scholarly journals Marine invertebrate diversity in Aristotle’s zoology

2007 ◽  
Vol 76 (2) ◽  
pp. 103-120 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eleni Voultsiadou ◽  
Dimitris Vafidis

The aim of this paper is to bring to light Aristotle’s knowledge of marine invertebrate diversity as this has been recorded in his works 25 centuries ago, and set it against current knowledge. The analysis of information derived from a thorough study of his zoological writings revealed 866 records related to animals currently classified as marine invertebrates. These records corresponded to 94 different animal names or descriptive phrases which were assigned to 85 current marine invertebrate taxa, mostly (58%) at the species level. A detailed, annotated catalogue of all marine anhaima (a = without, haima = blood) appearing in Aristotle’s zoological works was constructed and several older confusions were clarified. Some of Aristotle’s “genera” were found to be directly correlated to current invertebrate higher taxa. Almost the total of the marine anhaima were benthic invertebrates. The great philosopher had a remarkable, well-balanced scientific knowledge of the diversity of the various invertebrate groups, very similar to that acquired by modern marine biologists in the same area of study. The results of the present study should be considered as a necessary starting point for a further analysis of Aristotle’s priceless contribution to the marine environment and its organisms.

The Holocene ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 28 (12) ◽  
pp. 1894-1908
Author(s):  
Andréanne Bourgeois-Roy ◽  
Hugo Crites ◽  
Pascal Bernatchez ◽  
Denis Lacelle ◽  
André Martel

The late Pleistocene–early Holocene transition period was characterized by rapid environmental change. Here, we investigate the impact of these changes on the marine invertebrates living in a shallow inlet of the post-glacial Goldthwait Sea. The site is located near Baie-Comeau (QC, Canada), where a number of remarkably well-preserved shell deposits are found along the Rivière aux Anglais Valley on the north shore of the St. Lawrence maritime estuary. Seven phyla of marine invertebrates with a minimum of 25 species or taxa were inventoried in a shell deposit, dominated by a community of Hiatella arctica with Mytilus edulis and barnacles composing the subcommunity. The majority of taxa identified in the shell deposit are boreal and sub-Arctic species; however, temperate species that exist today in the St. Lawrence maritime estuary have not been found. Based on marine invertebrate diversity and δ18O(CaCO3) of Mytilus edulis, the water in the shallow inlet of the Goldthwait Sea must have been cold and saline. The range of AMS 14C ages from 15 Mytilus edulis, constrained to 10,900 and 10,690 cal. yr BP, and exceptional state of preservation of adult and juvenile molluscan specimens suggest the abrupt mortality of entire invertebrate communities due to changing hydrodynamic conditions that included the combined effect of freshwater discharge from the receding Laurentide Ice Sheet and rapid isostatic uplift.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Henrique Niza ◽  
Marta Bento ◽  
Luis Lopes ◽  
Alexandra Cartaxana ◽  
Alexandra Correia

The amount of biological data available in online repositories is increasing at an exponential rate. However, data on marine invertebrate biodiversity resources are still sparse and scattered in these countries. Online repositories are useful instruments for biodiversity research, as they provide a fast access to data from different sources. The use of interactive platforms comprising web mapping are becoming more important not only for the scientific community, but also for conservation managers, decision-makers and the general public as they allow data presentation in simple and understandable visual schemes. The main goal of this study was to create an interactive online digital map (MARINBIODIV Atlas), through the collection of data from various sources, to visualize marine invertebrate occurrences and distribution across different habitats, namely mangroves, seagrasses, corals and other coastal areas, in Mozambique and São Tomé and Príncipe. The acquired biodiversity data were managed and structured to be displayed as spatial data and to be disseminated using the geographic information system ArcGIS, where data can be accessed, filtered and mapped. The ArcGIS web mapping design tools were used to produce interactive maps to visualize marine invertebrate diversity information along the coasts of Mozambique and São Tomé and Príncipe, through different habitats, offering the foundation for analysing species incidence and allocation information. Understanding the spatial occurrences and distribution of marine invertebrates in both countries can provide a valuable baseline, regarding information and trends on their coastal marine biodiversity.


