Reproductive cycle, nutrition and growth of captive blue spotted stingray, Dasyatis kuhlii (Dasyatidae)

At Burgers' Ocean 7 male and 3 female blue spotted stingrays, Dasyatis kuhlii were born over a period of 4.5 years. This paper describes the experiences of the captive breeding results of this species. The first two young died within 2 days of birth. One of them had an internal yolk sac, which may feed the young in the first few days. The other eight animals started to feed after 4 to 9 days on a variety of food types. Birth size of the young increased with increasing age of the parents. Mating occurred directly after parturition, so no seasonality could be defined. Gestation length ranged between 138 and 169 days, with a mean of 144.9±9.0 days (N = 11). Litter size was one, possibly caused by only one active ovarium. Sexual maturity of the two parent animals is approximately 3.5 years. The average feeding rations for the adults ranged between 10.1% BW week-1 (131 kcal kg BW-1 week-1) and 11.3% BW week-1 (172 kcal kg BW-1 week-1), with a feeding frequency of 4 times per week. The relationship between body weight (BW) and wingspan (WS) is given as BW = 3.6 × 10-5* WS2.940 (R2 = 0.9645; N = 45) (Received December 10 2007) (Accepted April 17 2009) (Online publication August 06 2009

Partitioning the impact of environmental drivers and species interactions in dynamic aquatic communities

© The Author(s), 2019. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in Musters, C. J. M., Ieromina, O., Barmentlo, S. H., Hunting, E. R., Schrama, M., Cieraad, E., Vijver, M. G., & van Bodegom, P. M. Partitioning the impact of environmental drivers and species interactions in dynamic aquatic communities. Ecosphere, 10(11), (2019): e02910, doi:10.1002/ecs2.2910.Temperate aquatic communities are highly diverse and seasonally variable, due to internal biotic processes and environmental drivers, including human‐induced stressors. The impact of drivers on species abundance is supposed to differ fundamentally depending on whether populations are experiencing limitations, which may shift over the season. However, an integrated understanding of how drivers structure communities seasonally is currently lacking. In order to partition the effect of drivers, we used random forests to quantify interactions between all taxa and environmental factors using macrofaunal data from 18 agricultural ditches sampled over two years. We found that, over the agricultural season, taxon abundance became increasingly better predicted by the abundances of co‐occurring taxa and nutrients compared to other abiotic factors, including pesticides. Our approach provides fundamental insights in community dynamics and highlights the need to consider changes in species interactions to understand the effects of anthropogenic stressors.The authors are grateful to B. Schaub of Water Board Rijnland for his help, E. Gertenaar for assistance in the fieldwork, M. Wouterse for DOC measurements, and B. Koese for help with taxonomic identification of macrofaunal samples. CM designed the study, did the statistical modeling and analyses, and wrote the draft paper; OI did field sampling and taxonomic identification and constructed the datasets; OI and HB structured the data; EH, MS, ES, MV, and PvB contributed to the study design and the conceptual improvement of the manuscript; all authors substantially revised the subsequent drafts

Electrodynamics of quasi-two-dimensional BEDT-TTF charge transfer salts

We consider the millimeter-wave electrodynamics specific to quasi-two-dimensional conductors and superconductors based on the organic donor molecule BEDT-TTF. Using realistic physical parameters, we examine the current polarizations that result for different oscillating (GHz) electric and magnetic field polarizations. We show that, in general, it is possible to discriminate between effects (dissipation and dispersion) due to in-plane and interlayer ac currents. However, we also show that it is not possible to selectively probe any single component of the in-plane conductivity tensor, and that excitation of interlayer currents is strongly influenced by the sample geometry and the electromagnetic field polarization.Comment: 5 pages including 3 figures Minor correction to figure

Carbohydrate utilisation by tilapia: a meta-analytical approach

Currently, studies reporting the digestibility of carbohydrates, starch and especially non-starch polysaccharides (NSP) in fish are scarce. Carbohydrate digestibility in the diet is largely dependent upon carbohydrate composition (starch vs. NSP). NSP are often considered to be indigestible and thus of no nutritional value. The present study reviews carbohydrates in fish feed, distinguishing between total carbohydrate, starch and NSP. Besides a qualitative approach, a meta-analysis was performed, compiling available data from digestibility studies on tilapia. Our meta-analysis confirms the negative effect of NSP on performance (FCR) and nutrient digestibility (crude protein, fat and energy). However, an average NSP digestibility of 24.3% was calculated in 95 cases. Out of these 95 cases, 88% of them showed a positive NSP digestibility. NSP digestibility was shown to contribute to energy digestibility. The digestion of NSP in fish is associated with fermentation in the gut, producing beneficial volatile fatty acids that are rapidly absorbed by the colonic lumen. Therefore, in diet formulation, digestibility and thus energy originating from NSP should be taken into consideration because NSP contribute to the energy needs of fish, here tilapia. Besides being an energy source, specific types of NSP may have immune-modulating and prebiotic effects and may be increasingly added to fish feed as modulators of fish health. We suggest that NSP is potentially (partly) digested by a wide range of fish species, especially by warm-water species with a long gut adapted to feeding on plant matter, as these factors favour gut fermentation.</p

Maternal and Paternal Risk Factors for Cryptorchidism and Hypospadias: A Case–Control Study in Newborn Boys

