Ecological interactions affecting population-level responses to chemical stress in Mesocyclops leuckarti

Chemosphere ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 112 ◽  
pp. 340-347 ◽  
Author(s):  
Devdutt Kulkarni ◽  
Udo Hommen ◽  
Andreas Schäffer ◽  
Thomas G. Preuss
Author(s):  
Francisco J. Díaz ◽  
Sandra V. Pereda ◽  
Alejandro H. Buschmann

In many coastal areas substrate is the limiting resource for benthic organisms. Some sessile species can be used as secondary substrate, reducing competition and increasing coexistence. In southern Chile, annual populations of Macrocystis pyrifera recruit and grow on the shells of Crepipatella fecunda. This study describes ecological interactions between the kelp and the slipper limpet over an annual cycle. The degree of kelp overgrowth was established by collecting sporophytes and through in situ submarine photography over a 10 month period (starting when kelp recruits became visible and ending when sporophytes were no longer present). Changes in the biochemical composition of the limpet tissue were also recorded by chemical analyses, to evaluate the potential effects (positive/neutral/negative) of kelp on C. fecunda nutritional condition. The results indicate that both species coexist, although kelp overgrowth may cause a decrease in carbohydrates in C. fecunda tissues, restricted to the period when the kelp forest reaches its maximum biomass. Individually, the short duration of the maximum overgrowth period and the size reached by C. fecunda females (up to 65 mm shell length) may enable rapid limpet recovery, avoiding competitive exclusion. On a population level, the M. pyrifera annual cycle generates the needed ‘break’ for C. fecunda populations, reducing the effects of kelp overgrowth. Thus, in the view of the neutral effect of kelp overgrowth, together with the positive effect of C. fecunda on M. pyrifera recruitment described somewhere else, this ecological interaction can be categorized as commensalism.


2021 ◽  
Vol 118 (21) ◽  
pp. e2021683118
Author(s):  
Milton T. Drott ◽  
Tomás A. Rush ◽  
Tatum R. Satterlee ◽  
Richard J. Giannone ◽  
Paul E. Abraham ◽  
...  

Fungi produce a wealth of pharmacologically bioactive secondary metabolites (SMs) from biosynthetic gene clusters (BGCs). It is common practice for drug discovery efforts to treat species’ secondary metabolomes as being well represented by a single or a small number of representative genomes. However, this approach misses the possibility that intraspecific population dynamics, such as adaptation to environmental conditions or local microbiomes, may harbor novel BGCs that contribute to the overall niche breadth of species. Using 94 isolates of Aspergillus flavus, a cosmopolitan model fungus, sampled from seven states in the United States, we dereplicate 7,821 BGCs into 92 unique BGCs. We find that more than 25% of pangenomic BGCs show population-specific patterns of presence/absence or protein divergence. Population-specific BGCs make up most of the accessory-genome BGCs, suggesting that different ecological forces that maintain accessory genomes may be partially mediated by population-specific differences in secondary metabolism. We use ultra-high-performance high-resolution mass spectrometry to confirm that these genetic differences in BGCs also result in chemotypic differences in SM production in different populations, which could mediate ecological interactions and be acted on by selection. Thus, our results suggest a paradigm shift that previously unrealized population-level reservoirs of SM diversity may be of significant evolutionary, ecological, and pharmacological importance. Last, we find that several population-specific BGCs from A. flavus are present in Aspergillus parasiticus and Aspergillus minisclerotigenes and discuss how the microevolutionary patterns we uncover inform macroevolutionary inferences and help to align fungal secondary metabolism with existing evolutionary theory.


2021 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Marcin Paczkowski ◽  
Warren W. Kretzschmar ◽  
Bostjan Markelc ◽  
Stanley K. Liu ◽  
Leoni A. Kunz-Schughart ◽  
...  

