The endoparasites of Liasis fuscus (Serpentes : Boidae) from the Adelaide River floodplain, Northern Territory, Australia

This study documents the parasite assemblage of Liasis fuscus Peters, 1873 from the Adelaide River flood plain, Northern Territory, Australia. In total, nine species of helminth (comprising three cestodes and six nematodes), one pentastome and one protozoan were found in 180 water pythons, with the Nematoda being the dominant and most diverse group, and a cestode, Bothridium ornatum Maplestone & Southwell, 1923, the most prevalent species. In spite of the hosts being present in high numbers the helminth assemblage was depauperate, characterised by low prevalence, intensity, frequency and abundance of species, with neither season nor sex of host affecting abundance. There were, however, significant differences between ages of hosts, juveniles having fewer parasites, and seasonal diversity, with the wet season of 2004 and the dry of 2005 the most similar. Of the Australian python species analysed Morelia spilota (Lacépède, 1804) had the highest species richness. The lower species richness found in L. fuscus was possibly due to its unusual biology. Biogeographic relationships of the parasite fauna of L. fuscus are diverse, connections with Africa, Asia, and South America being noted.

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Parasites of Rattus colletti (Rodentia:Muridae) from the Adelaide River floodplain, Northern Territory, and comparison with assemblages in other Rattus species

Australian Journal of Zoology ◽

10.1071/zo09072 ◽

2009 ◽

Vol 57 (6) ◽

pp. 377 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

E. Mulder ◽

L. R. Smales

Keyword(s):

Flood Plain ◽

Northern Territory ◽

Hymenolepis Diminuta ◽

Single Population ◽

Generic Level ◽

Family Level ◽

River Flood ◽

Rattus Fuscipes ◽

Low Prevalence ◽

Species Being

This study documents the parasite assemblage of Rattus colletti (Thomas, 1904) from the Adelaide River flood plain, Northern Territory, Australia. In total, six species of helminth (comprising two cestodes, one trematode and three nematodes), and four species of arthropod (comprising one tick, one mite, one flea (identified to family level) and one louse (identified to generic level)) were found. In spite of the hosts being present in high numbers the helminth assemblage was depauperate, characterised by low prevalence and abundance, both being higher in wet seasons. More helminths were found in larger animals. The most prevalent helminth was from the Trichostrongylina, Nippostrongylus typicus (Mawson, 1961). The assemblage was characterised as having two heirloom species (N. typicus and Hymenolepis diminuta (Rudolphi, 1819)), a host capture (Raillietina celebensis (Janicki, 1902) and a cosmopolitan species (Mastophorus muris (Gmelin, 1790)) as well as occasional infections. When compared with the helminths from a single population of Rattus sordidus (Gould, 1858) a similar number of species were found, three species being in common, and both were depauperate when compared with the more extensively surveyed faunas of Rattus fuscipes (Waterhouse, 1839) and Rattus leucopus (Gray, 1858).

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Fish assemblages in floodplain lakes in a Neotropical river during the wet season (Magdalena River, Colombia)

Journal of Tropical Ecology ◽

10.1017/s0266467412000181 ◽

2012 ◽

Vol 28 (3) ◽

pp. 271-279 ◽

Cited By ~ 6

Author(s):

Carlos Granado-Lorencio ◽

Alejandra Gulfo ◽

Frank Alvarez ◽

Luz Fernanda Jiménez-Segura ◽

Juan David Carvajal-Quintero ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Species Richness ◽

Fish Assemblages ◽

Abiotic Factors ◽

Environmental Parameters ◽

Floodplain Lakes ◽

Fish Diversity ◽

Wet Season ◽

River Floodplain ◽

Lake Morphology ◽

Magdalena River

Abstract:A number of studies have pointed out that abiotic factors and recolonization dynamics appear to be more important than biotic interactions in structuring river–fish assemblages. In this paper, we studied the fish assemblages in 27 floodplain lakes, with perennial connection to the river, in the middle section of the Magdalena River (Colombia), to examine spatial pattern in freshwater fish diversity in relation to some environmental parameters. Our objective was to examine relationships between floodplain-lake fish communities and environmental variables associated with lake morphology, water chemistry and river–floodplain connectivity in a large river–floodplain ecosystem. During the study, a total of 18 237 fish were caught from 50 species (regional richness; 17 were migrants and 33 residents). In the present study, the most diverse order was Characiformes with 20 species, followed by Siluriformes, with 19 species. Characidae and Loricaridae were the richest families. The range of species richness (local richness) varied between five and 39 species. Similarity of local assemblages (using the presence–absence data) depends on the distance between lakes. A positive relationship was observed between the Ln of the total abundance of each species and the number of lakes where they were found. Out of all the environmental parameters taken in the lakes, only the size (Log Area) and relative perimeter length are significantly related to local assemblage species richness. It has not been possible to demonstrate that the connectivity (distance) from lakes to the main river can be considered a predictor of the local richness.

