43 research outputs found
How do nutrient conditions and species identity influence the impact of mesograzers in eelgrass-epiphyte systems?
Coastal eutrophication is thought to cause excessive growth of epiphytes in eelgrass beds, threatening the health and survival of these ecologically and economically valuable ecosystems worldwide. Mesograzers, small crustacean and gastropod grazers, have the potential to prevent seagrass loss by grazing preferentially and efficiently on epiphytes. We tested the impact of three mesograzers on epiphyte biomass and eelgrass productivity under threefold enriched nutrient concentrations in experimental indoor mesocosm systems under summer conditions. We compared the results with earlier identical experiments that were performed under ambient nutrient supply. The isopod Idotea baltica, the periwinkle Littorina littorea, and the small gastropod Rissoa membranacea significantly reduced epiphyte load under high nutrient supply with Rissoa being the most efficient grazer, but only high densities of Littorina and Rissoa had a significant positive effect on eelgrass productivity. Although all mesograzers increased epiphyte ingestion with higher nutrient load, most likely as a functional response to the quantitatively and qualitatively better food supply, the promotion of eelgrass growth by Idotea and Rissoa was diminished compared to the study performed under ambient nutrient supply. Littorina maintained the level of its positive impact on eelgrass productivity regardless of nutrient concentrations
Cystic Fibrosis-Niche Adaptation of Pseudomonas aeruginosa Reduces Virulence in Multiple Infection Hosts
The opportunistic pathogen Pseudomonas aeruginosa is able to thrive in diverse ecological niches and to cause serious human infection. P. aeruginosa environmental strains are producing various virulence factors that are required for establishing acute infections in several host organisms; however, the P. aeruginosa phenotypic variants favour long-term persistence in the cystic fibrosis (CF) airways. Whether P. aeruginosa strains, which have adapted to the CF-niche, have lost their competitive fitness in the other environment remains to be investigated. In this paper, three P. aeruginosa clonal lineages, including early strains isolated at the onset of infection, and late strains, isolated after several years of chronic lung infection from patients with CF, were analysed in multi-host model systems of acute infection. P. aeruginosa early isolates caused lethality in the three non-mammalian hosts, namely Caenorhabditis elegans, Galleria mellonella, and Drosophila melanogaster, while late adapted clonal isolates were attenuated in acute virulence. When two different mouse genetic background strains, namely C57Bl/6NCrl and Balb/cAnNCrl, were used as acute infection models, early P. aeruginosa CF isolates were lethal, while late isolates exhibited reduced or abolished acute virulence. Severe histopathological lesions, including high leukocytes recruitment and bacterial load, were detected in the lungs of mice infected with P. aeruginosa CF early isolates, while late isolates were progressively cleared. In addition, systemic bacterial spread and invasion of epithelial cells, which were detected for P. aeruginosa CF early strains, were not observed with late strains. Our findings indicate that niche-specific selection in P. aeruginosa reduced its ability to cause acute infections across a broad range of hosts while maintaining the capacity for chronic infection in the CF host
The Hidden Sexuality of Alexandrium Minutum: An Example of Overlooked Sex in Dinoflagellates
Dinoflagellates are haploid eukaryotic microalgae in which rapid proliferation causes dense
blooms, with harmful health and economic effects to humans. The proliferation mode is
mainly asexual, as the sexual cycle is believed to be rare and restricted to stressful environmental
conditions. However, sexuality is key to explaining the recurrence of many dinoflagellate
blooms because in many species the fate of the planktonic zygotes (planozygotes)
is the formation of resistant cysts in the seabed (encystment). Nevertheless, recent
research has shown that individually isolated planozygotes in the lab can enter other routes
besides encystment, a behavior of which the relevance has not been explored at the population
level. In this study, using imaging flow cytometry, cell sorting, and Fluorescence In
Situ Hybridization (FISH), we followed DNA content and nuclear changes in a population of
the toxic dinoflagellate Alexandrium minutum that was induced to encystment. Our results
first show that planozygotes behave like a population with an âencystment-independentâ
division cycle, which is light-controlled and follows the same Light:Dark (L:D) pattern as the
