Is weight an important parameter when measuring copepod growth?

We studied in situ weight increment of Calanus helgolandicus developing under field conditions. Weight increment between successive stages was rather similar for early nauplii (NII-NV ∼2.00 μgC μgC⁻¹) and for early copepodites (NVI-CIII mean: ∼2.40 μgC μgC⁻¹) but lower for late copepodites (CIV ∼0.80 and CV ∼0.20 μgC μgC⁻¹). Weight increment of CIV and particularly CV was found to be closely linked to the method used to estimate the weight: either (i) directly measured weights, or (ii) weights estimated from a length-weight regression. The weight of CV, which has a relatively long stage duration, shows wide variations within the stage while length variations within stage are very low. For example, on the 17th of August, some CV had a carbon weight three times higher than other ones. The main cause of variation is the age of the individuals within the stage.We recommend direct weight measurement rather than the use of length-weight regression to estimate weight increment. However, and especially for stages with large variations in weight, whether the individuals are at the mid-point of their stage should be checked.     

Secondary production of Calanus helgolandicus in the Western English Channel

The objective of this study was to investigate the production of Calanus helgolandicus off Plymouth, Western English Channel, from April to August 1998 comparing a range of different methods. The abundance of all developmental stages from NI to adult was determined. Body carbon and nitrogen and length were measured on individual NVI to adults. Female egg production was also monitored. All developmental stages were generally represented but four main periods of recruitment were determined. Two periods of low egg production were observed on the 13th and on the 27th of July: (i) the first was due to the arrival of newly moulted or not yet fertilised females in the population and (ii) the second low period was possibly due to the senescence of the females. Finally, the total production of C. helgolandicus was estimated using four different methods: the weight increment, the egg production, Huntley and Lopez and Hirst and Lampitt methods. Depending on the methods used, the production accumulated over the period from May 14 to August 10 ranged between 12 and 45 mg C m⁻³.     

Proteomics as a Tool to Identify New Targets Against Aspergillus and Scedosporium in the Context of Cystic Fibrosis

Mycopathologia - Cystic fibrosis (CF) is a genetic disorder that increases the risk of suffering microbial, including fungal, infections. In this paper, proteomics-based information was collated...     

A method for capturing and GPS tracking breeding White-backed Woodpeckers Dendrocopos leucotos

ABSTRACT

Capsule: The use of mist nets placed at more than 9?m high and small GPS tags fitted with a pelvic harness, and equipped to download remotely, allows the capture and tracking of breeding White-backed Woodpeckers Dendrocopos leucotos.

Aims: To describe and test a method for capturing, ringing and GPS-marking medium-sized woodpeckers.

Methods: Birds were captured using an overlapping mist net system located between two poles with a minimum height of 9.25?m and a maximum of 12.95?m, previously designed for catching bats. Once captured, the birds were ringed and fitted them with a remote download GPS tag, weighing 3.4?g.

Results: Twenty individuals (17 adults and 3 juveniles) from 14 territories were captured during the 28 sampling days. All marked breeders continued with chick provisioning and in 12 of the territories were successful in fledging young. We found no significant difference in the number of fledglings between nests where the breeders were captured and tagged with devices (1.71?±?0.19 se) and nests where the breeders were not captured (1.71?±?0.29 se). The GPS tags allowed us to obtain a mean of 102.6 (±15.91 se) locations for each bird during a tracking period averaging 57.8 (±10.4 se) days. Despite the steep slope and the high forest canopy in the hábitat, 77.09% of GPS locations were accurate to within 20?m.

Conclusion: Our results showed that this method allows us to obtain important information about the habitat use of this species during the breeding period without any apparent effect on reproductive success.     