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Wet season cyanobacterial N enrichment highly correlated with species richness and <i>Nostoc</i> in the northern Australian savannah

Biogeosciences ◽

10.5194/bg-15-2149-2018 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 15 (7) ◽

pp. 2149-2159 ◽

Cited By ~ 4

Author(s):

Wendy Williams ◽

Burkhard Büdel ◽

Stephen Williams

Keyword(s):

Species Richness ◽

Flood Plain ◽

Substantial Contribution ◽

Organic N ◽

Research Station ◽

N Fixation ◽

Wet Season ◽

The North ◽

Cyanobacterial Species ◽

Highly Correlated

Abstract. The Boodjamulla National Park research station is situated in the north-western Queensland dry savannah, where the climate is dominated by summer monsoons and virtually dry winters. Under shrub canopies and in between the tussock grasses cyanobacterial crusts almost entirely cover the flood plain soil surfaces. Seasonality drives N fixation, and in the savannah this has a large impact on both plant and soil function. Many cyanobacteria fix dinitrogen that is liberated into the soil in both inorganic and organic N forms. We examined cyanobacterial species richness and bioavailable N spanning 7 months of a typical wet season. Over the wet season cyanobacterial richness ranged from 6 to 19 species. N-fixing Scytonema accounted for seasonal averages between 51 and 93 % of the biocrust. Cyanobacterial richness was highly correlated with N fixation and bioavailable N in 0–1 cm. Key N-fixing species such as Nostoc, Symploca and Gloeocapsa significantly enriched soil N although Nostoc was the most influential. Total seasonal N fixation by cyanobacteria demonstrated the variability in productivity according to the number of wet days as well as the follow-on days where the soil retained adequate moisture. Based on total active days per month we estimated that N soil enrichment via cyanobacteria would be ∼  5.2 kg ha−1 annually which is comparable to global averages. This is a substantial contribution to the nutrient-deficient savannah soils that are almost entirely reliant on the wet season for microbial turnover of organic matter. Such well-defined seasonal trends and synchronisation in cyanobacterial species richness, N fixation, bioavailable N and C fixation (Büdel et al., 2018) provide important contributions to multifunctional microprocesses and soil fertility.

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The seasonal changes of the gut microbiome of the population living in traditional lifestyles are represented by characteristic species-level and functional-level SNP enrichment patterns

BMC Genomics ◽

10.1186/s12864-021-07372-0 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 22 (1) ◽

Author(s):

Xue Zhu ◽

Jiyue Qin ◽

Chongyang Tan ◽

Kang Ning

Keyword(s):

Gut Microbiome ◽

Seasonal Changes ◽

Dry Season ◽

Urban Setting ◽

Snp Analysis ◽

Wet Season ◽

Human Gut ◽

Human Gut Microbiome ◽

Genome Level ◽

Prevalent Species

Abstract Background Most studies investigating human gut microbiome dynamics are conducted on humans living in an urban setting. However, few studies have researched the gut microbiome of the populations living traditional lifestyles. These understudied populations are arguably better subjects in answering human-gut microbiome evolution because of their lower exposure to antibiotics and higher dependence on natural resources. Hadza hunter-gatherers in Tanzania have exhibited high biodiversity and seasonal patterns in their gut microbiome composition at the family level, where some taxa disappear in one season and reappear later. Such seasonal changes have been profiled, but the nucleotide changes remain unexplored at the genome level. Thus, it is still elusive how microbial communities change with seasonal changes at the genome level. Results In this study, we performed a strain-level single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) analysis on 40 Hadza fecal metagenome samples spanning three seasons. With more SNP presented in the wet season, eight prevalent species have significant SNP enrichment with the increasing number of SNP calling by VarScan2, among which only three species have relatively high abundances. Eighty-three genes have the most SNP distributions between the wet season and dry season. Many of these genes are derived from Ruminococcus obeum, and mainly participated in metabolic pathways including carbon metabolism, pyruvate metabolism, and glycolysis. Conclusions Eight prevalent species have significant SNP enrichments with the increasing number of SNP, among which only Eubacterium biforme, Eubacterium hallii and Ruminococcus obeum have relatively high species abundances. Many genes in the microbiomes also presented characteristic SNP distributions between the wet season and the dry season. This implies that the seasonal changes might indirectly impact the mutation patterns for specific species and functions for the gut microbiome of the population that lives in traditional lifestyles through changing the diet in wet and dry seasons, indicating the role of these variants in these species’ adaptation to the changing environment and diets.

