Early environment influences later performance in fishes

Conditions fish encounter during embryogenesis and early life history can leave lasting effects not only on morphology, but also on growth rate, life‐history and behavioural traits. The ecology of offspring can be affected by conditions experienced by their parents and mother in particular. This review summarizes such early impacts and their ecological influences for a variety of teleost species, but with special reference to salmonids. Growth and adult body size, sex ratio, egg size, lifespan and tendency to migrate can all be affected by early influences. Mechanisms behind such phenotypically plastic impacts are not well known, but epigenetic change appears to be one central mechanism. The thermal regime during development and incubation is particularly important, but also early food consumption and intraspecific density can all be responsible for later life‐history variation. For behavioural traits, early experiences with effects on brain, sensory development and cognition appear essential. This may also influence boldness and other social behaviours such as mate choice. At the end of the review, several issues and questions for future studies are given.     

New data on mollusks from the Miocene (Tarkhanian-Chokrakian) of northern Sinop Province,Turkey

An insufficiently known bivalve and gastropod assemblage from the Early-Middle Miocene (Tarkhanian-Chokrakian) of northern Sinop Province (Turkey), is analyzed. Environments of the assemblage are reconstructed for the Chokrakian as subtidal, with prevailing lime and sandy bottom and good aeration, and partially well vegetated. Impoverishment of the mollusk biocoenose in this part of the marine basin (only 18 bivalve and 22 gastropod species recorded) compared to other areas, including the closest regions, Bulgaria on the west and Georgia on the east, is emphasized. The relatively low diversity of the fauna is probably connected not only with insufficient collecting, but with special hydrological conditions. A special aspect of the fauna is highlighted by the presence of the bivalve Circomphalus foliaceolamellosus subplicatus (Orb.), which is rare in the Chokrakian.     

Resistance to radial expansion limits muscle strain and work

The collagenous extracellular matrix (ECM) of skeletal muscle functions to transmit force, protect sensitive structures, and generate passive tension to resist stretch. The mechanical properties of the ECM change with age, atrophy, and neuromuscular pathologies, resulting in an increase in the relative amount of collagen and an increase in stiffness. Although numerous studies have focused on the effect of muscle fibrosis on passive muscle stiffness, few have examined how these structural changes may compromise contractile performance. Here we combine a mathematical model and experimental manipulations to examine how changes in the mechanical properties of the ECM constrain the ability of muscle fibers and fascicles to radially expand and how such a constraint may limit active muscle shortening. We model the mechanical interaction between a contracting muscle and the ECM using a constant volume, pressurized, fiber-wound cylinder. Our model shows that as the proportion of a muscle cross section made up of ECM increases, the muscle’s ability to expand radially is compromised, which in turn restricts muscle shortening. In our experiments, we use a physical constraint placed around the muscle to restrict radial expansion during a contraction. Our experimental results are consistent with model predictions and show that muscles restricted from radial expansion undergo less shortening and generate less mechanical work under identical loads and stimulation conditions. This work highlights the intimate mechanical interaction between contractile and connective tissue structures within skeletal muscle and shows how a deviation from a healthy, well-tuned relationship can compromise performance.     

A validated model of passive skeletal muscle to predict force and intramuscular pressure

The passive properties of skeletal muscle are often overlooked in muscle studies, yet they play a key role in tissue function in vivo. Studies analyzing and modeling muscle passive properties, while not uncommon, have never investigated the role of fluid content within the tissue. Additionally, intramuscular pressure (IMP) has been shown to correlate with muscle force in vivo and could be used to predict muscle force in the clinic. In this study, a novel model of skeletal muscle was developed and validated to predict both muscle stress and IMP under passive conditions for the New Zealand White Rabbit tibialis anterior. This model is the first to include fluid content within the tissue and uses whole muscle geometry. A nonlinear optimization scheme was highly effective at fitting model stress output to experimental stress data (normalized mean square error or NMSE fit value of 0.993) and validation showed very good agreement to experimental data (NMSE fit values of 0.955 and 0.860 for IMP and stress, respectively). While future work to include muscle activation would broaden the physiological application of this model, the passive implementation could be used to guide surgeries where passive muscle is stretched.     

Altitudinal distribution limits of aquatic macroinvertebrates: an experimental test in a tropical alpine stream

1. Temperature and oxygen are recognised as the main drivers of altitudinal limits of species distributions. However, the two factors are linked, and both decrease with altitude, why their effects are difficult to disentangle. 2. This was experimentally addressed using aquatic macroinvertebrates; larvae of Andesiops (Ephemeroptera), Claudioperla, (Plecoptera), Scirtes (Coleoptera) and Anomalocosmoecus (Trichoptera), and the amphipod Hyalella in an Ecuadorian glacier‐fed stream (4100–4500 m a.s.l.). The following were performed: (i) quantitative benthic sampling at three sites to determine altitudinal patterns in population densities, (ii) transplants of the five taxa upstream of their natural altitudinal limit to test the short‐term (14 days) effect on survival, and (iii) in situ experiments of locomotory activity as a proxy for animal response to relatively small differences in temperature (5 °C vs. 10 °C) and oxygen saturation (55% vs. 62%). 3. The transplant experiment reduced survival to a varying degree among taxa, but Claudioperla survived well at a site where it did not naturally occur. In the in situ experiment, Scirtes and Hyalella decreased their activity at lower oxygen saturation, whereas Andesiops and Anomalocosmoecus did so at a low temperature. The decrease in activity from a high to a low temperature and oxygen for the five taxa was significantly correlated with their mortality in the transplant experiment. 4. Together the present experiments indicate that even relatively small differences in temperature and oxygen may produce effects explaining ecological patterns, and depending on the taxon, either water temperature or oxygen saturation, without clear interacting effects, are important drivers of altitudinal limits.     

Analyzing the dynamics of cell cycle processes from fixed samples through ergodic principles

Tools to analyze cyclical cellular processes, particularly the cell cycle, are of broad value for cell biology. Cell cycle synchronization and live-cell time-lapse observation are widely used to analyze these processes but are not available for many systems. Simple mathematical methods built on the ergodic principle are a well-established, widely applicable, and powerful alternative analysis approach, although they are less widely used. These methods extract data about the dynamics of a cyclical process from a single time-point “snapshot” of a population of cells progressing through the cycle asynchronously. Here, I demonstrate application of these simple mathematical methods to analysis of basic cyclical processes—cycles including a division event, cell populations undergoing unicellular aging, and cell cycles with multiple fission (schizogony)—as well as recent advances that allow detailed mapping of the cell cycle from continuously changing properties of the cell such as size and DNA content. This includes examples using existing data from mammalian, yeast, and unicellular eukaryotic parasite cell biology. Through the ongoing advances in high-throughput cell analysis by light microscopy, electron microscopy, and flow cytometry, these mathematical methods are becoming ever more important and are a powerful complementary method to traditional synchronization and time-lapse cell cycle analysis methods.