Living on a trophic subsidy: Algal quality drives an upper-shore herbivore’s consumption, preference and absorption but not growth rates

Indexación: Scopus.The transfer of seaweeds from subtidal bottoms to nearby intertidal rocky shores is a common but often overlooked phenomenon. Freshly detached seaweeds often represent critical trophic subsidies for herbivores living in upper-shore rocky intertidal areas, such as the marine snail Diloma nigerrima. This species relies on three species of seaweeds for food and displays feeding strategies to deal with a resource that is scarce and at times unpredictable. This study focused on the nutritional quality of freshly detached algae (Durvillaea antarctica, Lessonia spicata and Lessonia trabeculata) and measured Diloma nigerrima’s algal consumption rates in trials with and without choice. Absorption efficiency and growth of individual snails fed on each alga were also measured. Durvillaea antarctica had the highest nutritional quality and was the most consumed algae in both single and multiple-choice trials. Absorption efficiency was also highest for D. antarctica but growth rates of snails fed with this species were similar to those fed with the other algae. Combined, these results suggest that D. nigerrima has the ability to discriminate among seaweeds based on their nutritional quality. A potential increase in oxygen uptake when D. nigerrima is consuming the preferred food item is also proposed as a plausible hypothesis to explain the mismatch between snails’ preference and growth rate. These results aim to guide further studies on trophic subsidies and their role in coastal systems. © 2018 Quintanilla-Ahumada et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.019612

Mitigating energy system vulnerability by implementing a microgrid with a distributed management algorithm

This work presents a management strategy for microgrid (MG) operation. Photovoltaic (PV) and wind generators, as well as storage systems and conventional units, are distributed over a wide geographical area, forming a distributed energy system, which is coordinated to face any contingency of the utility company by means of its isolated operation. The management strategy divides the system into three main layers: renewable generation, storage devices, and conventional units. Interactions between devices of the same layer are determined by solving an economic dispatch problem (EDP) in a distributed manner using a consensus algorithm (CA), and interactions between layers are determined by means of a load following strategy. In this way, the complex behaviour of PV and wind generation, the battery storage system, and conventional units has been effectively combined with CA to solve EDP in a distributed manner. MG performance and its vulnerability are deeply analysed by means of an illustrative case study. From the observed results, vulnerability under extreme conditions could be reduced up to approximately 30% by coupling distributed renewable generation and storage capacity with an energy system based on conventional generation

High pCO 2 levels affect metabolic rate, but not feeding behavior and fitness, of farmed giant mussel Choromytilus chorus

