Approaching merchant ships elicit behavioral changes in Atlantic sturgeon (Acipenser oxyrinchus) in the St. Lawrence River, Canada.

There are gaps in our understanding of sturgeon's response to anthropogenic sounds and the spatial scales at which they occur. We measured spatial displacement of Atlantic sturgeon in the St. Lawrence River at various distances of approaching merchant ships.

Fate of chlordecone in soil food webs in a banana agroecosystem in Martinique.

Large quantities of chlordecone-based insecticides were produced and used throughout the world. One of its most important uses was to control the damage caused by Cosmopolites sordidus in banana-growing regions. In the islands of Martinique and Guadeloupe, 18,000 ha of farmland are potentially contaminated.

Patterns of connexin36 and eGFP reporter expression among motoneurons in spinal sexually dimorphic motor nuclei in mouse.

Background: Sexually dimorphic spinal motoneurons (MNs) in the dorsomedial nucleus (DMN) and dorsolateral nucleus (DLN) as well as those in the cremaster nucleus are involved in reproductive behaviours, and the cremaster nucleus additionally contributes to testicular thermoregulation. It has been reported that MNs in DMN and DLN are extensively linked by gap junctions forming electrical synapses composed of connexin36 (Cx36) and there is evidence that subpopulation of MNs in the cremaster nucleus are also electrically coupled by these synapses.

Methodology: We used immunofluorescence methods to detect enhanced green fluorescent protein (eGFP) reporter for Cx36 expression in these motor nuclei.

Association of connexin36 with adherens junctions at mixed synapses and distinguishing electrophysiological features of those at mossy fiber terminals in rat ventral hippocampus.

Background: Granule cells in the hippocampus project axons to hippocampal CA3 pyramidal cells where they form large mossy fiber terminals. We have reported that these terminals contain the gap junction protein connexin36 (Cx36) specifically in the stratum lucidum of rat ventral hippocampus, thus creating morphologically mixed synapses that have the potential for dual chemical/electrical transmission.

Methodology: Here, we used various approaches to characterize molecular and electrophysiological relationships between the Cx36-containing gap junctions at mossy fiber terminals and their postsynaptic elements and to examine molecular relationships at mixed synapses in the brainstem.