Fouling assemblages associated with off-coast aquaculture facilities: an overall assessment of the Mediterranean Sea

Aquaculture facilities provide a suitable habitat for a wide group of marine species that are able to colonise and settle on artificial structures. This study aims to determine the composition of fouling communities in off-coast facilities, with special emphasis on motile epifauna and amphipods as a main group. Seventeen aquaculture sites were sampled along the Mediterranean coast, collecting samples by scraping fouling organisms directly from the ropes. Additionally, thirty publications were reviewed, in order to assess the similarity of aquaculture fouling with other fouling communities. Our results reflect that amphipods accounted for more than 80% of the epifauna associated with farms fouling communities. This characteristic epifauna was defined by seven amphipod species well-adapted to colonise and survive in these off-coast habitats. Most species common in farms have also been commonly found in harbours, marinas, and/or offshore on turtles, buoys or platforms etc., showing a great resistance to polluted areas but also to dispersal via rafting on floating objects. In this study, two exotic species were identified: Caprella scaura and Stenothoe georgiana, the latter being the first report from the Mediterranean Sea. The presence of Jassa slatteryi was also confirmed, underestimated until now in the Mediterranean

Connectivity Patterns for Direct Developing Invertebrates in Fragmented Marine Habitats: Fish Farms Fouling as Source Population in the Establishment and Maintenance of Local Metapopulations

Artificial structures can be considered as high spatially structured habitats in the marine pelagic system, where patch connectivity would be strongly dependent on the exchange of larvae or dispersing individuals. Fish-farms located offshore may alter ecological connectivity, modifying trophic resources, and species dispersal among patches. High population densities of invertebrates can be found associated with fish-farm fouling communities, which can act as a seed source, contributing to the patterns of connectivity through individuals exchange between subpopulations or with sink populations. A field experiment was performed to analyse the role of fish-farms in the colonisation of new uninhabited habitats (floating experimental units) located at different positions relative to the fish farm and the main current, containing artificial habitats with and without feed pellets similar to those used in the fish farm. Amphipods were used as example of direct developing invertebrates for studying dispersing individuals from the fish farm to the new habitats. The richest and most abundant populations in this study were found close to and downstream of the fish farm, surpassing 1,000 amphipods at their maximum. Moreover, some floating habitats located more than 2 km from the fish farm were colonised in only 15 days. Thus, the role of fish farms has been shown to extend beyond a ‘stepping-stones’ effect in species dispersal, and have an additional effect on ecological connectivity by increasing population sizes and acting as population source. Our study aims to provide recommendations for coastal zone management in order to predict potential spread from fish farms to other platforms in the future and promote solutions related to interactions and consequences of connectivity within and between marine facilities

Exploring changes in bacterial communities to assess the influence of fish farming on marine sediments

Changes in bacterial assemblages along an environmental gradient determined by the distance to aquaculture installations were analysed, using denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis to assess the influence of fish farming on marine sediments. Our findings show that changes in the structure of the bacterial community are a useful indicator for determining the environmental impact of aquaculture farms, due to the rapid response to changes in nutrient load, and could be an alternative strategy for monitoring programmes. Delta and Epsilonproteobacteria linked to the sulphur cycle were detected in the sediments beneath the cages. Since these groups were not found in the sediments at control stations, they serve as indicators for assessing the impact of the organic load from fish farming on marine sediments.This study forms part of the ‘Selección de indicadores, determinación de valores de referencia, diseño de programas y protocolos de métodos y medidas para estudios ambientales en acuicultura marina’ project funded by the ‘Spanish National Plans of Aquaculture’ (JACUMAR). The research was supported by Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness project CLG2015_66686-C3-3 (JA), which was also supported by financing from the European Regional Development Fund (FEDER). ERP thanks the Generalitat Valenciana for a postdoctoral grant (APOSTD-2016-091)

Epibiontic associations between apostomid ciliates Conidophrys spp. and amphipods associated with fish farms fouling in the western Mediterranean Sea

Fish farms commonly support high abundances of invertebrates, especially amphipods, associated with fouling communities developed over nets, ropes and buoys. Protozoan epibiont ciliates of the genus Conidophrys were observed on three of the most abundant amphipod species collected from ropes of a fish farm in the western Mediterranean Sea. The amphipod species were Ericthonius punctatus that presented the epibiont Conidophrys pitelkae, and Jassa marmorata and Jassa slatteryi with the epibiont C. pilisuctor. The epibionts were found in numbers fluctuating between 1 and 119 individuals in Jassa spp. (median value = 8), higher than the number of epibionts found on E. punctatus that varied between 1 and 39 individuals (median value = 3). The epibiosis on Jassa spp. also showed prevalence values (34.33 %) superior to those of E. punctatus (24 %). Differential distribution of the epibiont species on the surface of basibionts was detected: Conidophrys pilisuctor were more frequently found on the head and gnathopods of Jassa spp., while C. pitelkae were mainly counted on the head of E. punctatus. This is the first time that Conidoprhys were found on these amphipod species

