A checklist of European butterfly larval foodplants

Butterflies are charismatic insects and have been well studied, particularly in Europe. They are disproportionately used in generating and testing hypotheses; on everything from general evolutionary processes, such as speciation or host association dynamics; to conservation-related studies, such as climate change or habitat loss. Accurate lists of the larval foodplants for European butterflies are not readily available. Mistakes are propagated and information cannot be checked for accuracy. The level of evidence is unknown, and how usage varies between countries is poorly understood. The study consulted 1119 references to produce 19,488 records of larval foodplants for European butterflies. This resulted in 5589 larval host plant records for 464 European butterfly species, with multiple references, enabling information to be checked. Information was unavailable for 59 species. The level of evidence for each relationship shows the current state of knowledge. Significant issues were identified for 3.9% of records extracted from references due to mistakes, ambiguous or unknown plant names, distribution issues, resulting in information being lost. Plants with questionable distributions suggest either mis-identification or species that have been split. Little is known about plant usage in Eastern Europe. The larval foodplants of many monophagous and Satyrinae butterflies are poorly studied. Only 63% of threatened 2010 Red Listed butterflies have reliable host plant records. The study has provided ecologists with a valuable resource, of a more accurate checklist of the larval foodplants for each European country. Why plant usage varies over a butterfly's distribution opens up some interesting research questions.

Effects of sorbinil treatment in rats with chronic streptozotocin-diabetes; changes in lens and in substance P and catecholamines in the iris

This study was performed on male Wistar rats with streptozotocin-induced diabetes mellitus of 11 months duration. There were two diabetic groups; both were given a long-acting insulin twice weekly to reduce morbidity. One group received no additional treatment whilst the other was given the aldose reductase inhibitor, sorbinil, by dietary admixture (approximate dose was 30 mg/day/kg body weight). At the end of the protocol the lenses of the diabetic rats given insulin alone showed markedly reduced dry weight (70% of controls; p less than 0.01) with increased water content (152% of controls; p less than 0.01). Both of these changes were absent from the lenses of the sorbinil-treated diabetic rats. Lenses from both groups of diabetic rats had elevated glucose contents, with greater levels in the group which received insulin alone. Polyol pathway metabolites were also raised in the diabetic lenses, though sorbinil treatment had markedly attenuated sorbitol accumulation without affecting fructose levels. Lens myo-inositol was almost absent from the diabetic rats which received only insulin (6% of control levels relative to lens dry weight; p less than 0.01). This depletion was substantially attenuated, but not prevented in the sorbinil-treated group (58% of control levels). In the iris the noradrenaline and adrenaline contents were unaltered in either diabetic group. In startling contrast, the iris content of substance P-like immunoreactivity was almost trebled in the insulin alone-treated diabetic rats (282% of controls; p less than 0.01), an effect which was prevented completely by sorbinil (127% of controls; not significantly different).(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)

Chlorambucil: stability of solutions during preparation and storage

A stability-indicating high-performance liquid chromatographic method has been used to investigate the stability of chlorambucil in solution. Dissolved in ethanol and diluted with 150 mM NaCl (NS), the drug was found to be very much more stable frozen, with a value for 5% degraded (t0.95) of approximately 8 months at -70 degrees C. The presence of agar or cells, and freezing and thawing the solution did not reduce the concentration of chlorambucil significantly. The drug seemed to adsorb to polyvinyl chloride (PVC) infusion bags (but to no other container material) and also to all three filtration units tested. Intense light increased the degradation of the drug, whilst the addition of 10% serum to chlorambucil in medium increased the drug's stability four fold. Dilution with NS of stock solutions of chlorambucil in ethanol resulted in supersaturated solutions of the drug. For preparation of the drug for in vitro drug sensitivity assays, the results suggest that care should be taken in the initial dilution of the drug; not to use filtration units to sterilize solutions; to anticipate different degradation rates (and therefore cytotoxicity) if the serum concentration in medium is altered; and to avoid the use of PVC.