Native amphibian larvae exhibit higher upper thermal limits but lower performance than their introduced predator Gambusia affinis

2019 ◽  
Vol 81 ◽  
pp. 154-161
Author(s):  
Edward Tak Chuen Lau ◽  
Kenneth Mei Yee Leung ◽  
Nancy Elizabeth Karraker
Author(s):  
Andrew Clarke

The extreme meteorological surface air temperatures recorded to date are –89.2 oC in Antarctica, and 56.7 oC in Death Valley, California. Ground temperatures can be higher or lower than these air temperatures. The bulk of oceanic water is cold (< 4 oC) and thermally stable. Whilst data on limits to survival attract considerable attention, the thermal limits to completion of the life cycle (which define the limits to life) are much less well known. Currently identified upper thermal limits for growth are 122 oC for archaeans, 100 oC for bacteria and ~60 oC for unicellular eukaryotes. No unicells appear to grow below –20 oC, a limit that is probably set by dehydration-linked vitrification of the cell interior. The lower thermal limits for survival in multicellular organisms in the natural world extend to at least –70 oC. However in all cases known to date, completion of the life cycle requires summer warmth and the lowest temperature for completion of a multicellular eukaryote life cycle appears to be ~0 oC for invertebrates in glacial meltwater and ~–2 oC for marine invertebrates and fish living on the continental shelves around Antarctica.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tobias E. Hector ◽  
Carla M. Sgrò ◽  
Matthew D. Hall

1941 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 366-372 ◽  
Author(s):  
Albert S. Gordon ◽  
Savino A. D'Angelo ◽  
Harry A. Charipper

Ecotoxicology ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daesik Park ◽  
Catherine R. Propper ◽  
Guangning Wang ◽  
Matthew C. Salanga

AbstractNaturally occurring arsenic is toxic at extremely low concentrations, yet some species persist even in high arsenic environments. We wanted to test if these species show evidence of evolution associated with arsenic exposure. To do this, we compared allelic variation across 872 coding nucleotides of arsenic (+3) methyltransferase (as3mt) and whole fish as3mt gene expression from three field populations of Gambusia affinis, from water sources containing low (1.9 ppb), medium-low (3.3 ppb), and high (15.7 ppb) levels of arsenic. The high arsenic site exceeds the US EPA’s Maximum Contamination Level for drinking water. Medium-low and high populations exhibited homozygosity, and no sequence variation across all animals sampled. Eleven of 24 fish examined (45.8%) in the low arsenic population harbored synonymous single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in exons 4 and/or 10. SNP presence in the low arsenic population was not associated with differences in as3mt transcript levels compared to fish from the medium-low site, where SNPs were noted; however, as3mt expression in fish from the high arsenic concentration site was significantly lower than the other two sites. Low sequence variation in fish populations from sites with medium-low and high arsenic concentrations suggests greater selective pressure on this allele, while higher variation in the low population suggests a relaxed selection. Our results suggest gene regulation associated with arsenic detoxification may play a more crucial role in influencing responses to arsenic than polymorphic gene sequence. Understanding microevolutionary processes to various contaminants require the evaluation of multiple populations across a wide range of pollution exposures.


Electronics ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (12) ◽  
pp. 1399
Author(s):  
Taepyeong Kim ◽  
Sangun Park ◽  
Yongbeom Cho

In this study, a simple and effective memory system required for the implementation of an AI chip is proposed. To implement an AI chip, the use of internal or external memory is an essential factor, because the reading and writing of data in memory occurs a lot. Those memory systems that are currently used are large in design size and complex to implement in order to handle a high speed and a wide bandwidth. Therefore, depending on the AI application, there are cases where the circuit size of the memory system is larger than that of the AI core. In this study, SDRAM, which has a lower performance than the currently used memory system but does not have a problem in operating AI, was used and all circuits were implemented digitally for simple and efficient implementation. In particular, a delay controller was designed to reduce the error due to data skew inside the memory bus to ensure stability in reading and writing data. First of all, it verified the memory system based on the You Only Look Once (YOLO) algorithm in FPGA to confirm that the memory system proposed in AI works efficiently. Based on the proven memory system, we implemented a chip using Samsung Electronics’ 65 nm process and tested it. As a result, we designed a simple and efficient memory system for AI chip implementation and verified it with hardware.


Author(s):  
Xiao Qiu ◽  
Blanca De la Fuente ◽  
Alberto Lorenzo ◽  
Santiago Veiga

The present study investigated swimmers’ performances on the starting and turning segments between individual and relay races. A total number of 72 race performances of the same swimmers in both relay 4 × 100 m finals (freestyle, medley, and mixed freestyle) and individual 100 m finals or semi-finals (butterfly, breaststroke, and freestyle) from the LEN European Swimming Championships were compared with repeated measures MANOVA. Swimmers performed 5–7% faster starts in the relay than in the corresponding individual events, despite no differences in the flight phase and a lower performance (shorter distances and slower velocities) on the underwater start section. The 15 m turn times were slower in the butterfly relay races although no specific differences in the underwater parameters were observed. These results suggest that specific training of the starting and turning segments should be performed under relay conditions to optimise pacing and performance in the underwater sections.


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