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Flood vulnerability assessment in the light of rice cultivation characteristics in Mekong River flood plain in Cambodia

Paddy and Water Environment ◽

10.1007/s10333-013-0403-1 ◽

2013 ◽

Vol 12 (S2) ◽

pp. 275-286 ◽

Cited By ~ 5

Author(s):

Toshio Okazumi ◽

Shigenobu Tanaka ◽

Youngjoo Kwak ◽

Badri Bhakta Shrestha ◽

Ai Sugiura

Keyword(s):

Vulnerability Assessment ◽

Flood Plain ◽

Rice Cultivation ◽

Mekong River ◽

Flood Vulnerability ◽

River Flood ◽

Flood Vulnerability Assessment

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Problem crocodiles, Crocodylus porosus, at Nhulunbuy, Northern Territory: an assessment of relocation as a mangaement strategy

Wildlife Research ◽

10.1071/wr9930127 ◽

1993 ◽

Vol 20 (1) ◽

pp. 127 ◽

Cited By ~ 20

Author(s):

B Walsh ◽

PJ Whitehead

Keyword(s):

Carrying Capacity ◽

Northern Territory ◽

Effective Strategy ◽

Wet Season ◽

Rates Of Return ◽

Saltwater Crocodile ◽

Crocodylus Porosus ◽

Remote Sites ◽

Total Capture ◽

Capture Rates

Since 1986 the Conservation Commission of the Northern Territory has operated a programme to remove 'problem' saltwater crocodiles from waters in and adjoining the township of Nhulunbuy. Over a period of five years, 52 different saltwater crocodiles (44 male) were captured. Most (48) were released at remote sites designated by the traditional Aboriginal owners of the surrounding lands. Release distances from the township varied from 17 to 282 km (by coastline). Many crocodiles (47.9%), including those released at the most distant sites, returned to, and were subsequently recaptured at, the township. Total capture rates (initial captures and recaptures pooled) varied seasonally, with fewer crocodiles being caught in the cooler dry season. During the wet season capture rates remained high, but relatively fewer 'new' crocodiles were caught. Probability of recapture could not be related to distance and direction of release from the township, nor size and sex of the released crocodile. Frequency of capture of individual crocodiles (1-8 times) was also unrelated to these variables. The high rates of return indicate that relocation is unlikely to be an effective strategy for managing humancrocodile interactions, at least in areas where potential release sites already support saltwater crocodile populations near carrying capacity.

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Thinking honeyeater: nectar maps for the Northern Territory, Australia

Pacific Conservation Biology ◽

10.1071/pc000061 ◽

2000 ◽

Vol 6 (1) ◽

pp. 61 ◽

Cited By ~ 35

Author(s):

John C. Z. Woinarski ◽

Greg Connors ◽

Don C. Franklin

Keyword(s):

Northern Territory ◽

Dry Season ◽

Spatial And Temporal Variation ◽

Wet Season ◽

Nectar Production ◽

The World ◽

Eucalypt Forests ◽

The Times ◽

Species Specific ◽

Nectar Availability

We create monthly maps of nectar availability for the 1.4 x 106 km2 jurisdiction of the Northern Territory, Australia. These are based on a combination of vegetation mapping and a series of indices of plant species specific nectar scoring. The maps reveal complex spatial and temporal variation in nectar availability, but most notably a greater nectar resource in the monsoon-influenced north than in the arid south, and a peak in nectar availability in the dry season. The latter is associated with the extensive tropical eucalypt forests (especially those co-dominated by Eucalyptus miniata and E. tetrodonta). In contrast, wet season nectar availability in these forests is limited, but riparian and swampland forests, typically dominated by Melaleuca species, provide rich but spatially restricted nectar resources. The extensive and rich nectar resources available in eucalypt forests in the dry season supplement the diets of many species which are not primarily nectarivorous. This resource helps shape the singularity of northern Australian eucalypt forests relative to other extensive forests elsewhere in the world. Nectarivores remain in the system through a combination of movements across a number of scales, habitat shifting, and diet shifting. The latter is aided by the peaking of invertebrate and fruit resources at the times of minimum nectar production; a shuffling in resource availability brought about by the extreme climatic seasonality.

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