2021 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
Author(s):  
Henrique Niza ◽  
Marta Bento ◽  
Luis Lopes ◽  
Alexandra Cartaxana ◽  
Alexandra Correia

The amount of biological data available in online repositories is increasing at an exponential rate. However, data on marine invertebrate biodiversity resources from Mozambique and São Tomé and Príncipe are still sparse and scattered. Online repositories are useful instruments for biodiversity research, as they provide a fast access to data from different sources. The use of interactive platforms comprising web mapping are becoming more important, not only for the scientific community, but also for conservation managers, decision-makers and the general public as they allow data presentation in simple and understandable visual schemes. The main goal of this study was to create an interactive online digital map (hosted and available at MARINBIODIV Atlas), through the collection of data from various sources, to visualise marine invertebrate occurrences and distribution across different habitats, namely mangroves, seagrasses, corals and other coastal areas, in Mozambique and São Tomé and Príncipe. The acquired biodiversity data were managed and structured to be displayed as spatial data and to be disseminated using the geographic information system ArcGIS, where data can be accessed, filtered and mapped. The ArcGIS web mapping design tools were used to produce interactive maps to visualise marine invertebrate diversity information along the coasts of Mozambique and São Tomé and Príncipe, through different habitats, offering the foundation for analysing species incidence and allocation information. Understanding the spatial occurrences and distribution of marine invertebrates in both countries can provide a valuable baseline, regarding information and trends on their coastal marine biodiversity.


2021 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emily Yi-Shyuan Chen

Making up over 92% of life in our oceans, marine invertebrates inhabit every zone in the water column, with contributions ranging from ecosystem functioning to socioeconomic development. Compared to charismatic species, marine invertebrates are often underrepresented in IUCN reports and national conservation efforts. Because of this, as climate change intensifies in conjunction with increasing anthropogenic pressures such as habitat destruction, many marine invertebrates are at risk of silently heading toward extinction. However, public perception has shifted in recent years due to the growing awareness of the important roles these invertebrates play in marine and human life. This change may promote greater support for future research and conservation campaigns of key species. This review highlights the importance of marine invertebrates, the environmental and anthropogenic stressors they are currently facing, and the inherent challenges in their successful conservation. Potential solutions to fill the gaps in current knowledge will be also explored in the context of recent globalization and technological advancements. The loss of marine invertebrate biodiversity will have cascading ecological, economic, and sociological repercussions, so compiling key information into a holistic review will add to the conversation of the importance of global marine invertebrate conservation.


Biology ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 161
Author(s):  
Irene Deidda ◽  
Roberta Russo ◽  
Rosa Bonaventura ◽  
Caterina Costa ◽  
Francesca Zito ◽  
...  

Invertebrates represent about 95% of existing species, and most of them belong to aquatic ecosystems. Marine invertebrates are found at intermediate levels of the food chain and, therefore, they play a central role in the biodiversity of ecosystems. Furthermore, these organisms have a short life cycle, easy laboratory manipulation, and high sensitivity to marine pollution and, therefore, they are considered to be optimal bioindicators for assessing detrimental chemical agents that are related to the marine environment and with potential toxicity to human health, including neurotoxicity. In general, albeit simple, the nervous system of marine invertebrates is composed of neuronal and glial cells, and it exhibits biochemical and functional similarities with the vertebrate nervous system, including humans. In recent decades, new genetic and transcriptomic technologies have made the identification of many neural genes and transcription factors homologous to those in humans possible. Neuroinflammation, oxidative stress, and altered levels of neurotransmitters are some of the aspects of neurotoxic effects that can also occur in marine invertebrate organisms. The purpose of this review is to provide an overview of major marine pollutants, such as heavy metals, pesticides, and micro and nano-plastics, with a focus on their neurotoxic effects in marine invertebrate organisms. This review could be a stimulus to bio-research towards the use of invertebrate model systems other than traditional, ethically questionable, time-consuming, and highly expensive mammalian models.


