Search results for "Mphi"
showing 10 items of 626 documents
Effect of gender on physiological and behavioural responses of Gammarus roeseli (Crustacea Amphipoda) to salinity and temperature.
2010
8 pages; International audience; The importance of potentially interacting factors in organisms responses to a stress are often ignored or underestimated in ecotoxicology. In laboratory experiments we investigated how gender, temperature and age influence the behaviour and the physiology of the freshwater amphipod Gammarus roeseli under salinity stress. Our results revealed a significant higher sensitivity of females in survival, ventilation and ionoregulation whereas no inter-age differences were reported. Water temperature also exerted a significant effect in survival and ventilation of G. roeseli. Some of those factors appeared to interact significantly. This study provides evidence that…
Co-variation between the intensity of behavioural manipulation and parasite development time in an acanthocephalan-amphipod system.
2010
8 pages; International audience; Pomphorhynchus laevis, a fish acanthocephalan parasite, manipulates the behaviour of its gammarid intermediate host to increase its trophic transmission to the definitive host. However, the intensity of behavioural manipulation is variable between individual gammarids and between parasite populations. To elucidate causes of this variability, we compared the level of phototaxis alteration induced by different parasite sibships from one population, using experimental infections of Gammarus pulex by P. laevis. We used a naive gammarid population, and we carried out our experiments in two steps, during spring and winter. Moreover, we also investigated co-variati…
Field evidence of host size-dependent parasitism in two manipulative parasites.
2007
5 pages; International audience; The distribution of parasites within host natural populations has often been found to be host age-dependent. Host mortality induced by parasites is the commonest hypothesis proposed for explaining this pattern. Despite its potential importance in ecology, the parasitism intensity in relation with the host age has rarely been studied in the field. The 2 manipulative acanthocephalans, Polymorphus minutus and Pomphorhynchus laevis, use the amphipod Gammarus pulex as an intermediate host, and their infection intensity and incidence among G. pulex populations were examined by analyzing 2 large samples of hosts collected in eastern France. Both parasites had low p…
“Hidden invaders” conquer the Sicily Channel and knock on the door of the Western Mediterranean sea
2019
Abstract This study updates the current distribution, range expansion and establishment status of the non-indigenous species Amphistegina lobifera Larsen, 1976 and other foraminifera that are cryptogenic in the Sicily Channel. Prior to this study, amphisteginids were reported from the Levantine Basin, the Central Mediterranean (Tunisia, Malta, Pelagian islands) and the southern Adriatic Sea. Here, we provide new records documenting a north-western expansion in the Central Mediterranean. In summer-autumn 2017 and spring-summer 2018, we collected algae and sediment samples from shallow coastal habitats along the shores of the Maltese archipelago, southern and north-western Sicily, Pantelleria…
The Amphipod assemblages of Sabellaria alveolata reefs from the NW coast of Portugal: an account of the present knowledge, new records, and some biog…
2016
Amphipod assemblages associated with the biogenic reefs built by the honeycomb worm Sabellaria alveolata were studied at two sites (Praia da Aguda and Belinho) along the northwestern coast of Portugal. A total of 3909 specimens were collected, comprising 14 different amphipod species. A first record from the northeastern Atlantic coast was registered here for the species Caprella santosrosai, which was, up to now, recorded only along the Mediterranean coast of the Iberian Peninsula. A male specimen collected from the Sabellaria-reef located in Belinho allowed an update to the known distribution of C. santosrosai, thus altering its previous status as an endemic Mediterranean species. The mos…
Parhyale plumicornis (Crustacea: Amphipoda: Hyalidae): is this an anti-lessepsian Mediterranean species? Morphological remarks, molecular markers and…
2016
Hyalid amphipods living in coastal marine habitats are frequently included in ecological studies. The systematics of this taxon has been subject to profound changes, with an emphasis on the North Pacific fauna. Since a proper species delimitation is a prerequisite in taxonomic and ecological studies, Parhyale plumicornis (Heller, 1866) has been herein re-described, showing the criticisms and mismatches of various characters, which were previously used in dichotomous keys. This species was collected for the first time off the western coast of Sicily Island (Italy: central Mediterranean Sea). The male is peculiar, due to the second antennae heavily setose posteriorly and bearing long tufts of…
<strong><em>Grandidierella</em> <em>bonnieroides</em> Stephensen, 1948 (Amphipoda, Aoridae)—first record of an establis…
2016
The first record in the Mediterranean Sea of the invasive aorid amphipod crustacean Grandidierella bonnieroides is presented. A widespread circumtropical species, recorded off the Saudi coast of the Arabian Gulf, the Red Sea and the Suez Canal, it may have been introduced into the Mediterranean through the Suez Canal. This tube-builder species of soft bottoms recently established a population in the polluted Haifa Bay, Israel. Further, this is the first Mediterranean record of the genus.
First Assessment of Plasticizers in Marine Coastal Litter-Feeder Fauna in the Mediterranean Sea
2021
Micro and nanoplastics are harmful to marine life due to their high level of fragmentation and resistance to degradation. Over the past two decades, marine coastal sediment has shown an increasing amount of microplastics being a sort of trap for debris wastes or chemicals. In such an environment some species may be successful candidates to be used as monitors of environmental and health hazards and can be considered a mirror of threats of natural habitats. Such species play a key role in the food web of littoral systems since they are litter-feeders, and are prey for fishes or higher trophic level species. A preliminary investigation was conducted on five species of small-sized amphipod cru…
Going underground: short- and long-term movements may reveal the fossorial spatial ecology of an amphisbaenian
2021
[Background]: The movement and spatial ecology of an animal depends on its morphological and functional adaptations to its environment. In fossorial animals, adaptations to the underground life help to face peculiar ecological challenges, very different from those of epigeal species, but may constrain their movement ability.
Spatial Context of Breeding Ponds and Forest Management Affect the Distribution and Population Dynamics of the Great Crested Newt
2016
Intensive forest management and landscape degradation are threats to amphibian populations. We modelled and compared the extinction and colonization dynamics of the great crested newt in four different spatial contexts that describe landscape change from past to present and future forest landscapes in eastern Finland. In future landscape scenarios, we explored the effects of two forest use intensities with different logging rotation times. The introduction of fish into breeding ponds has been the main cause of local extinctions of the great crested newt. In the future, intensifying land-use and shorter logging rotation will decrease the connectivity between ponds the most. In conservation p…