Workshop on oiled seabird cleaning and rehabilitation : proceedings of a workshop held in Townsville, Australia, 26 February 1991

This report is a summary of the proceedings from the Oiled Seabird Cleaning and Rehabilitation Workshop, the first in Queensland to address this issue. It is hoped that more workshops will be held in the future.Table of Contents: Dr Wendy Craik, Seabird Cleaning and Rehabilitation in the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park 17; Mr Terry Walker, Seabird Distribution on the Great Barrier Reef 24; Dr Peter Dann and Dr Ros Jessop, The Effect of Oil on Birds 37; Ms Erna Walraven and Mr Larry Vogelnest, Emergency Care for Birds at Lake Liddell Oil Spill 44; Mr Peter Brookhouse, Management of Wildlife Operations 49; and Material Submitted: Dr Geoffrey Smith, Rescuing Oiled Seabirds 61

Workshop on the use of bioremediation for oil spill response in the Great Barrier Reef Region : proceedings of a workshop held in Townsville, Australia, 25 February 1991

The intensity of shipping within the Great Barrier Reef presents a very real threat to the’ Reef from oil spills. In response to this threat, the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority and the Commonwealth Department of Transport and Communications have developed REEFPLAN, the marine pollution contingency plan for the Great Barrier Reef Region. As of 1 January 1991, the role of the Department of Transport and Communications under REEFPLAN has been taken over by the Australian Maritime Safety Authority.Table of Contents: Papers Presented: Dr Wendy Craik, Bioremediation in the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park 15; Dr Riehard Edgehill, Bioremediation - The Biological, Physical, and Chemical Bases 20; Dr Bruce Kelley and Mr Stuart Rhodes, Bioremediation of Industrial Wastes 26; Ms Randi Larson, Research into Bioremediation of Oil and Related Compounds in Australia 32; Prof. Paul Greenfield, Bioremediation Applications in the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park 41; Dr Alan Sheehy, Bioremediation of Oil Spills 45; Mr Locon Wall, The Exxon Valdez Oil Spill - Woodward-Clyde Consultants' Contributions to Bioremediation 48; Papers Submitted: American Society for Microbiology, Biodegradation of Oil in the Open Ocean 53; and Ms Rebecca Hoff Bioremediation for Oil Spills - Update 55

A new family of diverse skin peptides from the microhylid frog genus phrynomantis

A wide range of frogs produce skin poisons composed of bioactive peptides for defence against pathogens, parasites and predators. While several frog families have been thoroughly screened for skin-secreted peptides, others, like the Microhylidae, have remained mostly unexplored. Previous studies of microhylids found no evidence of peptide secretion, suggesting that this defence adaptation was evolutionarily lost. We conducted transcriptome analyses of the skins of Phrynomantis bifasciatus and Phrynomantis microps, two African microhylid species long suspected to be poisonous. Our analyses reveal 17 evolutionary related transcripts that diversified from to those of cytolytic peptides found in other frog families. The 19 peptides predicted to be processed from these transcripts, named phrynomantins, show a striking structural diversity that is distinct from any previously identified frog skin peptide. Functional analyses of five phrynomantins confirm the loss of a cytolytic function and the absence of insecticidal or proinflammatory activity, suggesting that they represent an evolutionary transition to a new, yet unknown function. Our study shows that peptides have been retained in the defence poison of at least one microhylid lineage and encourages research on similarly understudied taxa to further elucidate the diversity and evolution of skin defence molecules