Indexación: Scopus.Acknowledgements. We thank Luisa Saavedra and Araceli Rodriguez-Romero for their help in the field and during laboratory activities. We also acknowledge Laura Ramajo for help with AT estimations. Emily Giles Neill provided valuable comments that greatly improved the manuscript. Special thanks are due to the reviewers and the editor for very constructive comments on the manuscript. This study was supported by the Millennium Nucleus Center for the Study of Multiple drivers on Marine Socio-Ecological Systems (MUSELS) funded by MINECON NC120086, PIA CONICYT ACT-172037 and FONDECYT grant nos. 1140938 and 1140092 to N.A.L. and M.A.L.Mar Ecol Prog Ser 454: 65−74 Findlay HS, Wood HL, Kendall MA, Spicer JI, Twitchett RJ, Widdicombe S (2009) Calcification, a physiological pro-cess to be considered in the context of the whole organ-ism. Biogeosciences 6: 2267−2284 Fitzer SC, Zhu W, Tanner KE, Phoenix VR, Kamenos NA, Cusack M (2015) Ocean acidification alters the material properties of Mytilus edulis shells. J R Soc Interface 12: 214−227 Freitas R, De Marchi L, Bastos M, Moreira A and others (2017) Effects of seawater acidification and salinity alter-ations on metabolic, osmoregulation and oxidative stress markers in Mytilus galloprovincialis. Ecol Indic 79: 54−62 Gattuso JP, Magnan A, Billé R, Cheung WWL and others (2015) Contrasting futures for ocean and society from dif-ferent anthropogenic CO2 emissions scenarios. Science 349: aac4722 Gazeau F, Urbini L, Cox TE, Alliouane S, Gattuso JP (2015) Comparison of the alkalinity and calcium anomaly tech-niques to estimate rates of net calcification. Mar Ecol Prog Ser 527: 1−12 Gray MW, Langdon CJ, Waldbusser GG, Hales B, Kramer S (2017) Mechanistic understanding of ocean acidification impacts on larval feeding physiology and energy budg-ets of the mussel Mytilus californianus. Mar Ecol Prog Ser 563: 81−94 Griffiths CL, Griffiths RJ (1987) Animal energetics, Vol 2: Bivalvia through Reptilia. In: Pandian TJ, Vernberg FJ (eds) Bivalvia. Academic Press, New York, NY, p 1−88 Harvey BP, Dwynn-Jones D, Moore PJ (2013) Meta-analysis reveals complex marine biological responses to the inter-active effects of ocean acidification and warming. Ecol Evol 3: 1016−1030 Hiebenthal C, Philipp EER, Eisenhauer A, Wahl M (2013) Effects of seawater pCO2 and temperature on shell growth, shell stability, condition and cellular stress of western Baltic Sea Mytilus edulis (L.) and Arctica is - landica (L.). Mar Biol 160: 2073−2087 Ibarrola I, Arambalza U, Navarro JM, Urrutia MB, Navarro E (2012) Allometric relationships in feeding and diges-tion in the Chilean mytilids Mytilus chilensis (Hupé), Choromytilus chorus (Molina) and Aulacomya ater (Mo - lina): a comparative study. J Exp Mar Biol Ecol 426-427: 18−27 Lagos NA, Benítez S, Duarte C, Lardies MA and others (2016) Effects of temperature and ocean acidification on shell characteristics of Argopecten purpuratus: implica-tions for scallop aquaculture in an upwelling-influenced area. Aquacult Environ Interact 8: 357−370 Lardies MA, Arias MB, Poupin MJ, Manríquez PH and oth-ers (2014) Differential response to ocean acidification in physiological traits of Concholepas concholepas popula-tions. J Sea Res 90: 127−134 Lardies MA, Benítez S, Osores S, Vargas CA, Duarte C, Lohrmann KB, Lagos NA (2017) Physiological and histo - pathological impacts of increased carbon dioxide and temperature on the scallops Argopecten purpuratus cultured under upwelling influences in northern Chile. Aquaculture 479: 455−466 Lemasson AJ, Fletcher S, Hall-Spencer JM, Knights AM (2017) Linking the biological impacts of ocean acidifica-tion on oysters to changes in ecosystem services: a review. J Exp Mar Biol Ecol 492: 49−62 Mackenzie CL, Ormondroyd GA, Curling SF, Ball RJ, Whitely NM, Malham SK (2014) Ocean warming, more than acidification, reduces shell strength in a commercial shellfish species during food limitation. PLOS ONE 9: e86764 McElhany P (2017) CO2 sensitivity experiments are not suf-ficient to show an effect of ocean acidification. ICES J Mar Sci 74: 926−928 Mehrbach C, Culberson CH, Hawley JE, Pytkowicz RM (1973) Measurement of the apparent dissociation con-stants of carbonic acid in seawater at atmospheric pres-sure. Limnol Oceanogr 18: 897−907 Melzner F, Thomsen J, Koeve W, Oschlies A and others (2013) Future ocean acidification will be amplified by hypoxia in coastal habitats. Mar Biol 160: 1875−1888 Michaelidis B, Ouzounis C, Paleras A, Pörtner HO (2005) Effects of long-term moderate hypercapnia on acid−base balance and growth rate in marine mussels Mytilus gal-loprovincialis. Mar Ecol Prog Ser 293: 109−118 Miller AW, Reynolds AC, Sobrino C, Riedel GF (2009) Shell-fish face uncertain future in high CO2 world: influence of acidification on oyster larvae calcification and growth in estuaries. PLOS ONE 4: e5661 Navarro JM (1988) The effects of salinity on the physio - logical ecology of Choromytilus chorus (Molina, 1782) (Bivalvia: Mytilidae). J Exp Mar Biol Ecol 122: 19−33 Navarro JM, Torres R, Acuña K, Duarte C and others (2013) Impact of medium-term exposure to elevated pCO2 lev-els on the physiological energetics of the mussel Mytilus chilensis. Chemosphere 90: 1242−1248 Navarro JM, Duarte C, Manríquez PH, Lardies MA and oth-ers (2016) Ocean warming and elevated carbon dioxide: multiple stressor impacts on juvenile mussels from south-ern Chile. ICES J Mar Sci 73: 764−771 Nienhuis S, Palmer AR, Harley CD (2010) Elevated CO2 affects shell dissolution rate but not calcification rate in a marine snail. Proc R Soc B 277: 2553−2558 Orr JC, Fabry VJ, Aumont O, Bopp L and others (2005) Anthropogenic ocean acidification over the twenty-first century and its impact on calcifying organisms. Nature 437: 681−686 Osores SJ, Lagos NA, San Martin V, Manríquez PH and others (2017) Plasticity and inter-population variability in physiological and life-history traits of the mussel Mytilus chilensis: a reciprocal transplant experiment. J Exp Mar Biol Ecol 490: 1−12 Palmer AR (1982) Growth in marine gastropods: a non-destructive technique for independently measuring shell and body weight. Malacologia 23: 63−73 Parker LM, Ross PM, O’Connor WA, Borysko L, Raftos DA, Pörtner HO (2012) Adult exposure influences offspring response to ocean acidification in oysters. Glob Change Biol 18: 82−92 Pierrot D, Lewis E, Wallace DWR (2006) MS Excel program developed for CO2 system calculations. ORNL/CDIAC-105a. Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, US Department of Energy, Oak Ridge, TN Ramajo L, Marba N, Prado L, Peron S and others (2016) Bio-mineralization changes with food supply confer juvenile scallops (Argopecten purpuratus) resistance to ocean acidification. Glob Change Biol 22: 2025−2037 Range P, Chícharo MA, Ben-Hamadou R, Piló D and others (2014) Impacts of CO2-induced seawater acidification on coastal Mediterranean bivalves and interactions with other climatic stressors. Reg Environ Change 14(Suppl 1): 19−30 Sabine C, Feely RA, Gruber N, Key RM and others (2004) The oceanic sink of anthropogenic CO2. Science 305: 367–371 SERNAPESCA (Servicio Nacional de Pesca y Acuicultura) (2014) Anuarios estadísticos del Servicio Nacional de Pesca y Acuicultura. www.sernapesca.cl Solórzano L (1969) Determination of ammonia in natural waters by the phenolhypochlorite method. Limnol Oce - anogr 14: 799−801 Thomsen J, Melzner F (2010) Moderate seawater acidifica-tion does not elicit long-term metabolic depression in the blue mussel Mytilus edulis. Mar Biol 157: 2667−2676 Thomsen J, Casties I, Pansch C, Körtzinger A, Melzner F (2013) Food availability outweighs ocean acidification effects in juvenile Mytilus edulis: laboratory and field experiments. Glob Change Biol 19: 1017−1027 Thomsen J, Stapp LS, Haynert K, Schade H, Danelli M, Lannig G, Melzner F (2017) Naturally acidified habitat selects for ocean acidification-tolerant mussels. Sci Adv 3: e1602411 Toro B, Navarro JM, Palma-Fleming H (2003) Relationship between bioenergetics responses and organic pollutants in the giant mussel, Choromytilus chorus (Mollusca: Mytilidae). Aquat Toxicol 63: 257−269 Torres R, Pantoja S, Harada N, González HE, Daneri G, Frangopulos M, Fukasawa M (2011) Air-sea CO2 fluxes along the coast of Chile: from CO2 outgassing in central northern upwelling waters to CO2 uptake in southern Patagonian fjords. J Geophys Res 116: C09006 Torres R, Manriquez PH, Duarte C, Navarro JM, Lagos NA, Vargas CA, Lardies MA (2013) Evaluation of a semi - automatic system for long-term seawater carbonate chemistry manipulation. Rev Chil Hist Nat 86: 443−451 Vargas CA, Aguilera V, Martín V, Manríquez P and others (2015) CO2-driven ocean acidification disrupts the filter feeding behavior in Chilean gastropod and bivalve spe-cies from different geographic localities. Estuaries Coasts 38: 1163−1177 Vargas CA, Lagos NA, Lardies MA, Duarte C and others (2017) Species-specific responses to ocean acidification should account for local adaptation and adaptive plasti-city. Nature Ecol Evol 1: 0084 Vargas CA, Cuevas LA, Silva N, Gonzalez HE, Pol-Holz D, Narvaez DA (2018) Influence of glacier melting and river discharges on the nutrient distribution and DIC recycling in the southern Chilean Patagonia. J Geophys Res Bio-geosci 123: 256−270 Velasco LA, Navarro JM (2003) Energetic balance of infau-nal (Mulinia edulis King, 1831) and epifaunal (Mytilus chilensis Hupé, 1854) bivalves in response to wide varia-tions in concentration and quality of seston. J Exp Mar Biol Ecol 296: 79−92 Vihtakari M, Hendriks IE, Holding J, Renaud PE, Duarte CM, Havenhand JN (2013) Effects of ocean acidification and warming on sperm activity and early life stages of the Mediterranean mussel (Mytilus galloprovincialis). Water 5: 1890−1915 Wang Y, Li L, Hu M, Lu W (2015) Physiological energetic of the thick shell mussel Mytilus coruscus exposed to sea-water acidification and thermal stress. Sci Total Environ 514: 261−272 White MM, McCorkle DC, Mullineaux LS, Cohen AL (2013)Benthic habitats such as intertidal areas, sandy or rocky shores, upwelling zones, and estuaries are characterized by variable environmental conditions. This high variability of environmental stressors such as temperature, salinity, and pH/pCO 2 levels have been shown to impose restrictions on organismal performance. The giant mussel Choromytilus chorus forms intertidal and subtidal mussel beds in estuarine zones associated with fjords occurring in southern Chile and is an important aquacultural resource in Patagonia. In this study, we estimated the sensitivity of physiological traits and energy balance of C. chorus juveniles exposed to 3 pCO 2 treatments (500, 750, and 1200 μatm) for 30 d. Results showed that in acidified, high pCO 2 conditions, C. chorus juveniles had increased metabolic rates; however, other physiological traits (clearance and ingestion rates, ammonia excretion, absorption efficiency, growth rate, biomass production, net calcification, and dissolution rates) were not affected. These results suggest that when subjected to acidification, the adaptive response of C. chorus triggers tradeoffs among physiological traits that favor sustained feeding and growth in order to combat increased metabolic stress. As has been reported for other marine organisms, chronic exposure to variable pH/pCO 2 in their native habitats, such as estuarine zones, could explain the differential acclimatization capacity of giant mussels to cope with the increase in pCO 2 . Additionally, the fact that the mussels did not suffer from mortality indicates that increased pCO 2 levels may have chronic, but not lethal, effects on this species under these experimental conditions. © The authors 2017.https://www.int-res.com/abstracts/aei/v10/p267-278