Microarrays as Platform for Multiplex Assays in Biomarker and Drug Discovery

Despite the tremendous advances in the understanding of the molecular mechanisms and the complexity of the diseases is one of the present challenges for the scientific community; then, novel strategies are required to be designed and developed for effective strategies for early diagnosis and treatment. As many cellular alterations are observed at protein level, high-throughput assays are dramatically needed for biomarker discovery. Herein, we describe advantages and limitations of protein microarrays, as proteomics strategy useful for multiplex and high-throughput protein characterization in clinical samples. Finally, a few examples are discussed; mostly of them related to currently disease biomarkers already identified in proximal fluids by protein arrays are discussed

A-DInSAR Monitoring of Landslide and Subsidence Activity: A Case of Urban Damage in Arcos de la Frontera, Spain

Terrain surface displacements at a site can be induced by more than one geological process. In this work, we use advanced differential interferometry SAR (A-DInSAR) to measure ground deformation in Arcos de la Frontera (SW Spain), where severe damages related to landslide activity and subsidence have occurred in recent years. The damages are concentrated in two residential neighborhoods constructed between 2001 and 2006. One of the neighborhoods, called La Verbena, is located at the head of an active retrogressive landslide that has an extension of around 0.17 × 106 m2 and developed in weathered clayey soils. Landslide motion has caused building deterioration since they were constructed. After a heavy rainfall period in winter 2009–2010, the movement was accelerated, worsening the situation. The other neighborhood, Pueblos Blancos, was built over a poorly compacted artificial filling undergoing a spatially variable consolidation process which has also led to severe damage to buildings. For both cases, a short set of C-band data from the “ENVISAT 2010+” project has been used to monitor surface displacement for the period spanning April 2011–January 2012. In this work we characterize the mechanism of both ground deformation processes using in situ and remote sensing techniques along with a detailed geological interpretation and urban damage distribution

Performance Modeling of Fresnel-Based CPV Systems: Effects of Deformations under Real Operation Conditions

Getting a lower energy cost has always been a challenge for concentrated photovoltaic. The FK concentrator enhances the performance (efficiency, acceptance angle and manufacturing tolerances) of the conventional CPV system based on a Fresnel primary stage and a secondary lens, while keeping its simplicity and potentially low‐cost manufacturing. At the same time F‐XTP (Fresnel lens+reflective prism), at the first glance has better cost potential but significantly higher sensitivity to manufacturing errors. This work presents comparison of these two approaches applied to two main technologies of Fresnel lens production (PMMA and Silicone on Glass) and effect of standard deformations that occur under real operation condition

Multidimensional classifiers for neuroanatomical data

dimensional classification. It introduces a novel classifier, the class bridge decomposable multidimensional Gaussian classifier (CB-MGC) within the application of multiple state-of-the-art machine learning techniques to the Neuromorpho dataset. We formulate a supervised classification problem for predicting specie, gender, level one cell type, level two cell type, development stage and area of the neocortex based of a set of morphological features extracted from a neuron. Additionally, we show a performance comparative between the different classifiers and discuss its results

Chitosan from Marine Amphipods Inhibits the Wilt Banana Pathogen Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. Cubense Tropical Race 4

In this work, we extracted chitosan from marine amphipods associated with aquaculture facilities and tested its use in crop protection. The obtained chitosan was 2.5 ± 0.3% of initial ground amphipod dry weight. The chemical nature of chitosan from amphipod extracts was confirmed via Raman scattering spectroscopy and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR). This chitosan showed an 85.7–84.3% deacetylation degree. Chitosan from biofouling amphipods at 1 mg·mL−1 virtually arrested conidia germination (ca. sixfold reduction from controls) of the banana wilt pathogenic fungus Fusarium oxysporum f. sp cubense Tropical Race 4 (FocTR4). This concentration reduced (ca. twofold) the conidia germination of the biocontrol fungus Pochonia chlamydosporia (Pc123). Chitosan from amphipods at low concentrations (0.01 mg·mL−1) still reduced FocTR4 germination but did not affect Pc123. This is the first time that chitosan is obtained from biofouling amphipods. This new chitosan valorizes aquaculture residues and has potential for biomanaging the diseases of food security crops such as bananas.This project was funded by PID2020-119734RB-I00 (Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation), EU H2020 MUSA no. 727624, and AIRAM (Biodiversity Foundation, Spanish Ministry for Ecological Transition, and the Demographic Challenge) projects