Sub-lethal effects of potassium dichromate on hematological and histological parameters in climbing perch, Anabas testudineus (Anabantidae)

Chromium, which enters the river through anthropogenic sources, is one of the potent heavy metals. The present study is an attempt to determine the LC50 of Potassium dichromate for the climbing perch, Anabas testudineus and to study the impact of two sub-lethal concentrations (6 and 12 mg/l) of Potassium dichromate the toxic hexavalent Cr(VI) form of Chromium on this fish through investigating hematological and histopathological parameters. Experimental set up included quadruplicate treatments for each dosage, and the results were compared with control treatments. The results showed that the LC50 value at 96 hr was 59.92 mg/l. The fishes exposed to sub-lethal concentrations showed severe abnormalities such as; degeneration of hepatocytes, necrosis of hepatic tissue and extensive haemorrhage in gills and renal tissue. The present study brings out the harmful impact of Cr(VI) in the aquatic environment and necessitates regulations of its inflow to natural water bodies as a management plan to curb its contamination

Climate change impact on the feeding habits of Indian mackerel observed along the Kerala coast

While most food and feeding research in fisheries emphasize the feeding habits and diet components of the fish, the aim of the present work was to assess any change in the diet composition of Indian mackerel Rastrelliger kanagurta (Cuvier, 1816) and identify the role of climate change in effecting it. Non-parametric statistical technique, the Generalized Additive Model (GAMs) was used for modeling the causal link of diet changes in relation to climate change using mgcv package of R software. Monthly Index of Relative Importance (IRI) was calculated for 36 months from January 2013 to December 2015 and major prey items in the diet were identified. Climatic variables - Sea Surface Temperature (SST), precipitation (Pr), Chlorophyll a (Chl a), salinity and Ekman transport or coastal upwelling index (CUI)) pertaining to the study area were extracted for the period. Length-wise IRI was compared to check the existing patterns in the feeding habits of the fish. The dominant prey items observed in the gut of Indian mackerel during the study period were diatoms ( Fragillaria sp., Nitzchia sp., Thalassiothrix sp., Thalassiosira sp. and Coscinodiscus sp.), dinoflagellates (Ceratium sp., Ornothocercus sp., Dinophysis sp. and Prorocentrum sp.), copepods (Calanoida, Cyclopoida and Harpacticoida), decapods (Acetes) and tintinnids (Tintinnopsis sp., Codenellopsis sp. and Flavella sp). GAM models were fitted with monthly IRI of the major prey items (copepods, diatoms, dinoflagellates, Acetes and tintinnids) in the gut and climatic variables. Model selection was done in terms of sharpening the relation between the predictors and the response variable using Akaike information criterion, R-squared and F-statistics. GAM model results revealed that occurrence of prey items in the diet of Indian mackerel were influenced by environmental variables. An increase in the relative importance of dinoflagellates, Acetes and tintintids in the diet over the historic period was observed. The study also revealed a shift in the diet composition of younger fishes. The results of the current study provide a more in-depth assessment of the nonlinear relationship between climatic variables and diet composition of Indian mackerel

Marine climate and fisheries scenario of Kerala Climcard-3

Marine climate and fisheries scenario of Kerala Climcard-

Adaptations to Climate Change Impacts on Coastal Fisheries and Aquaculture

Adaptations to Climate Change Impacts on Coastal Fisheries and Aquacultur

Effect of Climatic Variability on the Fishery of Indian Oil Sardine Along Kerala Coast

Indian oil sardine (IOS), the commercially and ecologically important pelagic fish of the Kerala coast is susceptible to climatic variation. The study analyzes the impact of climate change on the catch of Sardinella longiceps along the Kerala coast and tries to predict the catch trend under the two RCP scenarios 4.5 and 6.0 for the period 2020-2100. Monthly catch of IOS by major gears for the period 1990-2016 was collected and Relative effort (Effort) and Weighted CPUE (cpue) were accordingly estimated. The climatic variables Sea Surface Temperature (SST), Precipitation (Pr), Chlorophyll a (SSC) and Salinity (SSS) were obtained from NOAA/NASA. The relationship of cpue and Effort of IOS to environmental variables were explored by Generalized Additive Model. The best fit model was selected using lowest Akaike information criterion (AIC) value, Deviance and F statistic. Predictions of cpue and Effort under RCP 4.5 and RCP 6.0 were done and the catch of IOS was estimated. The GAM model revealed the variations in the catch of IOS in relation to climate change. The SST, SSS and Pr showed a negative relation whereas SSC was found to be positively related to the catch of IOS. The results of the study indicate a decreasing trend of cpue and catch and an increasing trend of Effort towards 2100 under both climate change scenarios

