Temporal dynamics of freshwater planktonic parasites inferred using a DNA metabarcoding time-series.

Parasites are important components of biodiversity and contributors to ecosystem functioning, but are often neglected in ecological studies. Most studies examine model parasite systems or single taxa, thus our understanding of community composition is lacking. Here, the seasonal and annual dynamics of parasites was quantified using a 5-year metabarcoding time-series of freshwater plankton, collected weekly.

Evidence for Lignocellulose-Decomposing Enzymes in the Genome and Transcriptome of the Aquatic Hyphomycete .

Fungi are ecologically outstanding decomposers of lignocellulose. Fungal lignocellulose degradation is prominent in saprotrophic Ascomycota and Basidiomycota of the subkingdom Dikarya. Despite ascomycetes dominating the Dikarya inventory of aquatic environments, genome and transcriptome data relating to enzymes involved in lignocellulose decay remain limited to terrestrial representatives of these phyla.

Mutual Facilitation Among Invading Nuttall's Waterweed and Quagga Mussels.

Nuttall's waterweed () is the most abundant invasive aquatic plant species in several European countries. populations often follow a boom-bust cycle, but the causes and consequences of this dynamics are yet unknown. We hypothesize that both boom and bust periods can be affected by dreissenid mussel invasions.

Positive selection in development and growth rate regulation genes involved in species divergence of the genus Radix.

Background: Life history traits like developmental time, age and size at maturity are directly related to fitness in all organisms and play a major role in adaptive evolution and speciation processes. Comparative genomic or transcriptomic approaches to identify positively selected genes involved in species divergence can help to generate hypotheses on the driving forces behind speciation. Here we use a bottom-up approach to investigate this hypothesis by comparative analysis of orthologous transcripts of four closely related European Radix species.

Parallel evolution of cox genes in H2S-tolerant fish as key adaptation to a toxic environment.

Populations that repeatedly adapt to the same environmental stressor offer a unique opportunity to study adaptation, especially if there are a priori predictions about the genetic basis underlying phenotypic evolution. Hydrogen sulphide (H2S) blocks the cytochrome-c oxidase complex (COX), predicting the evolution of decreased H2S susceptibility of the COX in three populations in the Poecilia mexicana complex that have colonized H2S-containing springs. Here, we demonstrate that decreased H2S susceptibility of COX evolved in parallel in two sulphide lineages, as evidenced by shared amino acid substitutions in cox1 and cox3 genes.

Impact of subcortical white matter lesions on dopamine transporter SPECT.

Subcortical arteriosclerotic encephalopathy (SAE) can affect the nigrostriatal system and presumably cause vascular parkinsonism (VP). However, in patients with SAE, the differentiation of VP from idiopathic Parkinson's disease (IPS) is challenging. The aim of the present study was to examine the striatal dopamine transporter (DAT) density in patients with parkinsonism and SAE.