Environ Microbiome
December 2024
While waves, swells and currents are important drivers of the ocean, their specific influence on the biocolonization of marine surfaces has been little studied. The aim of this study was to determine how hydrodynamics influence the dynamics of microbial communities, metabolic production, macrofoulers and the associated vagile fauna. Using a field device simulating a shear stress gradient, a multi-scale characterization of attached communities (metabarcoding, LC-MS, biochemical tests, microscopy) was carried out for one month each season in Toulon Bay (northwestern Mediterranean).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe bioaccumulation potential of contaminants in marine environments was investigated in biofilms and compared with caged mussels for a wide range of both organic and metallic contaminants across a large geographic area. Marine biofilms were sampled after three months of sub-surface immersion at 49 locations along the 1800 km of the French Mediterranean coast. Ten chemical elements (i.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPlastics in the ocean create the "plastisphere", a diverse habitat hosting various life forms. Other than the pollution induced by plastics, the co-occurrence of primary producers, symbiotic organisms, decomposers, and pathogens within the plastisphere raises questions about how they influence the dynamics of marine ecosystems. Here, we used a shotgun DNA-sequencing approach to describe the species thriving on floating plastics collected in two Mediterranean sites.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe term "Plastisphere" refers to the biofilm layer naturally formed by microorganisms attaching to plastic surfaces. This layer possesses the capability to adsorb persistent organic and inorganic pollutants, particularly trace metals, which are the focus of this research study. Immersion experiments were concurrently conducted in five locations spanning four European countries (France, Ireland, Spain, and Italy) utilising eight distinct polymers.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSentence comprehension is highly practiced and largely automatic, but this belies the complexity of the underlying processes. We used functional neuroimaging to investigate garden-path sentences that cause difficulty during comprehension, in order to unpack the different processes used to support sentence interpretation. By investigating garden-path and other types of sentences within the same individuals, we functionally profiled different regions within the temporal and frontal cortices in the left hemisphere.
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