Bacteria, archaea and fungi play crucial roles in wetland biogeochemical processes. However, little is known about their community structure, dynamics and interactions in subtropical coastal ...wetlands. Here, we examined communities of the three kingdoms in mangrove and mudflat sediments of a subtropical coastal wetland using Ion Torrent amplicon sequencing and co-occurrence network analysis. Bacterial, archaeal and fungal communities comprised mainly of members from the phyla Proteobacteria and Bacteroidetes, Bathyarchaeota and Euryarchaeota, and Ascomycota, respectively. Species richness and Shannon diversity were highest in bacteria, followed by archaea and were lowest in fungi. Distinct spatiotemporal patterns were observed, with bacterial and fungal communities varying, to different extent, between wet and dry seasons and between mangrove and mudflat, and archaeal community remaining relatively stable between seasons and regions. Redundancy analysis revealed temperature as the major driver of the seasonal patterns of bacterial and fungal communities but also highlighted the importance of interkingdom biotic factors in shaping the community structure of all three kingdoms. Potential ecological interactions and putative keystone taxa were identified based on co-occurrence network analysis. These findings facilitate current understanding of the microbial ecology of subtropical coastal wetlands and provide a basis for better modelling of ecological processes in this important ecosystem.
The COVID pandemic has impacted almost every aspect of human interaction, causing global changes in financial, health care, and social environments for the foreseeable future. More than 1.3 million ...of the 4 million cases of COVID-19 confirmed globally as of May 2020 have been identified in the United States, testing the capacity and resilience of our hospitals and health care workers. The impacts of the ongoing pandemic, caused by a novel strain of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), have far-reaching implications for the future of our health care system and how we deliver routine care to patients. The adoption of social distancing during this pandemic has demonstrated efficacy in controlling the spread of this virus and has been the only proven means of infection control thus far. Social distancing has prompted hospital closures and the reduction of all non-COVID clinical visits, causing widespread financial despair to many outpatient centers. However, the need to treat patients for non-COVID problems remains important despite this pandemic, as care must continue to be delivered to patients despite their ability or desire to report to outpatient centers for their general care. Our national health care system has realized this need and has incentivized providers to adopt distance-based care in the form of telemedicine and video medicine visits. Many institutions have since incorporated these into their practices without financial penalty because of Medicare's 1135 waiver, which currently reimburses telemedicine at the same rate as evaluation and management codes (E/M Codes). Although the financial burden has been alleviated by this policy, the practitioner remains accountable for providing proper assessment with this new modality of health care delivery. This is a challenge for most physicians, so our team of national experts has created a reference guide for musculoskeletal and neurologic examination selection to retrofit into the telemedicine experience.
To describe and illustrate musculoskeletal and neurologic examination techniques that can be used effectively in telemedicine.
Consensus-based multispecialty guidelines.
Tertiary care center.
Literature review of the neck, shoulder, elbow, wrist, hand, lumbar, hip, and knee physical examinations were performed. A multidisciplinary team comprised of physical medicine and rehabilitation, orthopedics, rheumatology, neurology, and anesthesia experts evaluated each examination and provided consensus opinion to select the examinations most appropriate for telemedicine evaluation. The team also provided consensus opinion on how to modify some examinations to incorporate into a nonhealth care office setting.
Sixty-nine examinations were selected by the consensus team. Household objects were identified that modified standard and validated examinations, which could facilitate the examinations.The consensus review team did not believe that the modified tests altered the validity of the standardized tests.
Examinations selected are not validated for telemedicine. Qualitative and quantitative analyses were not performed.
The physical examination is an essential component for sound clinical judgment and patient care planning. The physical examinations described in this manuscript provide a comprehensive framework for the musculoskeletal and neurologic examination, which has been vetted by a committee of national experts for incorporation into the telemedicine evaluation.
Information on genetic diversity of picoeukaryotes (<2-3 microm) comes mainly from traditional gene cloning and sequencing, but this method suffers from cloning biases and limited throughput. In this ...study, we explored the feasibility of using the cloning-independent and massively parallel 454 pyrosequencing technology to study the composition and genetic diversity of picoeukaryotes in the coastal waters of the subtropical western Pacific using the hypervariable V4 region of the 18S rRNA gene. Picoeukaryote assemblages between two sites with different hydrography and trophic status were also compared. The approach gave a high coverage of the community at genetic difference > or =5% but still underestimated the total diversity at a genetic difference < or =2%. Diversity of picoeukaryotes was higher in an oligomesotrophic bay than in a eutrophic bay. Stramenopiles, dinoflagellates, ciliates and prasinophytes were the dominant groups comprising approximately 27, 19, 11 and 11%, respectively, of the picoeukaryotes. Water samples collected from the two bays contained different high-level taxonomic groups and phylotype operational taxonomic units of picoeukaryotes. Our study represents one of the first and most comprehensive examinations of marine picoeukaryotic diversity using the 454 sequencing-by-synthesis technology.
