In a scenario with declining biodiversity and habitat loss, botanic gardens could serve as refuges for invertebrates, but the opportunities they offer for animal conservation are still poorly understood. Odonata is a good model group for conservation studies, because it includes threatened species and responses to habitat disturbance are well documented. In this study, we...
A three-dimensional hydrodynamic-ecological lake model combined with field measurements and sampling was applied to investigate the impacts of floating photovoltaic (PV) systems on hydrodynamics and water quality in a shallow tropical reservoir in Singapore. The model was validated using field data and subsequently applied to predict temperature and water quality changes for a...
A recent discovery of freshwater sponges in an unexplored hydrographic basin in north-western Australia provided the opportunity to investigate the genus Corvospongilla Annandale (Spongillida: Spongillidae) using integrative systematics. Emendation of the genus diagnosis is provided. A comparative analysis of a Corvospongilla global dataset of morphological traits together with...
Northern ecosystems are experiencing rapid and large-scale changes driven by accelerated warming, which have profound effects on the terrestrial and freshwater biodiversity. A comprehensive understanding of the distribution of aquatic biodiversity of subarctic ecosystems is therefore needed to better predict future trajectories of their unique biodiversity. In this study, we...
Highly concentrated dissolved silicate was detected in pore water from anoxic-reducing sediment in Lake Nakaumi, a brackish lake. Silicate concentration also simultaneously increased with total hydrogen sulfide concentration during the summer. Generally, dissolved silicate is readily adsorbed onto ferric hydroxide and precipitates in an oxidative environment. In this study, we...
The identification and quantification of phosphorus (P) compounds derived from algal biomass are crucial for a better understanding of algal P dynamics in lake ecosystems. Quantity and species of P in algae collected from Chao Lake (a typical ultra-eutrophic lake) in China were analyzed by chemical analysis and 31P NMR. Total P (TP) in algae biomass ranged from 2671 to 5385 mg kg...
Artificial light at night may affect mortality risk in prey from visually oriented predators because the effect of the artificial light spectrum may differ for a predator’s visual prey detection and for prey evasiveness. To test this, we conducted two types of experiment. First, we assessed the reaction distance and swimming speed of juvenile rudd (Scardinius erythrophthalmus...
Microinvertebrates play a role as top consumers on glaciers. In this study we tested what kind of cryoconite material the animals inhabit (mud vs granules) on the edge of the Greenland ice sheet (GrIS) in the south-west. We also tested the links between the densities of micro-fauna in cryoconite material and selected biotic (algae, cyanobacteria, bacterial abundances) and abiotic...
Throughout the world, mass development of native and non-native submerged macrophytes leads to nuisance problems for humans. However, often neither the type of nuisance nor the characteristics of nuisance vegetation have been uniformly quantified, leaving nuisance vegetation as a largely unsubstantiated qualification. The lack of a consensus about when submerged plants cause...
The simultaneous hatching of Daphnia resting eggs from a number of different lakes and ponds using one set of hatching cues can be difficult to achieve as environmental conditions differ considerably between water bodies. Therefore, optimal hatching conditions for ephippial eggs originating from shallow temporary waters may differ from those found in large lakes. The aim of our...
Research on the ecology of water mites in flowing water has focused mainly on analysis of factors directly affecting these organisms in the aquatic environment. The hypothesis of this study was that apart from factors acting within the aquatic environment, the formation of Hydrachnidia communities in lotic ecosystems may also be affected by factors acting in the terrestrial...
Environmental DNA (eDNA) analysis is a powerful tool within ecology for the study of the distribution or abundance of aquatic species, although the simplification of water sampling is required for enabling light and fast field sampling to expand further application of eDNA analysis. Here, certain candidate chemicals belonging to the group of cationic surfactants were examined for...
The short-term dynamics of soluble reactive phosphorus (SRP) transport across the sediment surface in a brackish lake due to discontinuous aeration and oxygenation operations were investigated using laboratory and field experimental and analytical procedures. According to a laboratory incubation experiment using intact sediment cores, SRP release from the sediment was clearly...
The present study is a discussion of the interactions between different types of water bodies in the spatial arrangement of a river valley, taking into account landscape data. The Hydrachnidia assemblages in particular types of valley water bodies (oxbows, riparian pools, permanent ponds, flooded alder carrs, sedge marshes, and springs) are strongly influenced by the spatial...
The behavior of radiocesium (137Cs) in aquatic plants (five species) and algae (three genera) grown in either a river (one sampling point) or pond (four sampling points) in the vicinity of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant was investigated. The 137Cs concentration of <0.45-μm fractions of water taken from the river and ponds was between 5.01 × 10−1 and 2.98 Bq/L, while...
Geographically isolated populations of freshwater fish have been introduced into conspecific native populations. One of the most representative cases is the pale chub Zacco platypus. The pale chub of Lake Biwa in western Japan has been inadvertently introduced to other waters with the release of game fish. Because they are not clearly discriminated from other populations by their...
Although strategies that increase the survival of a predator attack have been widely observed, the strategy of altering reproductive effort under predation threats has not been well documented. A switch to sexual reproduction or an increased asexual reproductive rate may be inducible antipredator strategies in animals that are capable of both asexual and sexual reproduction. The...