The present work is the first study of Mediterranean scallop (Pecten jacobaeus) biochemical properties, antioxidant defenses, and free radical scavengers during the yearly seasons in the Northern ...Adriatic, off Istria. Scallop nutrient reserves (glucose, triglyceride, and cholesterol) in four tissues under examination were positively correlated and were predominant in digestive gland and gonad. The muscle energy maxima were in correlation with the maximum fall gonosomatic index (GSI), when diatoms and coccolithophorids thrive. The decrease of GSI in summer might be related to the spawning or resorption of gametes. Summer also revealed elevated levels of glucose in gonad and digestive gland, while muscle glucose and cholesterol significantly varied in spring vs. winter samples. In relation to the diatom seasonal abundance, carotenoids, namely astaxanthin peaks were found in digestive gland, which, being stimulators of calcium transport over cell membranes, could have contributed to the high digestive gland levels of calcium in winter. In winter, total antioxidative status (TAS) of scallop tissues was 3-fold higher than in other seasons, particularly in digestive gland, having a significant correlation with magnesium, a regulatory tool in oxidative processes. The winter maxima of TAS and thiobarbituric acid reactive substances TBARS in relation to summer maxima of glutathione peroxidase and superoxide dismutase in digestive glands indicate to a decrease in antioxidant defense during cold months, and are related to the accumulation of lipid peroxidation products (such as malondialdehyde) in digestive gland of scallops. Although the increased susceptibility to oxidative stress could be attributed to winter temperature, other factors such as the gonad maturation, availability of food supply, and salinity might counteract that effect. The seawater alterations of salinity, temperature and water quality are in relation to the river Po influx, which is very likely to influence the physiological and biochemical responses of scallops in the Northern Adriatic.
Invasive Ponto-Caspian gobies (monkey goby
round goby
and bighead goby
have recently caused dramatic changes in fish assemblage structure throughout European river systems. This review provides ...summary of recent research on their dietary habits, age and growth, phylogenetic lineages and gene diversity. The principal food of all three species is invertebrates, and more rarely fish, which depends on the type of habitat, part of the year, as well as the morphological characteristics of species. According to the von Bertalanffy growth model, size at age is specific for the region, but due to its disadvantages it is necessary to test other growth models. Phylogenetic analysis of monkey goby and round goby indicates separation between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea haplotypes. The greatest genetic diversity is found among populations of the Black Sea, and the lowest among European invaders. The lack of molecular research on bighead goby requires further studies.
In a mycological research performed in the Sjeverni Velebit National Park, Croatia, a new species of Coprotus was discovered, described here as C. epithecioides . Along with the microscopic ...examination, phylogenetic analysis of the type material, based on ITS and LSU sequences, was performed in order to evaluate its relationship with the type species, C. sexdecimsporus . The type species was sequenced in this study for the first time, providing ITS and LSU sequences from two separate collections which displayed differences in macroscopic characters and content of paraphyses. An extended description of C. sexdecimsporus based on Croatian material is also provided. A worldwide identification key to the species assigned to the genus Coprotus is presented, along with a species overview, containing a data matrix. The phylogenetic position of Coprotus in the Boubovia-Coprotus clade within Pyronemataceae s.l. is discussed. Coprotus sexdecimsporus is also reported here as new to the Croatian mycobiota.
Mushrooms or macrofungi comprise 15,000 species with visible sporocarps. Many of them are used for culinary purposes and in traditional medicine. Only a small fraction of the overall estimated fungal ...diversity has been explored for bioactive compounds. The aim of this study was to analyze bioactive compounds in 23 samples of less studied wild mushrooms from Croatia. Their identification was difficult just using the conventional morphological approach so, it was complemented with molecular identification using DNA barcoding. The integrated approach allowed an identification of 14 different species and two species belonging to species complexes. All samples were evaluated for polyphenolic, alkaloid, and triterpenoid compounds and their antioxidant activity was determined. Psathyrella piluliformis, stands out as a species with the highest phenolic acid and alkaloids content as well as the highest antioxidant activity. Using multivariate statistical analysis, grouping of samples from the same species grown at different localities close to each other was noticed. The results suggested that production of bioactive compounds may be under genetic influence and especially alkaloids may be good chemotaxonomic markers. Therefore, correct species identification of mushrooms should preferably be done using a combination of morphological and molecular approaches.
