• European Marine Science
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It is a golden age for animal movement studies and so an opportune time to assess priorities for future work. We assembled 40 experts to identify key questions in this field, focussing on marine megafauna, which include a broad range of birds, mammals, reptiles, and fish. Research on these taxa has both underpinned many of the recent technical developments and led to fundamental discoveries in the field. We show that the questions have broad applicability to other taxa, including terrestrial animals, flying insects, and swimming invertebrates, and, as such, this exercise provides a useful roadmap for targeted deployments and data syntheses that should advance the field of movement ecology. Workshop funding was granted to M.T., A.M.M.S., and C.M.D. by the UWA Oceans Institute, the Australian Institute of Marine Science, and the Office of Sponsored Research at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST). Hays, Graeme C. et al. Peer reviewed

Dinoflagellates are haploid eukaryotic microalgae in which rapid proliferation causes dense blooms, with harmful health and economic effects to humans. The proliferation mode is mainly asexual, as the sexual cycle is believed to be rare and restricted to stressful environmental conditions. However, sexuality is key to explaining the recurrence of many dinoflagellate blooms because in many species the fate of the planktonic zygotes (planozygotes) is the formation of resistant cysts in the seabed (encystment). Nevertheless, recent research has shown that individually isolated planozygotes in the lab can enter other routes besides encystment, a behavior of which the relevance has not been explored at the population level. In this study, using imaging flow cytometry, cell sorting, and Fluorescence In Situ Hybridization (FISH), we followed DNA content and nuclear changes in a population of the toxic dinoflagellate Alexandrium minutum that was induced to encystment. Our results first show that planozygotes behave like a population with an “encystment-independent” division cycle, which is light-controlled and follows the same Light:Dark (L:D) pattern as the cycle governing the haploid mitosis. Resting cyst formation was the fate of just a small fraction of the planozygotes formed and was restricted to a period of strongly limited nutrient conditions. The diploid-haploid turnover between L:D cycles was consistent with two-step meiosis. However, the diel and morphological division pattern of the planozygote division also suggests mitosis, which would imply that this species is not haplontic, as previously considered, but biphasic, because individuals could undergo mitotic divisions in both the sexual (diploid) and the asexual (haploid) phases. We also report incomplete genome duplication processes. Our work calls for a reconsideration of the dogma of rare sex in dinoflagellates. SI

Abstract The dynamics of diatoms and dinoflagellates have been monitored for many decades at the Helgoland Roads Long-Term Ecological Research site and are relatively well understood. In contrast, small-sized eukaryotic microbes and their community changes are still much more elusive, mainly due to their small size and uniform morphology, which makes them difficult to identify microscopically. By using next-generation sequencing, we wanted to shed light on the Helgoland planktonic community dynamics, including nano- and picoplankton, during a spring bloom. We took samples from March to May 2016 and sequenced the V4 region of the 18S rDNA. Our results showed that mixotrophic and heterotrophic taxa were more abundant than autotrophic diatoms. Dinoflagellates dominated the sequence assemblage, and several small-sized eukaryotic microbes like Haptophyta, Choanoflagellata, Marine Stramenopiles and Syndiniales were identified. A diverse background community including taxa from all size classes was present during the whole sampling period. Five phases with several communities were distinguished. The fastest changes in community composition took place in phase 3, while the communities from phases 1 to 5 were more similar to each other despite contrasting environmental conditions. Synergy effects of next-generation sequencing and traditional methods may be exploited in future long-term observations.

Understanding the dynamics of speciation is a central topic in evolutionary biology. Here, we investigated how morphological and genomic differentiation accumulated along the speciation continuum in the African cichlid fish Astatotilapia burtoni. While morphological differentiation was continuously distributed across different lake-stream population pairs, we found that there were two categories with respect to genomic differentiation, suggesting a “gray zone” of speciation at ~0.1% net nucleotide divergence. Genomic differentiation was increased in the presence of divergent selection and drift compared to drift alone. The quantification of phenotypic and genetic parallelism in four cichlid species occurring along a lake-stream environmental contrast revealed parallel and antiparallel components in rapid adaptive divergence, and morphological convergence in species replicates inhabiting the same environments. Furthermore, we show that the extent of parallelism was higher when ancestral populations were more similar. Our study highlights the complementary roles of divergent selection and drift on speciation and parallel evolution. African cichlid fishes reveal the dynamics of speciation and the predictability of evolution. Description

A study was conducted to evaluate variations of digestive enzyme activities in Litopenaeus vannamei (Boone) reared in commercial ponds under semi-intensive conditions. Shrimp were collected at each body weight increase of 2 g. As the shrimp grew (2^12 g), signi¢cant increases in the activities of lipase and chymotrypsin were observed. The total protease activity decreased from 6 g onwards. Trypsin activity showed a peak at 6 g and amylase activity increased two-fold after 2 g. Additionally, the stomach contents were analysed microscopically for shrimp between 2 and 10 g. Plant matter contributed above 30% of the total stomach content in 6-, 8- and 10-g shrimp. Detritus represented 58% and 62% of the total stomach content in 2- and 4-g shrimp, respectively, decreasing to 33^43% at greater shrimp weights. Arti¢cial feed showed a maximum contribution of 20% in 6-g shrimp. The present results show changes in the enzyme activity after the shrimp reach 6 g in body weight, evidenced by a decrease in total protease and an increase in lipase and amylase activities. The amylase/protease ratio was 2.6 in 2-g shrimp and increased steadily to 9.6 in 12-g shrimp. These ¢ndings suggest an adaptation of the enzymatic activity to diets with lower protein content as body weight increases, and may be related to the variation of the diierent items found in the stomach.

The world's oceans cover 70% of the surface of our planet. The photosynthetic organisms living within its photic zone are responsible for about one-half of global primary productivity. The most successful organisms are thought to be photosynthetic prokaryotes (cyanobacteria and prochlorophytes) and

In the northern coastal area of the Alboran Sea (the most western basin of the Mediterranean Sea), the distribution of plankton at the surface follows complex patterns corresponding to the variability of abiotic (environmental) and biotic factors, including virus-host interactions. To assess these interactions, we measured the abundances of virus-like particles (VLPs) and different microbial virus hosts of the plankton community, including heterotrophic bacteria (HB), cyanobacteria and autotrophic eukaryote pico-, nano- and microplankton (APP, ANP and AMP, respectively). Samplings were carried out in the euphotic zone during 2 contrasting seasonal periods (autumn and spring), in 3 coastal areas of the Alboran basin. Virioplankton abundance varied, ranging from 8.5 × 105 to 2.2 × 107 VLPs ml-1, covering almost the whole range of variability described for the Mediterranean Sea. The mean VLP to microbial ratio (VMR) was 13.6 and the median was 10.5, although the VMR varied substantially from 1.3 to 44. In autumn, the abundance of VLPs did not correlate with HB, although it correlated positively with Prochlorococcus and Synechococcus and negatively with APP and AMP. In contrast, in spring, VLPs correlated positively with HB and APP and negatively with Synechococcus. These abundance data suggest that not only bacteria but also cyanobacteria could play a relevant role as virus hosts in the Alboran Sea, at least in autumn. The changes in abiotic factors that favor the growth of cyanobacteria vs. HB or vice versa and their possible role in regulating cyanophage to bacteriophage dynamics are further discussed.