Lake Baikal Ecosystem Faces the Threat of Eutrophication

Recently there have been reports about large accumulations of algae on the beaches of Lake Baikal, the oldest and deepest freshwater body on earth, near major population centers and in areas with large concentrations of tourists and tourism infrastructure. To evaluate the observations indicating the ongoing process of eutrophication of Lake Baikal, a field study in July 2012 in the two largest bays of Lake Baikal, Barguzinsky and Chivyrkuisky, was organized. The study of phytoplankton using the sedimentary method and quantitative records of accumulations of macrophytes in the surf zone was made. In Chivyrkuisky Bay, we found the massive growth of colorless flagellates and cryptomonads as well as the aggregations of Elodea canadensis along the sandy shoreline (up to 26 kg/m2). Barguzinsky Bay registered abundantly cyanobacterial Anabaena species, cryptomonads, and extremely high biomass of Spirogyra species (up to 70 kg/m3). The results show the presence of local but significant eutrophication of investigated bays. To prevent further extensions of this process in unique ecosystem of Lake Baikal, the detailed study and monitoring of the coastal zone, the identification of the sources of eutrophication, and the development of measures to reduce nutrient inputs in the waters are urgently needed

Small HSPs molecular weights as new indication to the hypothesis of segregated status of thermophilic relict Gmelinoides fasciatus among baikal and palearctic amphipods

Among the great diverse of Baikal fauna of amphipods (more than 350 species and subspecies) Gmelinoides fasciatus (Stebbing 1899) takes the special place. It is characterized by a high morphological variability and wide thermal-adaptive possibilities. By common opinion G. fasciatus is a thermophilic relict segregated from other Baikal temperature sensitive amphipods' fauna. In present study we tested hypothesis of segregated status of G. fasciatus among some Baikal and some Palearctic amphipods using of heat-shock proteins’ (HSP) molecular weight as comparative biomarkers. We used heat-shock proteins (HSP) from two families: HSP70 and small HSP (sHSP) immunochemically related to α-crystalline. 15 species of Baikal amphipods from different genera and families and 2 Palearctic species from genus Gammarus were tested. It was shown, that molecular weights of HSP70 were the same in all investigated species and corresponds close to 70 kD. In the contrast, the molecular weights of sHSP in G. fasciatus was 37 kD and differed from all other species, in which molecular weights of sHSP were 35 kD. In sum, this study showed that sHSPs molecular weights may relate to evolutional differences between the close related species. Additionally, obtained data can be taken as new indication of segregated status of thermophilic relict G. fasciatus which linked with its phylogenetic history in Lake Baikal

Remote in vivo stress assessment of aquatic animals with microencapsulated biomarkers for environmental monitoring

Remote in vivo scanning of physiological parameters is a major trend in the development of new tools for the fields of medicine and animal physiology. For this purpose, a variety of implantable optical micro- and nanosensors have been designed for potential medical applications. At the same time, the important area of environmental sciences has been neglected in the development of techniques for remote physiological measurements. In the field of environmental monitoring and related research, there is a constant demand for new effective and quick techniques for the stress assessment of aquatic animals, and the development of proper methods for remote physiological measurements in vivo may significantly increase the precision and throughput of analyses in this field. In the present study, we apply pH-sensitive microencapsulated biomarkers to remotely monitor the pH of haemolymph in vivo in endemic amphipods from Lake Baikal, and we compare the suitability of this technique for stress assessment with that of common biochemical methods. For the first time, we demonstrate the possibility of remotely detecting a change in a physiological parameter in an aquatic organism under ecologically relevant stressful conditions and show the applicability of techniques using microencapsulated biomarkers for remote physiological measurements in environmental monitoring

SYSTEMATICS, ECOLOGY AND DISTRIBUTION OF ENDEMIC BAIKAL FRESHWATER STRIMPS (POEKTILOGAMMARUS, PLESIOGAMMARUS AND PACHYSCHESIS GENUSES)

The field gatherings by bim-trawl, Sigsby trawl and "Okean" dredger and also the phylogenetic analysis on base of the morphological signs have been performed. 12 taxa being new for science have been described. Nine evolutional tendences among fauna of the Baikal amphipodes and also the problems about zoogeographic status of Baikal Lake, about internal zoning of the lake and about possible causes in the taxonomic variety of the freshwater strimps have been considered. The verified descriptions and diagnostics of the species with detailed figures and also the new determinating keys can be used by the specialist-hydrobiologistes passing a practical work on the Baikal LakeAvailable from VNTIC / VNTIC - Scientific & Technical Information Centre of RussiaSIGLERURussian Federatio