Bacteria from the genus
Shewanella
are inhabitants of marine and freshwater ecosystems, recognized fish spoilage bacteria, but less known as fish disease agents.
Shewanella
spp. isolated from fish ...living in waters close to effluents of a wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) were not previously characterized. We have tested
Shewanella
isolates from WWTP-affected waters and related fish. Genotypic characterization identified most strains as
S. baltica
and
S. oneidensis
. In order to investigate the sensibility and accuracy of their MALDI-TOF MS identification, they were grown on two culture media enriched by various NaCl concentrations, incubated at different temperatures and duration. We analyzed their antimicrobial susceptibility on a panel of antimicrobial drugs and capacity for biofilm production. With a view to demonstrate their capacity to produce fatty acids, we assessed the impact of different culture media on their lipid profile. We performed zebrafish embryotoxicity tests to simulate the environmental infection of the earliest life stages in
S. baltica
-contaminated waters. The best MALDI-TOF MS identification scores were for strains cultivated on TSA for 24 h at 22 °C and with supplementation of 1.5% NaCl. Less than 17% of isolates demonstrated antimicrobial resistance. Most isolates were weak biofilm producers. Strain-to-strain variation of MIC and MBC was low. The major fatty acids were C15:0, C16:0, C16:1, C17:1, and iC15:0. Exposure of
Danio rerio
to different
S. baltica
concentrations induced severe effects on zebrafish development: decreased heartbeat rate, locomotor activity, and melanin pigmentation.
S. baltica
passed through chorionic pores of zebrafish.
Cloud computing has revolutionized availability and access to computing and storage resources, making it possible to provision a large computational infrastructure with only a few clicks in a Web ...browser. However, those resources are typically provided in the form of low-level infrastructure components that need to be procured and configured before use. In this unit, we demonstrate how to utilize cloud computing resources to perform open-ended bioinformatic analyses, with fully automated management of the underlying cloud infrastructure. By combining three projects, CloudBioLinux, CloudMan, and Galaxy, into a cohesive unit, we have enabled researchers to gain access to more than 100 preconfigured bioinformatics tools and gigabytes of reference genomes on top of the flexible cloud computing infrastructure. The protocol demonstrates how to set up the available infrastructure and how to use the tools via a graphical desktop interface, a parallel command-line interface, and the Web-based Galaxy interface.
The aim of this study was to assess the impact of treated wastewaters on native wild Prussian carp inhabiting effluent-receiving waters (ERC) receiving municipal and sugar plant treated wastewaters, ...further downstream waters (DW), and a detached canal unaffected by the WWTP activities. To that end, general fish health status was determined, including plasma biochemical, haematological, oxidative stress and tissue histopathological indices, over three seasons. The greatest tissue alterations were in fall in ERC during sugar beet processing, as hypertrophy of gill epithelial and interlamellar cells, necrosis and lymphocytic infiltration, hyperplasia and hypertrophy of renal tubules, distention of hepatic sinusoids. In fall the lowest leukocytes, lymphocytes and granulocytes (2467 ± 565, 1333 ± 264, 1133 ± 488 cells/μL respectively), as well as highest plasma ALP (52.7 ± 19.39 U/L) were measured. ERC in fall had the highest ammonium (20 mg/L), nitrite (1.48 mg/L), nitrate (13.4 mg/L), and lowest dissolved O2 (1.23 mg/L). Gill, kidney and liver alterations, and the highest plasma cholesterol (9.1 ± 1.98 mmol/L) were noted in DW fish in fall. Tissue morphology during sugar cane processing seems a consequence of cellular and structural tissue integrity loss. Structural heterogeneity of gills and spleen was enhanced with increasing concentrations of heavy metals and correlated with oxidative stress (SOD 392.5 ± 77.28 U/L). Monogenean infestation was moderate in ERC fish in all seasons compared with DW fish. Prussian carp biological responses to multiple stressors, measured by the effects of WWTP on blood and tissue parameters, reached far downstream and were not of localized nature. This study demonstrated that in aquatic environments impacted with complex contaminants acting synergistically, causal relationships between biological responses and environmental stressors should be interpreted. Integrated histopathological, haematological and biochemical findings are valuable biomarkers for native fish adaptive patterns and monitoring of water quality/pollution of freshwater ecosystems.