1992 ◽  
Vol 49 (5) ◽  
pp. 1010-1017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicolas S. Bloom

Total mercury, monomethylmercury (CH3Hg), and dimethylmercury ((CH3)2Hg) in edible muscle were examined in 229 samples, representing seven freshwater and eight saltwater fish species and several species of marine invertebrates using ultraclean techniques. Total mercury was determined by hot HNO3/H2SO4/BrClldigestion, SnCl2 reduction, purging onto gold, and analysis by cold vapor atomic fluorescence spectrometry (CVAFS). Methylmercury was determined by KOH/methanol digestion using aqueous phase ethylation, cryogenic gas chromatography, and CVAFS detection. Total mercury and CH3Hg concentrations varied from 0.011 to 2.78 μg∙g−1 (wet weight basis, as Hg) for all samples, while no sample contained detectable (CH3)2Hg (<0.001 μg∙g−1 as Hg). The observed proportion of total mercury (as CH3Hg) ranged from 69 to 132%, with a relative standard deviation for quintuplicate analysis of about 10%; nearly all of this variability can be explained by the analytical variability of total mercury and CH3Hg. Poorly homogenized samples showed greater variability, primarily because total mercury and CH3Hg were measured on separate aliquots, which vary in mercury concentration, not speciation. I conclude that for all species studied, virtually ail (>95%) of the mercury present is as CH3Hg and that past reports of substantially lower CH3Hg fractions may have been biased by analytical and homogeneity variability.


2017 ◽  
Vol 8 (1-IT) ◽  
Author(s):  
Mario Tanga ◽  
Giacomo Gelati ◽  
Marco Casazza

6Contemporary science and culture show more and more extended and meaningful signs about the increasing explaining power of evolutionary paradigm. This power overcomes the field of the history of living species. We consider “On the Origin of Species” of 1859 by Charles Darwin as the establishment of this paradigm, but this original and fruitful idea has received the several and different contributions from near and (seemingly) far scientific fields. This process happened according distinguishable waves and leaded the evolutionary theory very far from its starting point, making it something wider and different. The current knowledge of this theory involves many kinds of scholars: biologists, zoologists, botanists, development biologists, genetics/genomics scholars and also scholars of many other disciplines, as statistics, mathematics, ecology, environmental sciences, physics, chemistry, linguistics, sociology, neuro-sciences, epidemiology, informatics, immunology. During the end of XX Century, the study of complexity, of self-organization and of emerging properties has been a decisive factor to extend evolution until beyond the boundaries of Biology. These phenomena, or properties, or features, that are shown by “living” and “not-living” systems (so called basing ourselves on traditional definitions), have deeply modified even the “properly” biologic evolution itself and besides this has demonstrated that, mutatis mutandis, evolutionary processes or phenomena happen also out of biologic dominion, referring “biologic” to “wet-ware world”. This is to say the class of evolutionary phenomena is more widely and more inclusively extended than our opinion. We can mean this as a revolution (according to Kuhn’s definition) that imposes us to restructure the definition of evolution itself and even to redraw the boundaries and the map of Biology itself. Aiming to establish a name of this field of study we propose “PanEvolutionary Theory” (PanEvo Theory). No doubt Prigogine offered an important contribution to this area. The thinking and the work of Enzo Tiezzi can be placed seen in the same perspective. Disregarding direct connections and contacts with the Nobel Prize Prigogine, however the studies of Enzo Tiezzi are neither a fully unexpected work nor a theory lacking of important potentialities: it is not a strange or eccentric academic exercise. Except the close contact and the dense exchanges with Prigogine, we collocate Enzo Tiezzi in the same context of Gregory Chaitin, of Rachel Carson, of John Harte and Robert H. Socolow, of James Paul Wesley, of Sertorio, of Oort and Peixoto, just to cite the most strictly related. Our Academy had the privilege and the honor of having Enzo Tiezzi in its ranks. We think that merits and developments of the thinking of this scholar have to produce important and lasting fruits in the future.


