Search results for " Ecosystem"
showing 10 items of 633 documents
Ocean acidification at a coastal CO2 vent induces expression of stress-related transcripts and transposable elements in the sea anemone Anemonia viri…
2019
Published version, available at: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0210358 Ocean acidification threatens to disrupt interactions between organisms throughout marine ecosystems. The diversity of reef-building organisms decreases as seawater CO2 increases along natural gradients, yet soft-bodied animals, such as sea anemones, are often resilient. We sequenced the polyA-enriched transcriptome of adult sea anemone Anemonia viridis and its dinoflagellate symbiont sampled along a natural CO2 gradient in Italy to assess stress levels in these organisms. We found that about 1.4% of the anemone transcripts, but only ~0.5% of the Symbiodinium sp. transcripts were differentially expressed. Processe…
Environmental DNA effectively captures functional diversity of coastal fish communities.
2020
Robust assessments of taxonomic and functional diversity are essential components of research programmes aimed at understanding current biodiversity patterns and forecasting trajectories of ecological changes. Yet, evaluating marine biodiversity along its dimensions is challenging and dependent on the power and accuracy of the available data collection methods. Here we combine three traditional survey methodologies (underwater visual census strip transects [UVCt], baited underwater videos [BUV] and small-scale fishery catches [SSFc]), and one novel molecular technique (environmental DNA metabarcoding [eDNA]-12S rRNA and cytochrome oxidase subunit 1 [COI]) to investigate their efficiency and…
From microbial eukaryotes to metazoan vertebrates: Wide spectrum paleo-diversity in sedimentary ancient DNA over the last ~14,500 years
2018
Most studies that utilize ancient DNA have focused on specific groups of organisms or even single species. Instead, the whole biodiversity of eukaryotes can be described using universal phylogenetic marker genes found within well-preserved sediment cores that cover the post-glacial period. Sedimentary ancient DNA samples from Lake Lielais Svētiņu, eastern Latvia, at a core depth of 1,050 cm in ~150 year intervals were used to determine phylotaxonomy in domain Eukaryota. Phylotaxonomic affiliation of >1,200 eukaryotic phylotypes revealed high richness in all major eukaryotic groups-Alveolata, Stramenopiles, Cercozoa, Chlorophyta, Charophyta, Nucletmycea, and Holozoa. The share of organisms t…
Nitrous oxide effluxes from plants as a potentially important source to the atmosphere
2018
The global budget for nitrous oxide (N2 O), an important greenhouse gas and probably dominant ozone-depleting substance emitted in the 21st century, is far from being fully understood. Cycling of N2 O in terrestrial ecosystems has traditionally exclusively focused on gas exchange between the soil surface (nitrification-denitrification processes) and the atmosphere. Terrestrial vegetation has not been considered in the global budget so far, even though plants are known to release N2 O. Here, we report the N2 O emission rates of 32 plant species from 22 different families measured under controlled laboratory conditions. Furthermore, the first isotopocule values (δ15 N, δ18 O and δ15 Nsp ) of …
Sedimentary Ancient DNA (sedaDNA) Reveals Fungal Diversity and Environmental Drivers of Community Changes throughout the Holocene in the Present Bore…
2021
Fungi are ecologically important in several ecosystem processes, yet their community composition, ecophysiological roles, and responses to changing environmental factors in historical sediments are rarely studied. Here we explored ancient fungal DNA from lake Lielais Svētiņu sediment throughout the Holocene (10.5 kyr) using the ITS metabarcoding approach. Our data revealed diverse fungal taxa and smooth community changes during most of the Holocene with rapid changes occurring in the last few millennia. More precisely, plankton parasitic fungi became more diverse from the Late Holocene (2–4 kyr) which could be related to a shift towards a cooler climate. The Latest Holocene (~2 kyr) showed …
Temperature and pH define the realised niche space of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi
2021
Made available in DSpace on 2021-06-25T11:52:41Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 2021-03-04 European Regional Development Fund (Centre of Excellence EcolChange) University of Tartu (Estonian Research Council ) Moscow State University Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada Discovery Grant Russian Science Foundation Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP) Swedish Research Council (Vetenskapsradet) The arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi are a globally distributed group of soil organisms that play critical roles in ecosystem function. However, the ecological niches of individual AM fungal taxa are poorly understood. We collected > 300 s…
mtDNA diversity in rabbit population from Sicily (Italy)
2017
The European rabbit Oryctolagus cuniculus (O.c) lives all over the world and it represents an important resource for many predators. It has been classified as a Near-Threatened species in the Red List of Vertebrates of Italy. It is present in mediterranean basin as two known subspecies: O.c. cuniculus and O.c. algirus. The mediterranean geographic distribution of the two subspecies is still not well known. In particular, in Sicily, lacking of deep studies, is based on the body size and morphological characteristics; there wasn’t a complete description of the actual existing subspecies and previous studies only reported the morphological characteristics of the sicilian rabbit population. In …
Eco‐evolutionary dynamics driven by fishing : from single species models to dynamic evolution within complex food webs
2020
Evidence of contemporary evolution across ecological time scales stimulated research on the eco‐evolutionary dynamics of natural populations. Aquatic systems provide a good setting to study eco‐evolutionary dynamics owing to a wealth of long‐term monitoring data and the detected trends in fish life‐history traits across intensively harvested marine and freshwater systems. In the present study, we focus on modelling approaches to simulate eco‐evolutionary dynamics of fishes and their ecosystems. Firstly, we review the development of modelling from single‐species to multispecies approaches. Secondly, we advance the current state‐of‐the‐art methodology by implementing evolution of life‐history…
Species’ ecological functionality alters the outcome of fish stocking success predicted by a food-web model
2018
Fish stocking is used worldwide in conservation and management, but its effects on food-web dynamics and ecosystem stability are poorly known. To better understand these effects and predict the outcomes of stocking, we used an empirically validated network model of a well-studied lake ecosystem. We simulate two stocking scenarios with two native fish species valuable for fishing. In the first scenario, we stock planktivorous fish (whitefish) larvae in the ecosystem. This leads to a 1% increase in adult whitefish biomasses and decreases the biomasses of the top predator (perch). In the second scenario, we also stock perch larvae in the ecosystem. This decreases the planktivorous whitefish an…
Additive effects of temperature and infection with an acanthocephalan parasite on the shredding activity of Gammarus fossarum (Crustacea: Amphipoda):…
2017
10 pages; International audience; Climate change can have critical impacts on the ecological role of keystone species, leading to subsequent alterations within ecosystems. The consequences of climate change may be best predicted by understanding its interaction with the cumulative effects of other stressors, although this approach is rarely adopted. However, whether this interaction is additive or interactive can hardly be predicted from studies examining a single factor at a time. In particular, biotic interactions are known to induce modifications in the functional role of many species. Here, we explored the effect of temperature on leaf consumption by a keystone freshwater shredder, the …