Calanus sinicus is an important copepod in shelf waters of the western North Pacific. The objective of this study was to investigate the occurrence of eukaryotes and prokaryotes in the natural diet ...of adults and C5 copepodites of C. sinicus. Hypervariable regions of the eukaryotic 18S and prokaryotic 16S rRNA genes were amplified from the gut contents of C. sinicus collected from coastal seas around Taiwan and Hong Kong and sequenced by Illumina sequencing. Results showed that the diets of adults and C5 copepodites of C. sinicus were similar. However, the diet of C. sinicus seems to be different between the two sampling locations. Diatoms were detected in C. sinicus samples collected from both areas, whereas dinoflagellates were only detected in samples from Hong Kong. Hydrozoans were found to be common in C. sinicus samples from Taiwan, whereas ctenophores were common in samples from Hong Kong. The cyanobacterium Synechococcus was recovered in samples from both areas. Our results have provided DNA-based evidence to support previous suggestions that C. sinicus could feed omnivorously on a diverse assemblage of phytoplankton, animals and bacteria. The ability of C. sinicus to feed on the small larvae of their predators such as ctenophores may have important implications on future analyses of the marine planktonic food web.
•DNA-based technique was used to study the natural diet of Calanus sinicus.•C. sinicus feeds omnivorously on a diverse assemblage of eukaryotes and prokaryotes.•C. sinicus can feed on the juveniles of their potential predators.•Our findings have important implications on future analyses of the marine planktonic food web.
Trace metal dynamics have not been studied with respect to growth increments in octocorals. It is particularly unknown whether ontogenetic compartmentalization of trace metal accumulation is ...species-specific. We studied here for the first time the intracolonial distribution and concentrations of 18 trace metals in the octocorals Subergorgia suberosa, Echinogorgia complexa and E. reticulata that were retrieved from the northern coast of Taiwan. Levels of trace metals were considerably elevated in corals collected at these particular coral habitats as a result of diverse anthropogenic inputs. There was a significant difference in the concentration of metals among octocorals except for Sn. Both species of Echinogorgia contained significantly higher concentrations of Cu, Zn and Al than Subergorgia suberosa. We used for the first time exponential growth curves that describe an age-specific relationship of octocoral trace metal concentrations of Cu, Zn, Cd, Cr and Pb where the distance from the grip point was reflecting younger age as linear regressions. The larger colony (C7) had a lower accumulation rate constant than the smaller one (C6) for Cu, Zn, Cd, Cr and Pb, while other trace metals showed an opposite trend. The Cu concentration declined exponentially from the grip point, whereas the concentrations of Zn, Cd, Cr and Pb increased exponentially. In S. suberosa and E. reticulata, Zn occurred primarily in coenosarc tissues and Zn concentrations increased with distance from the grip point in both skeletal and coenosarc tissues. Metals which appeared at high concentrations (e.g. Ca, Zn and Fe) generally tended to accumulate in the outer coenosarc tissues, while metals with low concentrations (e.g. V) tended to accumulate in the soft tissues of the inner skeleton.
Celotno besedilo
Dostopno za:
DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
Environmental conditions in hydrothermal vents are considered to be unsuitable for most marine organisms due to discharge of hot and acidic water with high sulfur content. The crab Xenograpsus ...testudinatus is endemic to the shallow-water hydrothermal vents of Kueishan Island, Taiwan. This study aimed to provide detailed information on the composition of eukaryotes and prokaryotes in the gut and stomach of X. testudinatus by using Illumina sequencing of the 16S and 18S ribosomal RNA genes. The mangrove crab Perisesarma bidens was also studied to compare the diet and gut microbial fauna of crabs from different habitats. X. testudinatus was found to feed on a wide array of organisms including algae, fishes, bivalves, copepods, and anthozoans, whereas P. bidens was found to feed mainly on Magnoliopsida plants. Soil bacteria such as Rodobacteraceae and cyanobacteria such as Oscillatoriphycidae were present in both crabs, but Mycoplasmataceae and Helicobacteraceae were found only in X. testudinatus. Our findings suggest that both X. testudinatus and P. bidens are scavengers feeding on both prokaryotes and eukaryotes. The results facilitate understanding of the feeding ecology of X. testudinatus and provide a database for the food web dynamics of shallow-water hydrothermal vents.