cycle governing the haploid mitosis. Resting cyst formation was the fate of just a small fraction
of the planozygotes formed and was restricted to a period of strongly limited nutrient
conditions. The diploid-haploid turnover between L:D cycles was consistent with two-step
meiosis. However, the diel and morphological division pattern of the planozygote division
also suggests mitosis, which would imply that this species is not haplontic, as previously
considered, but biphasic, because individuals could undergo mitotic divisions in both the
sexual (diploid) and the asexual (haploid) phases. We also report incomplete genome duplication
processes. Our work calls for a reconsideration of the dogma of rare sex in
dinoflagellates.VersiĂłn del edito
Cascading effects from predator removal depend on resource availability in a benthic food web
Resistance of thermally modified ash (Fraxinus excelsior L.) wood under steam pressure against rot fungi, soil-inhabiting micro-organisms and termites
Thermal modification processes have been developed to increase the biological durability and dimensional stability of wood. The aim of this paper was to study the influence of ThermoWoodÂź treatment intensity on improvement of wood decay resistance against soil-inhabiting micro-organisms, brown/white rots and termite exposures. All of the tests were carried out in the laboratory with two different complementary research materials. The main research material consisted of ash (Fraxinus excelsior L.) wood thermally modified at temperatures of 170, 200, 215 and 228 °C. The reference materials were untreated ash and beech wood for decay resistance tests, untreated ash wood for soil bed tests and untreated ash, beech and pine wood for termite resistance tests. An agar block test was used to determine the resistance to two brown-rot and two white-rot fungi according to CEN/TS 15083-1 directives. Durability against soil-inhabiting micro-organisms was determined following the CEN/TS 15083-2 directives, by measuring the weight loss, modulus of elasticity (MOE) and modulus of rupture (MOR) after incubation periods of 24, 32 and 90 weeks. Finally, Reticulitermes santonensis species was used for determining the termite attack resistance by non-choice screening tests, with a size sample adjustment according to EN 117 standard directives on control samples and on samples which have previously been exposed to soil bed test. Thermal modification increased the biological durability of all samples. However, high thermal modification temperature above 215 °C, represented by a wood mass loss (ML%) due to thermal degradation of 20%, was needed to reach resistance against decay comparable with the durability classes of ââdurableââ or ââvery durableââ in the soil bed test. The brown-rot and white-rot tests gave slightly better durability classes than the soil bed test. Whatever the heat treatment conditions are, thermally modified ash wood was not efficient against termite attack neither before nor after soft rot degradation
Context-dependent associations between heterozygosity and immune variation in a wild carnivore
Background: A multitude of correlations between heterozygosity and fitness proxies associated with disease have been reported from wild populations, but the genetic basis of these associations is unresolved. We used a longitudinal dataset on wild Galapagos sea lions (Zalophus wollebaeki) to develop a relatively new perspective on this problem, by testing for associations between heterozygosity and immune variation across age classes and between ecological contexts. Results: Homozygosity by locus was negatively correlated with serum immunoglobulin G production in pups (0-3 months of age), suggesting that reduced genetic diversity has a detrimental influence on the early development of immune defence in the Galapagos sea lion. In addition, homozygosity by locus was positively correlated with total circulating leukocyte concentration in juveniles (6-24 months of age), but only in a colony subject to the anthropogenic environmental impacts of development, pollution and introduced species, which suggests that reduced genetic diversity influences mature immune system activity in circumstances of high antigen exposure. Conclusions: These findings demonstrate the environmental context-dependency of the phenotypic expression of immune variation, which is implicit in the theory of ecoimmunology, but which has been rarely demonstrated in the wild. They also indicate that heterozygosity may be linked to the maintenance of heterogeneity in mammalian immune system development and response to infection, adding to the body of evidence on the nature of the mechanistic link between heterozygosity and fitness