Search results for " Structure"
showing 10 items of 25475 documents
Reproductive phenology of submerged macrophytes: A tracker of year‐to‐year environmental variations
2019
AIMS: Phenological shifts are useful trackers of climate change effects on species and communities, but few datasets focus on the climate‐driven phenological responses of aquatic ecosystem vegetation. We aimed to analyse the reproductive seasonality of a submerged macrophyte community, the synchrony among coexisting species, and their responses to several environmental factors. LOCATION: A Mediterranean coastal pond in Valencia, Spain. METHODS: We analysed three years of data on a submerged macrophyte community. Plants were collected biweekly or monthly (57 collection dates) to quantify the intensity of flowering/fruiting per species. The reproductive seasonality of the community was tested…
Assessment of surface sediment dynamics and response of benthic macrofauna assemblages in Boughrara Lagoon (SW Mediterranean Sea)
2016
International audience; A study was conducted in the spring of 2009, the winters of 2010 and 2013, and in the summer of 2012 at 13 stations in Boughrara Lagoon, Tunisia (southern Mediterranean). The country’s largest lagoon, it is considered to be an anthropogenically stressed area, though a major tourist centre—Djerba Island—is located along its northern shores. The lagoon bottoms were studied via analyses of grain size, surface sediment composition, total organic matter (TOM) and through the trophic and functional organisation of benthic macrofauna. The results indicate that the bottoms are composed of fine, medium or coarse sands and that sediment distribution is controlled by water move…
Exploring connectivity between spawning and nursery areas ofMullus barbatus(L., 1758) in the Mediterranean through a dispersal model
2017
Connectivity between spawning and nursery areas plays a major role in determining the spatial structure of fish populations and the boundaries of stock units. Here, the potential effects of surface current on a red mullet population in the Central Mediterranean were simulated using a physical oceanographic model. Red mullet larvae were represented as Lagrangian drifters released in known spawning areas of the Strait of Sicily (SoS), which represents one of the most productive demersal fishing-grounds of the Mediterranean. To consider the effect of inter-annual variability of oceanographic patterns, numerical simulations were performed for the spawning seasons from 1999 to 2012. The main goa…
Community size affects the signals of ecological drift and niche selection on biodiversity
2019
AbstractEcological drift can override the effects of deterministic niche selection on small populations and drive the assembly of small communities. We tested the hypothesis that smaller local communities are more dissimilar among each other because of ecological drift than larger communities, which are mainly structured by niche selection. We used a unique, comprehensive dataset on insect communities sampled identically in a total of 200 streams in climatically different regions (Brazil and Finland) that differ in community size by fivefold. Null models allowed us to estimate the magnitude to which beta diversity deviates from the expectation under a random assembly process while taking di…
Analysis of trematode parasite communities in fish eye lenses by pyrosequencing of naturally pooled DNA.
2011
Infections by multiple parasite species are common in nature and have important consequences for between species interactions and coevolutionary dynamics with the host populations. For example ecological and evolutionary factors underlying the structure of parasite communities determine the range of hosts a parasite can infect and set the basis for both evolution of host defences and parasite virulence as well as management of diseases. Studies investigating these factors have been facilitated in the recent past by genetic methods which surmount difficulties of traditional morphological taxonomy in identifying individual parasite species. Here we take a step further and present a novel meth…
Transcriptome and proteome analysis of Pinctada margaritifera calcifying mantle and shell: focus on biomineralization
2010
Abstract Background The shell of the pearl-producing bivalve Pinctada margaritifera is composed of an organic cell-free matrix that plays a key role in the dynamic process of biologically-controlled biomineralization. In order to increase genomic resources and identify shell matrix proteins implicated in biomineralization in P. margaritifera, high-throughput Expressed Sequence Tag (EST) pyrosequencing was undertaken on the calcifying mantle, combined with a proteomic analysis of the shell. Results We report the functional analysis of 276 738 sequences, leading to the constitution of an unprecedented catalog of 82 P. margaritifera biomineralization-related mantle protein sequences. Component…
Nucleotide Variability at the Acetyl Coenzyme A Carboxylase Gene and the Signature of Herbicide Selection in the Grass Weed Alopecurus myosuroides (H…
2004
Acetyl coenzyme A carboxylase (ACCase) is the target of highly effective herbicides. We investigated the nucleotide variability of the ACCase gene in a sample of 18 black-grass (Alopecurus myosuroides [Huds.]) populations to search for the signature of herbicide selection. Sequencing 3,396 bp encompassing ACCase herbicide-binding domain in 86 individuals revealed 92 polymorphisms, which formed 72 haplotypes. The ratio of nonsynonymous versus synonymous substitutions was very low, in agreement with ACCase being a vital metabolic enzyme. Within black grass, most nonsynonymous substitutions were related to resistance to ACCase-inhibiting herbicides. Differentiation between populations was stro…
Colour patch size and measurement error using reflectance spectrophotometry
2017
1 - Over the past twenty years, portable and relatively affordable spectrophotometers have greatly advanced the study of animal coloration. However, the small size of many colour patches poses methodological challenges that have not, to date, been assessed in the literature. Here, we tackle this issue for a reflectance spectrophotometry set-up widely used in ecology and evolution (the beam method). 2 - We reviewed the literature on animal coloration reporting the use of reflectance spectrophotometry to explore how the minimum measurable size of a colour patch is determined. We then used coloured plastic sheets to create artificial colour patches, and quantify the relationship between colour…
Can biological structures be natural and sustainable capsules?
2015
Flavor and fragrance molecules are used in many industrial fields such as food, cosmetics, tissues, pharmacy, agriculture (pheromones) etc. As most actives have a specific target and are fragile molecules, encapsulation processes have been developed for their use. These technologies are efficient to avoid loss of actives, dissemination out of the target and subsequent pollution, and to protect molecules up to their target. Several processes have been developed responding to the numerous situations encountered (e.g., protection against air, temperature, light, pH; masking or revealing sensorial properties of the molecule; release during the process, in the plate, in the mouth, etc.). However…
Ecdysone and ecdysterone in physogastric termite queens and eggs of Macrotermes bellicosus and Macrotermes subhyalinus
1978
Abstract Physogastric queens and freshly laid eggs of two species of termites ( Macrotermes bellicosus and Macrotermes subhyalinus ) are found to contain high levels of ecdysteroids (molting hormones) as indicated by radioimmunoassay and Musca bioassay. Ecdysteroids are accumulated in the ovaries of the queen and then stored in the eggs since newly laid eggs contain ecdysteroid concentrations similar to those found in the ovaries. Gas chromatography-mass spectrometry demonstrates that ecdysone (α-ecdysone) as well as ecdysterone (β-ecdysone) are present in queen ovaries and in eggs and that ecdysone is quantitatively the more important ecdysteroid in both ovary and eggs.