AbstractIntratumoural heterogeneity (ITH) contributes to local recurrence following radiotherapy in prostate cancer. Recent studies also show that ecological interactions between heterogeneous tumour cell populations can lead to resistance in chemotherapy. Here, we evaluated whether interactions between heterogenous populations could impact growth and response to radiotherapy in prostate cancer. Using mixed 3D cultures of parental and radioresistant populations from two prostate cancer cell lines and a predator-prey mathematical model to investigate various types of ecological interactions, we show that reciprocal interactions between heterogeneous populations enhance overall growth and reduce radiation sensitivity. The type of interaction influences the time of regrowth after radiation, and, at the population level, alters the survival and cell cycle of each population without eliminating either one. These interactions can arise from oxygen constraints and from cellular cross-talk that alter the tumour microenvironment. These findings suggest that ecological-type interactions are important in radiation response and could be targeted to reduce local recurrence.


2020 ◽  
Vol 158 (3) ◽  
pp. S102
Author(s):  
Ryan Suk ◽  
Heetae Suk ◽  
Kalyani Sonawane ◽  
Ashish Deshmukh

2020 ◽  
Vol 139 ◽  
pp. 93-102 ◽  
Author(s):  
MF Van Bressem ◽  
P Duignan ◽  
JA Raga ◽  
K Van Waerebeek ◽  
N Fraijia-Fernández ◽  
...  

Crassicauda spp. (Nematoda) infest the cranial sinuses of several odontocetes, causing diagnostic trabecular osteolytic lesions. We examined skulls of 77 Indian Ocean humpback dolphins Sousa plumbea and 69 Indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphins Tursiops aduncus, caught in bather-protecting nets off KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) from 1970-2017, and skulls of 6 S. plumbea stranded along the southern Cape coast in South Africa from 1963-2002. Prevalence of cranial crassicaudiasis was evaluated according to sex and cranial maturity. Overall, prevalence in S. plumbea and T. aduncus taken off KZN was 13 and 31.9%, respectively. Parasitosis variably affected 1 or more cranial bones (frontal, pterygoid, maxillary and sphenoid). No significant difference was found by gender for either species, allowing sexes to be pooled. However, there was a significant difference in lesion prevalence by age, with immature T. aduncus 4.6 times more likely affected than adults, while for S. plumbea, the difference was 6.5-fold. As severe osteolytic lesions are unlikely to heal without trace, we propose that infection is more likely to have a fatal outcome for immature dolphins, possibly because of incomplete bone development, lower immune competence in clearing parasites or an over-exuberant inflammatory response in concert with parasitic enzymatic erosion. Cranial osteolysis was not observed in mature males (18 S. plumbea, 21 T. aduncus), suggesting potential cohort-linked immune-mediated resistance to infestation. Crassicauda spp. may play a role in the natural mortality of S. plumbea and T. aduncus, but the pathogenesis and population level impact remain unknown.


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Claire Beynon ◽  
Nora Pashyan ◽  
Elizabeth Fisher ◽  
Dougal Hargreaves ◽  
Linda Bailey ◽  
...  

2012 ◽  
Vol 153 (26) ◽  
pp. 1023-1030 ◽  
Author(s):  
Éva Martos ◽  
Viktória Anna Kovács ◽  
Márta Bakacs ◽  
Csilla Kaposvári ◽  
Andrea Lugasi

Obesity is a leading public health problem, but representative data on measured prevalence among Hungarian adults has been missing since the late eighties. Aim and method: Joining in European Health Interview Survey the aim of the OTAP2009 study was to provide data representative by age and gender on the prevalence of obesity and abdominal obesity among Hungarian adults based on their measured anthropometric data. Results: Participation rate was 35% (n = 1165). Data shows that nearly two-thirds of adults are overweight or obese. 26.2% of men and 30.4% of women are obese. Prevalence of morbid obesity is 3.1% and 2.6% in men and women, respectively. Abdominal obesity is more prevalent among women than men (51.0% vs. 33.2%), and rate is increasing parallel with age in both gender. In elderly, 55% of men and almost 80% of women are abdominally obese. Conclusions: Besides interventions of population level for tackling obesity, individual preventive measures are indispensable. Orv. Hetil., 2012, 153, 1023–1030.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document