Un análisis crítico del uso de pasivas y cláusulas de relativo en los artículos de investigación en "Freshwater Ecology"

En el marco de los estudios comparativos, este artículo analiza el uso de pasivas y subordinadas en artículos de investigación sobre ecología de agua dulce. En un corpus de 20 artículos, se llevó a cabo un análisis crítico con el fin de resaltar las diferencias existentes entre autores nativos y no nativos anglófonos, escritores y escritoras, períodos de tiempo y categorías de revistas. Los resultados revelaron que los autores no nativos anglófonos hacen un mayor uso de las estructuras pasivas y subordinadas. Sin embargo, solo se encontraron diferencias de género en el uso de subordinadas, siendo más empleadas por las escritoras que por los escritores. Las diferencias temporales son consistentes con investigaciones previas que notaron un cambio hacia un discurso menos formal en la escritura científica. Desde un punto de vista didáctico, se espera que los hallazgos de este estudio amplíen el conocimiento de las variaciones existentes en la escritura científica para que los académicos de IFA puedan desarrollar estrategias prácticas de escritura a nivel de grado o posgrado en universidades de todo el mundo.

Bosminopsis deitersi (Crustacea: Cladocera) as an ancient species group: a revision

Water fleas (Crustacea: Cladocera) of the Family Bosminidae have been studied since the founding of paleolimnology and freshwater ecology. However, one species, Bosminopsis deitersi, stands out for its exceptional multicontinental range and broad ecological requirements. Here we use an integrated morphological and multilocus genetic approach to address the species problem in B. deitersi. We analyzed 32 populations of B. deitersi s. lat. Two nuclear and two mitochondrial loci were used to carry out the bGMYC, mPTP and STACEY algorithms for species delimitation. Detailed morphological study was also carried out across continents. The evidence indicated a widely distributed cryptic species in the Old World (Bosminopsis zernowi) that is genetically divergent from B. deitersi s.str. We revised the taxonomy and redescribed the species in this complex. Our sampling indicated that B. zernowi had weak genetic differentiation across its range. A molecular clock and biogeographic analysis with fossil calibrations suggested a Mesozoic origin for the Bosminopsis deitersi group. Our evidence rejects the single species hypothesis for B. deitersi and is consistent with an ancient species group (potentially Mesozoic) that shows marked morphological conservation. The family Bosminidae, then, has examples of both rapid morphological evolution (Holocene Bosmina), and morphological stasis (Bosminopsis).

COMBINATION IMPACT OF pH AND TEMPERATURE ON THE TOXICITY OF LEAD ON ZOOPLANKTON IN THE CONTEXT OF GLOBAL WARMING

Heavy metal pollution in urban lakes of Hanoi has become one of the major environmental issues in the last decades. Research on the toxicity of Pb is necessary due to the extent of its harm to aquatic ecosystems. The toxicity of Pb to aquatic organisms (EC50 values) depends on different environmental conditions. The study was conducted to evaluate the effect of temperature on the toxicity of Pb on the test organism Moina Dubia. Moina Dubia belongs to the Cladocera group (Cladocera) which is an indigenous creature collected at Lake Hanoi. Moina Dubia was cultured under laboratory conditions and has been used to conduct EC50 determination for Pb. Moina Dubia grew and developed well in the laboratory and was suitable as a test organism in toxicological studies. A survey from 24oC to 28oC water temperature conditions showed that the EC50 value decreases from 1402 ug/l to 775 ug/l. The higher water temperature, the higher toxicity level of Pb on Moina Dubia. Clear impact of water temperature on toxicity of heavy metal as Pb showed that global warming may gradually lead to potential biodegradation in freshwater ecology.

Generation and application of river network analogues for use in ecology and evolution

Several key processes in freshwater ecology and evolution are governed by the connectivity inherent to dendritic river networks. These networks have extensively been analyzed from a geomorphological and hydrological viewpoint, yet network structures classically used in modelling have only been partially representative of the structure of real river basins, and have often failed to capture well known scaling features of real river networks. Pioneering work has identified optimal channel networks (OCNs) as spanning trees that reproduce all scaling features characteristic of real, natural stream networks worldwide. While these networks have been used to generate landscapes for studies on metapopulations, biodiversity and epidemiology, their generation has not been generally accessible.Given the increasing interest in dendritic riverine networks by ecologists and evolutionary biologists, we here present a method to generate OCNs and, to facilitate its application, we also provide the R-package OCNet. Owing to the random search process that generates OCNs, multiple network replicas spanning the same surface can be built, allowing one to perform computational experiments whose results do not depend on the particular shape of a single river network. The OCN construct also enables the generation of elevational gradients derived from the optimal network configuration, which can constitute three-dimensional landscapes for spatial studies in both terrestrial and freshwater realms. Moreover, the OCNet package provides functions that aggregate the OCN into an arbitrary number of nodes, calculate several metrics and descriptors of river networks, and draw relevant features of the network.We describe the main functionalities of the package and present how it can be integrated into other R-packages commonly used in spatial ecology. Moreover, we exemplify the generation of OCNs and discuss an application to a metapopulation model for an invasive riverine species.In conclusion, OCNet provides a powerful tool to generate and use realistic river network analogues for various applications. It thereby allows the design of spatially realistic studies in increasingly impacted ecosystems, and enhances our knowledge on spatial processes in freshwater ecology in general.

Celebrating women conducting research in freshwater ecology … and how the citation game is damaging them

We highlight women’s contributions to freshwater ecology by firstly considering the historical context and gender-based barriers faced by women attempting to gain an education and secure research jobs in science over the past 100+ years. The stories of four remarkable, pioneering women in freshwater ecology (Kathleen Carpenter, Ann Chapman, Rosemary Lowe-McConnell and Ruth Patrick) illustrate the impact of barriers, emphasise the significance of their contributions and provide inspiration for the challenges ahead. Women still face barriers to participation in science, and the second part of the paper focuses on a current form of discrimination, which is citation metrics used to measure the ‘quality’ or ‘impact’ of research. We show that arguments that citation metrics reflect research quality are logically flawed, and that women are directly disadvantaged by this practice. Women are also indirectly disadvantaged in ecology because they are more likely to carry out empirical than theoretical research, and publications are generated more slowly from empirical research. Surveys of citation patterns in ecology reveal also that women are less likely to be authors of review papers, which receive three times more citations than do original articles. Unless unfettered use of citation metrics is stopped, research will be damaged, and women will be prominent casualties.