MMS2plot: An R Package for Visualizing Multiple MS/MS Spectra for Groups of Modified and Non-Modified Peptides

A large number of post-translational modifications (PTMs) in proteins are buried in the unassigned mass spectrometric (MS) spectra in shot-gun proteomics datasets. Because the modified peptide fragments are low in abundance relative to the corresponding non-modified versions, it is critical to develop tools that allow facile evaluation of assignment of PTMs based on the MS/MS spectra. Such tools will preferably have the ability to allow comparison of fragment ion spectra and retention time between the modified and unmodified peptide pairs or group. Herein, MMS2plot, an R package for visualizing peptide-spectrum matches (PSMs) for multiple peptides, is described. MMS2plot features a batch mode and generates the output images in vector graphics file format that facilitate evaluation and publication of the PSM assignment. MMS2plot is expected to play an important role in PTM discovery from large-scale proteomics datasets generated by liquid chromatography-MS/MS. The MMS2plot package is freely available at https://github.com/lileir/MMS2plot under the GPL-3 license

Seasonal variability in the distribution of microplastics in the coastal ecosystems and in some commercially important fishes of the Gulf of Mannar and Palk Bay, Southeast coast of India

Impact of microplastic pollution on the marine environment and its biota is a major concern globally. Gulf of Mannar (GoM) and Palk Bay (PB) are two important biodiversity hotspots along the south-east coast of India. However, in the recent years the intense tourism and fishery activities have made the ecosystem and biota of these two ecologically significant coastal zones vulnerable to microplastic contamination. Hence, a comparative study on the seasonal distribution of microplastics in the surface waters, sediments, and in commercially important fishes were conducted to evaluate the threats imposed by microplastics on the environment and biota of both these coastal ecosystems. Microplastic distribution in the surface waters and sediments of GoM and PB exhibited conspicuous seasonal variation and showed positive correlation with the seasonal current patterns. In the surface waters of GoM, microplastics were abundant during the South West Monsoon whereas in PB it was high during the Early Winter Monsoon period. In the sediments of PB, microplastics was more during Spring Inter-monsoonand South West Monsoon whereas in GoM it was high during Late Winter Monsoon. Fragments, of size 1 to 5 mm formed the abundant microplastic type in the surface waters whereas in the sediments, fragments of size < 1 mm dominated. Of the gut content of the 613 fishes belonging to 12 families examined, microplastics were more in pelagic than demersal fishes with higher incidences in the family Clupeidae (42%). Among the fishes studied, microplastic ingestion was more in Selaroides leptolepis (27.77%), Sphyraena sp. (14.28%), Pelates quadrilineatus (12%), Caranx sp. (10.34%), and Sphyraena barracuda (10%)

Application of Information Communication Technology in Coastal Resilience through Income Improvement

Application of Information Communication Technology in Coastal Resilience through Income Improvemen

Gramene: a bird's eye view of cereal genomes

Rice, maize, sorghum, wheat, barley and the other major crop grasses from the family Poaceae (Gramineae) are mankind's most important source of calories and contribute tens of billions of dollars annually to the world economy (FAO 1999, ; USDA 1997, ). Continued improvement of Poaceae crops is necessary in order to continue to feed an ever-growing world population. However, of the major crop grasses, only rice (Oryza sativa), with a compact genome of ∼400 Mbp, has been sequenced and annotated. The Gramene database () takes advantage of the known genetic colinearity (synteny) between rice and the major crop plant genomes to provide maize, sorghum, millet, wheat, oat and barley researchers with the benefits of an annotated genome years before their own species are sequenced. Gramene is a one stop portal for finding curated literature, genetic and genomic datasets related to maps, markers, genes, genomes and quantitative trait loci. The addition of several new tools to Gramene has greatly facilitated the potential for comparative analysis among the grasses and contributes to our understanding of the anatomy, development, environmental responses and the factors influencing agronomic performance of cereal crops. Since the last publication on Gramene database by D. H. Ware, P. Jaiswal, J. Ni, I. V. Yap, X. Pan, K. Y. Clark, L. Teytelman, S. C. Schmidt, W. Zhao, K. Chang et al. [(2002), Plant Physiol., 130, 1606–1613], the database has undergone extensive changes that are described in this publication