Search results for "STICS"

Chasing phthalates in tissues of marine turtles from the Mediterranean sea

2018

Tissues from thirteen specimens of marine turtles, one Dermochelys coriacea and twelve Caretta caretta, found dead along the Sicilian coasts in 2016 were analyzed for the presence of phthalates. Four phthalates (DEP, DBP, BBP, and DEHP) were found at different significant concentrations in liver and gonads, while only DBP was found in muscle tissues and at a fourfold lower concentration than other phthalates in Dermochelys coriacea. No traces of DEP were detected in C. caretta tissues where DOTP was also revealed. The presence of phthalates in fat tissue in specimens of C. caretta showed a major prevalence of the most lipophilic phthalates DEHP and DOTP. The total concentration of all analy…

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…

Using Boops boops (osteichthyes) to assess microplastic ingestion in the Mediterranean Sea

2020

Abstract This study assesses microplastic ingestion in Boops boops at different geographical areas in the Mediterranean Sea. A total of 884 fish were caught at 20 coastal sites in Spain, France, Italy and Greece and analyzed using a common methodological protocol. Microplastics were found in 46.8% of the sampled fish, with an average number of items per individual of 1.17 ± 0.07. Filaments were the predominant shape type, while polyethylene and polypropylene were indicated by FTIR as the most common polymer types of ingested microplastics. The frequency of occurrence, as well as the abundance and proportion of types (size, shape, color and polymer) of ingested microplastics, varied among ge…

Evolutionary relationships, biogeography and morphological characters of Glinus (Molluginaceae), with special emphasis on the genus composition in Su…

2021

Glinus is a small genus of Molluginaceae with 8–10 species mostly distributed in the tropics of the World. Its composition and evolutionary relationships were poorly studied. A new molecular phylogeny constructed here using nuclear (ITS) and chloroplast (rbcL, trnK-matK) markers confirmed the monophyly of the genus. Based on ITS analysis, the following well-supported lineages are present within Glinus: the G. bainesii lineage is recovered as sister to the remainder of the genus followed by G. oppositifolius. Three other clades are: G. hirtus with G. orygioides; G. radiatus and G. lotoides; the latter is represented by a sample from North America, and G. zambesiacus as sister to G. setifloru…

Bayesian analysis improves experimental studies about temporal patterning of aggression in fish.

2017

Made available in DSpace on 2018-12-11T17:15:13Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 2017-12-01 Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq) This study aims to describe a Bayesian Hierarchical Linear Model (HLM) approach for longitudinal designs in fish's experimental aggressive behavior studies as an alternative to classical methods In particular, we discuss the advantages of Bayesian analysis in dealing with combined variables, non-statistically significant results and required sample size using an experiment of angelfish (Pterophyllum scalare) species as case study. Groups of 3 individuals were subjected to daily observations recorded for 10 min durin…

Handbook of protocols for standardized measurement of terrestrial invertebrate functional traits

2017

Trait-based approaches are increasingly being used to test mechanisms underlying species assemblages and biotic interactions across a wide range of organisms including terrestrial arthropods and to investigate consequences for ecosystem processes. Such an approach relies on the standardized measurement of functional traits that can be applied across taxa and regions. Currently, however, unified methods of trait measurements are lacking for terrestrial arthropods and related macroinvertebrates (terrestrial invertebrates hereafter). Here, we present a comprehensive review and detailed protocol for a set of 29 traits known to be sensitive to global stressors and to affect ecosystem processes a…

2017

The genus Dipsacus is characterized by a remarkable bidirectional flowering sequence and a rare phyllotactic pattern. Considering that flower initiation and flowering sequence may be interconnected, we document the development of the head meristem in Dipsacus fullonum. Our results indicate a gradual change in the geometry of the head meristem beginning with a dome shaped stage, continuing with a remarkable widening in the middle part of the head meristem and ending in a spindle-like form. Quantitative data confirm that meristem expansion is higher in the middle part than at the base of the meristem. Likewise, the size of the flower primordia in the middle part of the young head is significa…

Empirical Bayes improves assessments of diversity and similarity when overdispersion prevails in taxonomic counts with no covariates

2019

Abstract The assessment of diversity and similarity is relevant in monitoring the status of ecosystems. The respective indicators are based on the taxonomic composition of biological communities of interest, currently estimated through the proportions computed from sampling multivariate counts. In this work we present a novel method to estimate the taxonomic composition able to work even with a single sample and no covariates, when data are affected by overdispersion. The presence of overdispersion in taxonomic counts may be the result of significant environmental factors which are often unobservable but influence communities. Following the empirical Bayes approach, we combine a Bayesian mo…

Managing for resilience: an information theory-based approach to assessing ecosystems

2016

Ecosystems are complex and multivariate; hence, methods to assess the dynamics of ecosystems should have the capacity to evaluate multiple indicators simultaneously. Most research on identifying leading indicators of regime shifts has focused on univariate methods and simple models which have limited utility when evaluating real ecosystems, particularly because drivers are often unknown. We discuss some common univariate and multivariate approaches for detecting critical transitions in ecosystems and demonstrate their capabilities via case studies. Synthesis and applications. We illustrate the utility of an information theory-based index for assessing ecosystem dynamics. Trends in this inde…

Efficient estimation of generalized linear latent variable models.

2019

Generalized linear latent variable models (GLLVM) are popular tools for modeling multivariate, correlated responses. Such data are often encountered, for instance, in ecological studies, where presence-absences, counts, or biomass of interacting species are collected from a set of sites. Until very recently, the main challenge in fitting GLLVMs has been the lack of computationally efficient estimation methods. For likelihood based estimation, several closed form approximations for the marginal likelihood of GLLVMs have been proposed, but their efficient implementations have been lacking in the literature. To fill this gap, we show in this paper how to obtain computationally convenient estim…