Sources partitioning in the diet of the shipworm Bankia carinata (J.E. Gray, 1827): An experimental study based on stable isotopes.

Adaptations that allow teredinids to maintain and thrive on wood, a nutritionally unbalanced food, make these marine bivalves remarkable. Capable of filter-feeding, shipworms house endosymbiotic bacteria synthesizing cellulolytic enzymes for digestion of wood carbohydrates and providing nitrogen to their host through nitrogen fixation. To what extent each of these nutrition modes contributes to the shipworm's metabolism remains an open question.

Probing the micellar solubilisation and inter-micellar exchange of polyphenols using the DPPH· free radical.

Encapsulation of polyphenols can be used for improving their stability and targeting. We present here a spectrophotometric method to probe the micellar solubilisation and inter-micellar exchange of polyphenols using the 2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH·) free radical as a visible probe. Our method relies on the partitioning of DPPH· into micelles, on the reduction of DPPH· by polyphenols, and on the change in absorbance of DPPH· when reduced/oxidised.