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•Integrated approaches for estimating biological responses to pollutants introduced.•Histopathological changes mostly revealed structural alterations of gills and liver.•Heavy metals contributed to neutrophilia, increase of plasma GLU, TP, TRIG, CHOL.•Fish caught in the effluent demonstrated similar leukograms irrespective of season.•Monogenean gill flukes had no preference regarding polluted/unpolluted waters.
Fish biological responses to multiple stressors of treated wastewaters were pronounced in specimens captured from both effluent and downstream waters.
As a result of the first research on macrofungi on peat moss habitats in Montenegro, three species new to the Montenegrin mycobiota are presented and described: Entoloma conferendum, Hygrocybe ...coccineocrenata, and Hypholoma ericaeum. The descriptions are accompanied
by photographs of the basidiomata on site and some microscopic characters. Additionally, the second Montenegrin record of Bovista paludosa is presented and described, for the first time with locality and habitat data. Species identifications were checked by comparing ITS rDNA sequences
from samples with the sequences in GenBank.
Relating the treated wastewater quality and its impact on organismic biosensors (Prussian carp, Carassius gibelio and earthworm, Eisenia fetida) was the main objective of the study. The impact on ...health status of fish living downstream, microbiological contamination and antimicrobial resistance, fish tissue structure, blood biochemistry, oxidative stress, genotoxic effects, as well as multixenobiotic resistance mechanism (MXR) was assessed. Treated wastewater discharged from the WWTP modified the environmental parameters and xenobiotic concentrations of the receiving surface waters. Potential bacterial pathogens from fish and respective waters were found in relatively low numbers, although they comprised aeromonads with a zoonotic potential. High resistance profiles were determined towards the tested antimicrobial compounds, mostly sulfamethoxazole and erythromycin. Histopathology primarily revealed gill lamellar fusion and reduction of interlamellar spaces of effluent fish. A significant increase in plasma values of urea, total proteins, albumins and triglycerides and a significant decrease in the activity of plasma superoxide dismutase were noted in carp from the effluent-receiving canal. Micronucleus test did not reveal significant differences between the examined groups, but a higher frequency of erythrocyte nuclear abnormalities was found in fish sampled from the effluent-receiving canal. Earthworms indicated to the presence of MXR inhibitors in water and sludge samples, thus proving as a sensitive sentinel organism for environmental pollutants. The integrative approach of this study could serve as a guiding principle in conducting evaluations of the aquatic habitat health in complex bio-monitoring studies.
•Bacteria from fish and water have a zoonotic potential and might pose a health risk•High antimicrobial resistance profiles were determined; particularly to SMX•The sediment total antibiotic concentrations decreased with distance from the WWTP•Histological, haematological parameters of fish differed in effluent and downstream•Eisenia fetida is an optimal sentinel organism for environmental pollutants (MXR)
The biology and ecology of non-native freshwater Ponto-Caspian (P-C) gobies: monkey goby, Neogobius fluviatilis (Pallas, 1814), round goby, Neogobius melanostomus (Pallas, 1814) and bighead goby, ...Ponticola kessleri (Gunther, 1861) have been studied in Croatia, but the genetic structure of populations in the Sava River catchment remains unknown. Only a single mitochondrial DNA cytochrome b haplotype, consistent with native Black Sea populations, has been detected within Croatian populations. Based on emerging molecular evidence, the invasive potential (e.g. upstream migration and environmental plasticity) of individual non-native gobies within the Sava River catchment, may be influenced by genetic structuring.
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