Prolonged drying cycles stimulate ABA accumulation in Citrus macrophylla seedlings exposed to partial rootzone drying

Partial rootzone drying (PRD) establishes discrete wet and dry parts of the rootzone (for example using parallel drip lines on either side of the crop row), and alternates them to stimulate root growth and root-to-shoot ABA signalling. To assess whether alternation frequency affects plant physiological responses, Citrus macrophylla Wester seedlings were grown with the root system split between two pots and 5 irrigation treatments applied: Control, PRD-Fixed (where wet and dry parts of the rootzone were not alternated) and three alternate PRD treatments where the wet and dry parts were swapped at 3 (PRD1), 6 (PRD2) and 12 (PRD3) days intervals, to dry the soil to different degrees before alternating the irrigation. Water was equally distributed between both pots in Control plants, whereas only one pot was watered and the other allowed to dry in PRD plants, with all plants receiving the same irrigation volume. After 24 days, soil water content (θv), leaf water potential (Ψleaf), root water potential (Ψroot), abscisic acid (ABA) concentration in roots ([ABA]root), leaves ([ABA]leaf) and shoot xylem sap ([X-ABA]shoot), biomass allocation and leaf area were measured. Higher soil water availability of the dry side (PRD1 and PRD2) had no significant effects on leaf water relations, ABA status and plant biomass allocation. However, increasing the duration of exposure of part of the root system to dry soil (PRD3 and PRD-Fixed) further decreased Ψroot and stimulated root ABA accumulation, while decreasing Ψleaf and increasing [ABA]leaf of PRD3 plants compared to the other treatments. Differences in physiological response between PRD3 and PRD-Fixed plants were attributed to differences in the proportion of root mass exposed to drying soil: PRD3 plants had a lower Ψleaf and a higher [ABA]leaf with a smaller proportion of their root mass in wet soil. Since long drying cycles were required to alter plant biomass allocation and physiological responses in PRD plants, these should be implemented in designing suitable PRD strategies for field application

Active zone self-similarity of fractal sierpinski antenna verified using infra-red thermograms

The surface current distribution of a Sierpinski fractal antenna shows a self-similar behaviour determined by the self-similar properties of its geometry. The application of infra-red thermography to electromagnetic near field detection allows the experimental verification of the active region scaling of a fractal antenna operating at different bands.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