Spring zooplankton distribution in the Bay of Biscay from 1998 to 2006 in relation with anchovy recruitment

The objective of this study was to investigate whether successiverecruitment failures in the anchovy fishery in the Bay of Biscaywere due to changes in the zooplankton biomass or composition.Image analysis and automatic recognition were used to analysezooplankton samples collected during diel egg production methodspring surveys from 1998 to 2006. We were not able to detectany trend in zooplankton biomass during this period. The zooplanktonspatial distribution showed permanent features with large organismsbeing more abundant over the shelf break and outer areas. Finally,we found a negative correlation between anchovy recruitmentand zooplankton biomass which suggests that the 2002–2006failures in anchovy recruitment in the Bay of Biscay are notdue to a decrease in mesozooplankton biomass.     

Sequencing effort dictates gene discovery in marine microbial metagenomes

Massive metagenomic sequencing combined with gene prediction methods were previously used to compile the gene catalogue of the ocean and host-associated microbes. Global expeditions conducted over the past 15 years have sampled the ocean to build a catalogue of genes from pelagic microbes. Here we undertook a large sequencing effort of a perturbed Red Sea plankton community to uncover that the rate of gene discovery increases continuously with sequencing effort, with no indication that the retrieved 2.83 million non-redundant (complete) genes predicted from the experiment represented a nearly complete inventory of the genes present in the sampled community (i.e., no evidence of saturation). The underlying reason is the Pareto-like distribution of the abundance of genes in the plankton community, resulting in a very long tail of millions of genes present at remarkably low abundances, which can only be retrieved through massive sequencing. Microbial metagenomic projects retrieve a variable number of unique genes per Tera base-pair (Tbp), with a median value of 14.7 million unique genes per Tbp sequenced across projects. The increase in the rate of gene discovery in microbial metagenomes with sequencing effort implies that there is ample room for new gene discovery in further ocean and holobiont sequencing studies.     

Island life in the Cretaceous - faunal composition,biogeography, evolution,and extinction of land-living vertebrates on the Late Cretaceous European archipelago

The Late Cretaceous was a time of tremendous global change, as the final stages of the Age of Dinosaurs were shaped by climate and sea level fluctuations and witness to marked paleogeographic and faunal changes, before the end-Cretaceous bolide impact. The terrestrial fossil record of Late Cretaceous Europe is becoming increasingly better understood, based largely on intensive fieldwork over the past two decades, promising new insights into latest Cretaceous faunal evolution. We review the terrestrial Late Cretaceous record from Europe and discuss its importance for understanding the paleogeography, ecology, evolution, and extinction of land-dwelling vertebrates. We review the major Late Cretaceous faunas from Austria, Hungary, France, Spain, Portugal, and Romania, as well as more fragmentary records from elsewhere in Europe. We discuss the paleogeographic background and history of assembly of these faunas, and argue that they are comprised of an endemic ‘core’ supplemented with various immigration waves. These faunas lived on an island archipelago, and we describe how this insular setting led to ecological peculiarities such as low diversity, a preponderance of primitive taxa, and marked changes in morphology (particularly body size dwarfing). We conclude by discussing the importance of the European record in understanding the end-Cretaceous extinction and show that there is no clear evidence that dinosaurs or other groups were undergoing long-term declines in Europe prior to the bolide impact.     

Papel de la genética en la etiología de las sinucleinopatías

The protein family known as synucleins is composed of α-, β- and γ-synuclein. The most widely studied is the α-synuclein protein due to its participation in essential processes of the central nervous system. Neurotoxicity of this protein is related to the presence of multiplications (duplications and triplications) and point mutations in the gene sequence of the α-synuclein gene (SNCA), differential expression of its isoforms and variations in post-transductional modifications. Neurotoxicity is also related to cytoplasmic inclusions known as Lewy bodies (LBs) and Lewy neurites (LNs), which are also present in α-synucleinopathies. In general, the β-synuclein protein, codified by the SNCB gene, acts as a regulator of processes triggered by α-synuclein and its function is altered by variations in the gene sequence, while γ-synuclein, codified by the SNCG gene, seems to play a major role in certain tumoral processes.