Diversity ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 80 ◽  
Author(s):  
Angelina Lo Giudice ◽  
Carmen Rizzo

The ecological function of bacteria-invertebrate interactions in Polar areas remains poorly understood, despite increasing evidence that microbial metabolites may play pivotal roles in host-associated chemical defense and in shaping the symbiotic community structure. The metabolic and physiological changes that these organisms undergo in response to adapting to extreme conditions result in the production of structurally and functionally novel biologically active molecules. Deepening our knowledge on the interactions between bacteria and their invertebrate host would be highly helpful in providing the rationale for why (e.g., competition or cooperative purpose) and which (whether secondary metabolites, enzymes, or proteins) bioactive compounds are produced. To date, cold-adapted bacteria associated with marine invertebrates from the Arctic and Antarctica have not been given the attention they deserve and the versatility of their natural products remains virtually unexplored, even if they could represent a new attractive frontier in the search for novel natural compounds. This review is aimed at showcasing the diversity of cold-adapted bacteria associated with benthic invertebrates from Polar marine areas, highlighting the yet unexplored treasure they represent for biodiscovery.


2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cindy Grant ◽  
Laure de Montety ◽  
Lisa Tréau de Coeli ◽  
Nanette Hammeken ◽  
Philippe Archambault ◽  
...  

Many teams studying benthic biodiversity have faced the challenge of identifying collected specimens while they are at sea. The use of pictures is an efficient way to increase samples processing, while limiting wrong or incorrect identifications that can be done when many people are working on the same project at different times. This catalogue presents a non-exhaustive inventory of more than 750 taxa, most of them named to the species level, of benthic invertebrates recorded in Baffin Bay (Arctic) with a special attention paid to species recorded along the Southwest Greenland coast. It is designed to be an accurate tool for biologists to identify benthic invertebrates occurring in trawl/dredge samples, with the objective to decrease number of preserved samples and time spent on post-survey sample processing. It has proven particularly useful during the implementation of benthos monitoring on national fisheries assessment surveys as recently recommended by CAFF-CBMP (CAFF 2017) as a way to increase our knowledge of long-term and large-scale trends in Arctic benthos communities. The catalogue proposes original photos and drawings. A must for biologist studying benthos from Arctic waters!


Author(s):  
Eeva Koponen ◽  
Tiia Puputti

Systematic information seeking is an essential part of academic work. Research and information seeking go hand in hand, and both need planning. In the academic world you can hardly avoid the research plan, but you probably won’t hear that much about the information seeking plan. The information seeking plan guides you through the research process from the first sparks of an idea to the last dot in the bibliography from the point of view of the often invisible process of systematic information seeking.Systematic Information Seeking Framework designed in the Jyväskylä University Library has its roots in Carol Kuhlthau's Guided Inquiry Design Process. Our model, designed for more contextual adjustability, is presented in our Library Tutorial (https://koppa.jyu.fi/avoimet/kirjasto/en/library-tutorial), an open self-study material.The process starts with “Defining the topic and finding search terms”. This stage requires extensive reading about the subject matter, understanding the basic differences between everyday knowledge and scientific knowledge and distinguishing information resources for different kinds of needs.Analysis of concepts and understanding of their contextuality are at the core of scientific knowledge. With the information seeking plan and a mind map one can work on the search terms, discover connections and construct search statements for different resources and the search strategies they require.The second section is about “Finding sources”, which students often understand as the starting point for systematic information seeking. Knowledge of the publication cultures in different disciplines guide the information seeker to the different types of sources needed.Finally, “Citing and managing references”. One of the most essential skills in all academic work is the appropriate use of scientific sources, citing and managing references correctly. As academic dishonesty hurts the whole community, academic fraud, e.g. plagiarism, is taken very seriously. Sufficient skills in seeking and managing information are the key to avoiding it.


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