Contaminación de suelos y aguas subterraneas por vertidos industriales

In the industrialised countries, soil and groundwater contamination caused by uncontrolled spills of industrial wastes is one of the most critical environmental problem, because its removal is expensive and difficult to carry out, and the effects persist during many years. In Spain this problem is especially notorious due to an inadequate management policy derived from the absence of coordination between the different involved sectors. The treatment installations are inot enough, so it has produced spillings in streams and soils or its storage in uncontrolled landfillings.The experiences and guidelines of the Environmental Protection Agency from United States have served to the industrialised countries to evaluate this kind of contamination. This methodology is based on its identification and delimitation in soil and groundwater. After the design of a monitoring and control program it can be established the correcting measures. For this reason it is important to know the transfer processes of pollutants between the saturated and not saturated medium, for this reason it is essential the use of geochemical and geophysical methods and their combination with hydrogeological methods.In Spain, this kind of studies is only carried out recently. A case history is the contamination of the alluvial aquifer of the Besos river (Barcelona) by Cr-VI and other heavy metals and organic microcontaminants

Optimal electricity price calculation model for retailers in a deregulated market

The electricity retailing, a new business in deregulated electric power systems, needs the development of efficient tools to optimize its operation. This paper defines a technical-economic model of an electric energy service provider in the environment of the deregulated electricity market in Spain. This model results in an optimization problem, for calculating the optimal electric power and energy selling prices that maximize the economic profits obtained by the provider. This problem is applied to different cases, where the impact on the profits of several factors, such as the price strategy, the discount on tariffs and the elasticity of customer demand functions, is studied. © 2005 Published by Elsevier Ltd

Ultrasonic characterization of the pulmonary venous wall: echographic and histological correlation

Background: Pulmonary vein isolation with radiofrequency catheter ablation techniques is used to prevent recurrences of human atrial fibrillation. Visualization of the architecture at the venoatrial junction could be crucial for these ablative techniques. Our study assesses the potential for intravascular ultrasound to provide this information. Methods and Results: We retrieved 32 pulmonary veins from 8 patients dying from noncardiac causes. We obtained cross-sectional intravascular ultrasound (IVUS) images with a 3.2F, 30-MHz ultrasound catheter at intervals on each vein. Histological cross-sections at the intervals allowed comparisons with ultrasonic images. The pulmonary venous wall at the venoatrial junction revealed a 3-layered ultrasonic pattern. The inner echogenic layer represents both endothelium and connective tissue of the media (mean maximal thickness, 1.4±0.3 mm). The middle hypoechogenic stratum corresponds to the sleeves of left atrial myocardium surrounding the external aspect of the venous media. This layer was thickest at the venoatrial junction (mean maximal thickness, 2.6±0.8 mm) and decreased toward the lung hilum. The outer echodense layer corresponds to fibro-fatty adventitial tissue (mean maximal thickness, 2.15±0.36 mm). We found a close agreement among the IVUS and histological measurements for maximal luminal diameter (mean difference, -0.12±1.3 mm) and maximal muscular thickness (mean difference, 0.17±0.13 mm) using the Bland and Altman method. Conclusions: Our experimental study demonstrates for the first time that IVUS images of the pulmonary veins can provide information on the distal limits and thickness of the myocardial sleeves and can be a valuable tool to help accurate targeting during ablative procedures

Systematic review and critical appraisal of Childhood Trauma Questionnaire ¿ Short Form (CTQ-SF)

Background: Child maltreatment is a complex and multidimensional construct that encompasses a great number of risk factors. The Childhood Trauma Questionnaire ¿ Short Form, one of the most widely used and validated instruments to assess childhood maltreatment in the past ten years, is a retrospective instrument that assesses several types of childhood abuse and maltreatment which is divided into five dimensions. Objective: The objectives of this systematic review are to critically appraise, compare, and summarize the methodological quality and psychometric properties of published research articles validating the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire ¿ Short Form utilizing the COSMIN checklist. Method: Articles published in English or Spanish, in the past ten years in the databases of Scopus, Web of Science, and ProQuest, and which, directly or indirectly analyzed psychometric properties of the CTQ-SF were screened, examined, and assessed utilizing the COSMIN checklist. Results: Main results indicate that there is a general pattern of assessing the same three psychometric properties (internal consistency, structural validity, and hypothesis testing) in a variety of samples, but leaving unassessed the rest of properties examined by the COSMIN checklist. Additionally, there are some problems with the internal consistency of several factors. Implications and conclusions: While replicability and internal consistency are good psychometric indicators of the CTQ-SF, there is a big scientific gap of information regarding some psychometric properties. It is suggested that future research should address the remaining psychometric properties, reliability, measurement error, content validity, cross cultural and criterion validity, as well as re-examining internal consistency of some dimensions, in order to advance in the knowledge on childhood maltreatment assessment