to 92%. Total Texas Red-phalloidin staining in these growth cones doubled, and the percent of growth cones with F-actin localized to peripheral regions increased from 52% in controls to 78% after CAcdc42 expression. Expression of DNcdc42 did not significantly alter growth cone mor- phology or neurite growth rates. Addition of soluble laminin to spinal cord neurons resulted in the identical phenotype as CAcdc42 expression, including changes in growth cone morphology, F-actin localization, and neu- rite growth rates. Significantly, expression of DNcdc42 blocked the effects of laminin on growth cones. These results show that cdc42 promotes neurite outgrowth and filopodial and lamellipodial formation in growth cones and suggests that cdc42 and laminin share a common signaling pathway during neurite development. Addi- tion of laminin to CAcdc42-expressing neurons is inhib- itory to growth cones, indicating that laminin also may activate some other pathways. © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

The use of cryoprotectants and slow cooling rates are routine procedures for the cryopreservation of plant cell lines. However, our results with rice (Oryza sativa L., cv. Taipei 309) show that calli can be cryopreserved by direct immersion and stored in liquid nitrogen without any cryoprotection. The efficiency of recovery using this method, as well as a conventional method was generally increased with a previous abscisic acid (ABA) treatment. Following cryopreservation, calli demonstrated some differences with respect to unfrozen calli of the same lines. Thus, resistance to freezing stress (−20°C for 2 h) increased significantly in all lines tested, irrespective of their pre-incubation with ABA. Calli that had been directly stored in liquid nitrogen also demonstrated a higher competence for genetic transformation than their unfrozen counterparts, as indicated by the transient gene expression levels obtained after particle bombardment. These differences might lead to further biotechnological applications. A genetic analysis of amplified DNA polymorphisms was performed with three independent lines that had been subjected to four combinations of ABA treatment and direct immersion in liquid nitrogen. At the loci screened with the randomly amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD) markers tested, the genetic variations among lines and among calli of the same line akppear to be more related to tissue-culture-induced somaclonal variation than to cryoselection.