Feeding spectra and activity of the freshwater crab Trichodactylus kensleyi (Decapoda: Brachyura: Trichodactylidae) at La Plata basin

Background: In inland water systems, it is important to characterize the trophic links in order to identify the ‘trophic species’ and, from the studies of functional diversity, understand the dynamics of matter and energy in these environments. The aim of this study is to analyze the natural diet of Trichodactylus kensleyi of subtropical rainforest streams and corroborate the temporal variation in the trophic activity during day hours. Results: A total of 15 major taxonomic groups were recognized in gut contents. The index of relative importance identified the following main prey items in decreasing order of importance: vegetal remains, oligochaetes, chironomid larvae, and algae. A significant difference was found in the amount of full stomachs during day hours showing a less trophic activity at midday and afternoon. The index of relative importance values evidenced the consumption of different prey according to day moments. Results of the gut content indicate that T. kensleyi is an omnivorous crab like other trichodactylid species. Opportunistic behavior is revealed by the ingestion of organisms abundant in streams such as oligochaetes and chironomid larvae. The consumption of allochthonous plant debris shows the importance of this crab as shredder in subtropical streams. However, the effective assimilation of plant matter is yet unknown in trichodactylid crabs. Conclusions: This research provides knowledge that complements previous studies about trophic relationships of trichodactylid crabs and supported the importance of T. kensleyi in the transference of energy and matter from benthic community and riparian sources to superior trophic levels using both macro- and microfauna.Fil: Williner, Verónica. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Santa Fe. Instituto Nacional de Limnología. Universidad Nacional del Litoral. Instituto Nacional de Limnología; Argentina. Universidad Nacional del Litoral. Facultad de Humanidades y Ciencias; ArgentinaFil: de Azevedo Carvalho, Debora. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Santa Fe. Instituto Nacional de Limnología. Universidad Nacional del Litoral. Instituto Nacional de Limnología; ArgentinaFil: Collins, Pablo Agustin. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Santa Fe. Instituto Nacional de Limnología. Universidad Nacional del Litoral. Instituto Nacional de Limnología; Argentina. Universidad Nacional del Litoral. Facultad de Bioquímica y Ciencias Biológicas; Argentin

The BHL-Plazi Partnership: Getting data from the 1800s directly into 21st century, reused digital accessible knowledge

Plazi is a Swiss non-governmental organization dedicated to the liberation of data imprisoned in flat, dead-end formats such as PDFs. In the process, the data therein is annotated and exported in various formats, following field-specific standards, facilitating free access and reutilization by several other service providers and end-users. This data mining and enhancement process allows for the rediscovery of the known biodiversity since the knowledge on known taxa is published into an ever-growing corpus of papers, chapters and books, inaccessible to the state-of-the-art service providers, such as Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF). The data liberated by Plazi focuses on taxonomic treatments, which carry the unit of knowledge about a taxon concept in a given publication and can be considered the building block of taxonomic science. Although these extracted taxonomic treatments can be found in Plazi’s TreatmentBank and Biodiversity Literature Repository (BLR), hosted in the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) digital repository Zenodo, data included in treatments (e.g., material citations and treatment citations) can also be found in other applications as well, such as Plazi’s Synospecies, Zenodeo, and GBIF. Plazi’s efforts result in more Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable (FAIR) biodiversity literature, improving, enhancing and enabling access to data included therein as digital accessible data, otherwise almost unreachable.The Biodiversity Heritage Library (BHL), on the other hand, provides a pivotal service by digitizing heritage literature and current literature for which BHL negotiates permission, and provides free access to otherwise inaccessible sources.In 2021, BHL and Plazi signed a Statement of Collaboration, aiming to combine the efforts of both institutions to contribute even further to FAIR-ifying biodiversity literature and data. In a collaborative demonstration project, we selected the earliest volumes and issues of the Revue Suisse de Zoologie in order to conduct a pilot study that combines the efforts of both BHL and Plazi.The corpus is composed of eight volumes (tomes), 24 issues (numbers) and 98 papers, including a total of over 5000 pages and 200 images. To process this material, BHL assigned CrossRef Digital Object Identifiers (DOI) to these already digitally accessible publications. Plazi created a template to be used in GoldenGate-Imagine, indicating key parameters used for tailored data mining of these articles, and customized to the journal’s graphic layout characteristics at that time. Then, we proceeded with quality control steps to provide fit-for-use data for BLR and GBIF by ensuring that the data was correctly annotated and eliminating potential data transit blockages at Plazi’s built-in data gatekeeper. The data was then subsequently reused by GBIF. Finally, we present here the summary of the obtained results, highlighting the number of key publication attributes aforementioned (pages, images), but also including a drill-down into the different taxonomic groups, countries and collections of origin of the studied material, and more. All the data is available via the Plazi statistics, the Biodiversity Literature Repository Website and community at Zenodo, the Zenodeo APIs and GBIF where the data is being reused

Atividade nictimeral e tempo de digest\ue3o de Aegla longirostri (Crustacea, Decapoda, Anomura)

O objetivo do presente trabalho foi caracterizar o ritmo de atividade e tempo de digestão em Aegla longirostri Bond-Buckup & Buckup, 1994. Os animais foram coletados em Santa Maria, RS, Brasil. Em laboratório, os animais foram transferidos para aquários individuais (5L). Para testar a atividade locomotora e alimentar dos aeglídeos um grupo de animais permaneceu sob luminosidade constante durante 12 horas, enquanto outro grupo permanecia no escuro, essa condição sendo invertida a cada 12 horas. As observações foram realizadas a cada 6 horas. Para determinar o tempo de digestão os animais foram alimentados e a cada 30 minutos um indivíduo era sacrificado. Aegla longirostri mostrou menor atividade em períodos de luminosidade, o que aconteceu nos dois grupos de animais. Essa espécie leva aproximadamente 5 horas para concluir a digestão extracelular. Os resultados sugerem que A. longirostri possui hábitos noturnos e provavelmente se alimenta sempre que há recursos disponíveis