Little is known on environmental risk factors for cryptorchidism and hypospadias, which are among the most frequent congenital abnormalities. The aim of our study was to identify risk factors for cryptorchidism and hypospadias, with a focus on potential endocrine disruptors in parental diet and occupation. In a case–control study nested within a cohort of 8,698 male births, we compared 78 cryptorchidism cases and 56 hypospadias cases with 313 controls. The participation rate was 85% for cases and 68% for controls. Through interviews, information was collected on pregnancy aspects and personal characteristics, lifestyle, occupation, and dietary phytoestrogen intake of both parents. Occupational exposure to potential endocrine disruptors was classified based on self-reported exposure and ratings of occupational hygienists based on job descriptions. Our findings indicate that paternal pesticide exposure was associated with cryptorchidism [odds ratio (OR) = 3.8; 95% confidence interval (95% CI), 1.1–13.4]. Smoking of the father was associated with hypospadias (OR = 3.8; 95% CI, 1.8–8.2). Maternal occupational, dietary, and lifestyle exposures were not associated with either abnormality. Both abnormalities were associated with suboptimal maternal health, a lower maternal education, and a Turkish origin of the parents. Being small for gestational age was a risk factor for hypospadias, and preterm birth was a risk factor for cryptorchidism. Because paternal pesticide exposure was significantly associated with cryptorchidism and paternal smoking was associated with hypospadias in male offspring, paternal exposure should be included in further studies on cryptorchidism and hypospadias risk factors

Crop yield gap and stability in organic and conventional farming systems

A key challenge for sustainable intensification of agriculture is to produce increasing amounts of food and feed with minimal biodiversity loss, nutrient leaching, and greenhouse gas emissions. Organic farming is considered more sustainable, however, less productive than conventional farming. We analysed results from an experiment started under identical soil conditions comparing one organic and two conventional farming systems. Initially, yields in the organic farming system were lower, but approached those of both conventional systems after 10-13 years, while requiring lower nitrogen inputs. Unexpectedly, organic farming resulted in lower coefficient of variation, indicating enhanced spatial stability, of pH, nutrient mineralization, nutrient availability, and abundance of soil biota. Organic farming also resulted in improved soil structure with higher organic matter concentrations and higher soil aggregation, a profound reduction in groundwater nitrate concentrations, and fewer plant-parasitic nematodes. Temporal stability between the three farming systems was similar, but when excluding years of Phytophthora outbreaks in potato, temporal stability was higher in the organic farming system. There are two non-mutually exclusive mechanistic explanations for these results. First, the enhanced spatial stability in the organic farming system could result from changes in resource-based (i.e. bottom-up) processes, which coincides with the observed higher nutrient provisioning throughout the season in soils with more organic matter. Second, enhanced resource inputs may also affect stability via increased predator-based (i.e. top-down) control. According to this explanation, predators stabilize population dynamics of soil organisms, which is supported by the observed higher soil food web biomass in the organic farming system.We conclude that closure of the yield gap between organic and conventional farming can be a matter of time and that organic farming may result in greater spatial stability of soil biotic and abiotic properties and soil processes. This is likely due to the time required to fundamentally alter soil properties.Article / Letter to editorCentrum voor Milieuwetenschappen Leide

Effect of carcass contamination on necrophagous invertebrate performance

Background The breakdown of dead organic matter is driven by a diverse array of organisms and is an important process increasingly impacted by a range of contaminants. While many studies have documented how contaminants affect food webs that are fueled by decaying plant litters, much less is known about how contaminants affect organisms that rely on dead animal material. Here, we begin to explore the effects of food contamination—using silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) as a model contaminant—on the carrion beetle Nicrophorus vespilloides that buries carcasses of small vertebrates in soils as food source and larval nursing grounds. Results Our data show that a single ingestion of a non-lethal dose of 1 μg mL−1 AgNPs by adult female beetles does not affect overall gut microbial activity but results in shifts in the gut microbial community composition towards pathogens including Alcaligenes, Morganella, and Pseudomonas. While no effects were observed in offspring clutch size, some reductions were visible in clutch weight, number of larvae, and number of eclosing pupae in exposed N. vespilloides in comparison with controls. Repeated ingestion of AgNPs over several weeks led to a decrease in survival of adult beetles, suggesting that more environmentally realistic exposure scenarios can directly affect the success of carcass-feeding animals. Conclusions Sub-lethal carcass contamination with a model pollutant can affect the gut microbial composition in female beetles and reduce offspring fitness. This encourages consideration of currently overlooked propagation routes of contaminants through necrophagous food webs and inherent consequences for ecological and evolutionary processes.publishedVersio

Invloed mengen op stofwisseling van biggen

Het mengen van biggen (bij ongeveer 20 kg) zonder verplaatsing heeft geen langdurige invloed op de stofwisseling. De warmteproductie gedurende de eerste twee uur direct na het mengen is wél verhoogd vanwege actief gedrag

Fermi Surface Study of Quasi-Two-Dimensional Organic Conductors by Magnetooptical Measurements

Magnetooptical measurements of several quasi-two-dimensional (q2D) organic conductors, which have simple Fermi surface structure, have been performed by using a cavity perturbation technique. Despite of the simple Fermi surface structure, magnetooptical resonance results show a dramatic difference for each sample. Cyclotron resonances (CR) were observed for q-(BEDT-TTF)2I3 and (BEDT-TTF)3Br(pBIB), while periodic orbit resonances (POR) were observed for (BEDT-TTF)2Br(DIA) and (BEDT-TTF)3Cl(DFBIB). The selection of the resonance seems to correspond with the skin depth for each sample. The effective mass of POR seems to have a mass enhancement due to the many-body effect, while effective mass of CR is independent of the strength of the electron-electron interaction. The scattering time deduced from each resonance's linewidth will be also presented.Comment: 10 pages, 8 figures, to be published to J. Phys. Soc. Jpn Vol.72 No.1 (accepted