Human Insulin

A new species,Scaevola subalpina, is described and illustrated from the subalpine forest of Mount Mantalingahan Protected Landscape on the island of Palawan in the Philippines. The new species is most similar toScaevola glabra, a species endemic to the Hawaiian archipelago. Both species grow at high elevations and share solitary or few-flowered inflorescences and yellow corollas but can be differentiated by flower size and structure. The flowers ofS. subalpinaare much shorter, and the corolla is half open from the base (as in most other species of the genus), whereas inS. glabrathe corolla is fused to form a tube that splits open in only the distal portion to form lobes.Scaevola subalpinais the only Phillippine-endemic of four species of the genus that are native to the Philippines. It appears to be critically endangered.

Longevity patterns in most vertebrates suggest that females benefit most from maintenance investment. A reversed longevity pattern in loggerhead musk turtles (Sternotherus minor) allowed us to test trade-offs between maintenance and survivorship. We tested the hypothesis that the sex with greater longevity has greater maintenance than the sex with shorter longevity. We also compared the following parameters between sexes: Bactericidal ability (BA) and heterophil:lymphocyte ratios (HLR). Baseline blood samples were collected from turtles in the field; a subset of turtles was returned to a laboratory for experiments of acquired immune responses to sheep red blood cells (SRBC). We found no support for the original hypothesis of reversal in sex-dependent immune trade-offs (difference between sex SRBC titers:p = .102; interaction between treatment and sex:p = .177; difference between treatments:p < .001; effect of sex on BA:p = .830; effect of sex on HLR:p = .717). However, we did find support for sex-dependent differences in immunity in the relationship between HLR and body condition (BCI) (effect of BCI on HLR:p = .015). In field conditions, we found that males with higher body condition indices express stressed phenotypes more than males with lower body condition indices (p = .002). However, females expressed similar stress loads across all body conditions (p = .900). Testosterone concentrations were assayed in free-living turtles and were not related to any of the immune parameters. Our results suggest that the immune systems play an important role in balancing sex-specific responses to different selective pressures inS. minor.