Inter-individual variability in equine antibody responses to African snake venoms follows heavy-tailed distributions with implications for antivenom production

  Inter-individual variability in equine antibody responses to African snake venoms follows heavy-tailed distributions with implications for antivenom production Abstract Variability in the antibody response of horses used for snake antivenom manufacture is well recognized, yet its statistical structure and implications for industrial productivity remain poorly characterized. In this study, we quantified antivenom antibody titers by ELISA in a cohort of 14 horses immunized with venoms from the clinically most important snakes in sub-Saharan Africa. To integrate antibody levels with plasma availability, we calculated the Cumulative Plasma Productivity (CPP) by converting individual plasma volumes into titer-corrected equivalents and sequentially pooling these volumes according to their corrected contribution. Distributional analysis revealed right-skewed, heavy-tailed patterns better approximated by a log-normal model than by a strict Pareto (power-law) form, with approximately 20–3...

Three new records of wolf spiders (Araneae: Lycosidae) from Korea


Three new records of wolf spiders (Araneae: Lycosidae) from Korea

Abstract


Three wolf spiders of the family Lycosidae Sundevall, 1833 are newly described from Korea: Arctosa labiata Tso & Chen, 2004, Pardosa altitudis Tikader & Malhotra, 1980, and Pardosa laevitarsis Tanaka & Suwa, 1986. These spiders were collected during a seasonal survey of the spider fauna of National Parks located in Gangwon-do and Gyeongsanbuk-do in 2018-2019; two males of A. labiata from Mt. Songnisan National Park, one female of P. altitudis from Mt. Chiaksan National Park, and two males of P. laevitarsis from Mt. Odaesan and Sobaeksan National Parks. The three newly recorded spiders have previously been known to be distributed in Taiwan, India, China, and Japan. These spiders were collected by hand in mixed forest leaf litter in mountainous terrains. The present paper taxonomically describes these three wolf spiders with measurements and morphological illustrations.

Jang, C. M., Bae, Y. S., Yoo, J. S., Lee, S. Y. & Kim, S. T. (2023c). Three new records of wolf spiders (Araneae: Lycosidae) from Korea. Journal of Species Research 12(3): 224-228. doi:10.12651/JSR.2023.12.3.224