Chromate Cr(VI) and azo dyes are common pollutants which may co-exist in some industrial effluents. Hence studies of biological treatment of industrial wastewater should include investigation of the ...co-removal of these two pollutants.
Brevibacterium casei, which can reduce Cr(VI) in the presence of the azo dye Acid Orange 7 (AO7) under nutrient-limiting condition, was isolated from a sewage sludge sample of a dyeing factory. Response surface methodology, which is commonly used to optimize growth conditions for food microorganisms to maximize product(s) yield, was used to determine the optimal conditions for chromate reduction and dye decolourization by
B. casei. The optimal conditions were 0.24
g/L glucose, 3.0
g/L (NH
4)
2SO
4 and 0.2
g/L peptone at pH 7 and 35
°C. The predicted maximum chromate reduction efficiencies and dye decolourization were 83.4
±
0.6 and 40.7
±
1.7%, respectively. A new mechanism was proposed for chromate reduction coupling with AO7 decolourization by
B. casei. Under nutrient-limiting condition, AO7 was used as an e
− donor by the reduction enzyme(s) of
B. casei for the reduction of Cr(VI). The resulted Cr(III) then complexed with the oxidized AO7 to form a purple coloured intermediate.
Dilution experiments were conducted to investigate microzooplankton grazing impact on phytoplankton of different taxonomic groups and size fractions (<5, 5–20, 20–200μm) during spring and summer ...bloom periods at two different sites (inner Tolo Harbour and Tolo Channel) in the Tolo Harbour area, the northeastern coastal area of Hong Kong. Experiments combined with HPLC pigment analysis in three phytoplankton size fractions measured pigment and size specific phytoplankton growth rates and microzooplankton grazing rates. Pigment-specific phytoplankton growth rates ranged between 0.08 and 3.53d−1, while specific grazing rates of microzooplankton ranged between 0.07 and 2.82d−1. Highest specific rates of phytoplankton growth and microzooplankton grazing were both measured in fucoxanthin in 5–20μm size fraction in inner Tolo Harbour in summer, which coincided with the occurrence of diatom bloom. Results showed significant correlations between phytoplankton growth and microzooplankton grazing rates. Microzooplankton placed high grazing pressure on phytoplankton community. High microzooplankton grazing impact on alloxanthin (2.63–5.13) suggested strong selection toward cryptophytes. Our results provided no evidence for size selective grazing on phytoplankton by microzooplankton.
•Microzooplankton placed high grazing pressure on phytoplankton community.•High g/µ ratio for alloxanthin indicated a preference by MZP toward cryptophytes.•Results provided no evidence for selective grazing by MZP on phytoplankton size.
Mesozooplankton have been known to be important consumers of phytoplankton, and the community plays an important role in removing the primary production in the marine ecosystem. In the present study, ...mesozooplankton grazing on phytoplankton were studied in situ at two sampling stations (TM4 and TM8) in Tolo Harbour. HPLC analysis showed that diatoms were the dominant phytoplankton in the two stations throughout the year, and contributed on average to over 40% of total phytoplankton biomass. Dinoflagellates were the second most abundant group of phytoplankton in the two monitoring stations, while the contribution of haptophytes, green algae, cyanobacteria, and cryptophytes was negligible. Feeding experiments, combined with HPLC pigment analysis, were conducted to measure mesozooplankton selective feeding on phytoplankton. The results demonstrated that mesozooplankton displayed a clear feeding selectivity for phytoplankton in Tolo Harbour. Firstly, mesozooplankton showed strong preference for the phytoplankton with the size of 20–200 μm, which suggested that the grazing selectivity and grazing rates of mesozooplankton were affected by the size of the food particles. On the other hand, mesozooplankton assemblages in Tolo Harbour displayed significant feeding selectivity for diatoms, dinoflagellates, and cryptophytes over other types of phytoplankton. The three algae groups are all the major phototrophic components in marine planktonic communities, and they often cause red tides in the marine environment. These results, taken together, suggested that mesozooplankton should play an important role in the regulation of red tides.
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