Fatty acid bioconversion in harpacticoid copepods in a changing environment : a transcriptomic approach

By 2100, global warming is predicted to significantly reduce the capacity of marine primary producers for long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acid (LC-PUFA) synthesis. Primary consumers such as harpacticoid copepods (Crustacea) might mitigate the resulting adverse effects on the food web by increased LC-PUFA bioconversion. Here, we present a high-quality de novo transcriptome assembly of the copepodPlatychelipus littoralis, exposed to changes in both temperature (+3 degrees C) and dietary LC-PUFA availability. Using this transcriptome, we detected multiple transcripts putatively coding for LC-PUFA-bioconverting front-end fatty acid (FA) desaturases and elongases, and performed phylogenetic analyses to identify their relationship with sequences of other (crustacean) taxa. While temperature affected the absolute FA concentrations in copepods, LC-PUFA levels remained unaltered even when copepods were fed an LC-PUFA-deficient diet. While this suggests plasticity of LC-PUFA bioconversion withinP. littoralis, none of the putative front-end desaturase or elongase transcripts was differentially expressed under the applied treatments. Nevertheless, the transcriptome presented here provides a sound basis for future ecophysiological research on harpacticoid copepods. This article is part of the theme issue 'The next horizons for lipids as 'trophic biomarkers': evidence and significance of consumer modification of dietary fatty acids'

New modelling technique for aperiodic-sampling linear systems

A general input-output modelling technique for aperiodic-sampling linear systems has been developed. The procedure describes the dynamics of the system and includes the sequence of sampling periods among the variables to be handled. Some restrictive conditions on the sampling sequence are imposed in order to guarantee the validity of the model. The particularization to the periodic case represents an alternative to the classic methods of discretization of continuous systems without using the Z-transform. This kind of representation can be used largely for identification and control purposes.Comment: 19 pages, 0 figure

New records of <i>Praethecacineta halacari</i> (Schulz) (Suctorea: Ciliophora) from Taiwan, Tanzania and Canada

The present study reports on a range extension of the suctorian species Praethecacineta halacari to the region of He-Ping-Dao, north-east of Taiwan (West Pacific Ocean), Matemwe, the east coast of Unguja, Zanzibar, Tanzania (West Indian Ocean) and Nova Scotia, Canada (West Atlantic Ocean). Praethecacineta halacari is reported here for the first time from Taiwan, Tanzania and Canada. Earlier records include the Caspian Sea, Western Australia, Brazil, India, and various coastal sites in Europe

The taste of diatoms: the role of diatom growth phase characteristics and associated bacteria for benthic copepod grazing

The interactions between primary producers and their consumers are of particular interest for the overall functioning of marine ecosystems. The biochemical composition of the organisms involved affects the efficiency of energy transfer in marine food webs. In addition to top-down control by grazers, bottom-up control of these interactions by primary producers and associated bacteria has recently received more attention. Planktonic copepods selectively feed on older diatom cells, a behaviour regulated by changes in exometabolites around diatoms. To test whether this also applies to benthic copepods, Seminavis robusta cells in lag, exponential and stationary growth phases were biochemically screened, and the diversity of associated bacteria was assessed. The diatoms were subsequently 13C prelabelled and offered to the harpacticoid copepod Microarthridion littorale in a grazing experiment. Harpacticoid copepods incorporated more carbon from younger diatom cells in the lag growth phase, which might be based on (1) biochemical differences of diatom cells in different growth phases and (2) the bacteria associated with the diatoms. The younger diatom cells were characterised by a higher C:N ratio and more extracellular polymer secretions but a lower fatty acid content. The bacterial community on these cells differed from those on cells in the later growth phases. Our results thus suggest that the feeding strategies of benthic harpacticoid copepods differ from those of calanoid copepods. This outcome can be explained by the tight contact between benthic copepods and the typical carbon and bacteria-rich biofilm on sediments

2D overtopping and impact experiments in shallow foreshore conditions

This paper introduces the 2D experiments conducted for the CREST project in the wave flume of Ghent University. The experiments focus on wave interactions with low-crested sea dikes fronted by a shallow foreshore and mildly to steeply sloping beaches, which is a very typical situation along the Belgian coast. Foreshore slopes of 1/20, 1/35, 1/50 and 1/80 were tested for a range of low to high energy wave conditions, a variation in wave steepness and two water levels. The main goal was to obtain a dataset in which the effects of the infragravity waves on the wave-structure interactions (i.e. wave overtopping and impact forces) can be studied. The tests included high spatial resolution surface elevation measurement tests, which is new for beaches including a dike in the inner surf zone. From the first results it became clear that the foreshore slope influences the wave transformation up to the dike toe. The influence is apparent comparing to existing (semi-) empirical models for prediction of the spectral wave period at the dike toe and wave overtopping at the dike crest. The high spatial resolution data show a steep increase in infragravity significant wave height in the very shallow area in front of the dike

Scaled distribution mapping: a bias correction method that preserves raw climate model projected changes

Commonly used bias correction methods such as quantile mapping (QM) assume the function of error correction values between modeled and observed distributions are stationary or time invariant. This article finds that this function of the error correction values cannot be assumed to be stationary. As a result, QM lacks justification to inflate/deflate various moments of the climate change signal. Previous adaptations of QM, most notably quantile delta mapping (QDM), have been developed that do not rely on this assumption of stationarity. Here, we outline a methodology called scaled distribution mapping (SDM), which is conceptually similar to QDM, but more explicitly accounts for the frequency of rain days and the likelihood of individual events. The SDM method is found to outperform QM, QDM, and detrended QM in its ability to better preserve raw climate model projected changes to meteorological variables such as temperature and precipitation