Traditionally, people have inhabited places with ready access to fresh water. Today, over 50% of the global population lives in urban areas, and water can be directed via tens of kilometres of pipelines. Still, however, a large part of the world's population is directly dependent on access to natural freshwater sources. So how are inhabited places related to the location of freshwater bodies to...

Freshwater habitat quality and quantity are key abiotic variables driving the abundance and distribution of anadromous salmonids. Knowledge is minimal about the condition of freshwater habitats and how habitat condition affects salmon over large, remote areas on both sides of the Arctic and northern Pacific Oceans [1]. This hampers abilities to predict effects of habitat change on salmon and to...

Large variations exist in the size, abundance and biota of the two principal categories of freshwater ecosystems, lotic (flowing water; e.g., rivers, streams, deltas and estuaries) and lentic (standing water; lakes, ponds and wetlands) found across the circumpolar Arctic. Arctic climate, many components of which exhibit strong variations along latitudinal gradients, directly affects a range of ...

To examine the relationship between freshwater entry and otolith annular structures, a total of 113 naturally recruited European eels Anguilla anguilla from Lithuania and Latvia that entered fresh water at least once were collected. In some individuals (8.3-11.3%), the first freshwater entry coincided with a dark check that was distinctly different from neighbouring annuli. In most individuals ...

Growth of American eels, Anguilla rostrata (Lesueur), sampled in saltwater bays and adjacent freshwater ponds in the southern Gulf of St. Lawrence, Canada, was estimated by otolith annulus back-calculation, and related to salinity of growth habitat as determined using otolith strontium:calcium ratios. Eels resident in salt water grew on average in length 2.2 times faster than freshwater residen...

The concept of water footprint (WF) is an important breakthrough in the evolving of methodologies, approaches and indicators for measuring freshwater appropriation and assessing the wastewater discharge. Industrial water footprint (IWF) methodology, which concentrates on the industrial production stages, can present a clear graphic of freshwater consumption and impacts caused by wastewater disc...

The species richness of freshwater environments is disproportionately high compared with that of the oceans, given their respective sizes. If diversification rates are higher in freshwaters because they are isolated and heterogeneous, this should apply to parasites as well. Using 14 large datasets comprising 677 species of freshwater and marine fish, the hypothesis that freshwater parasites exp...

Divergent selection pressures induced by different environmental conditions typically lead to variation in life history, behavior, and morphology. When populations are locally adapted to their current environment, selection may limit movement into novel sites, leading to neutral and adaptive genetic divergence in allopatric populations. Subsequently, divergence can be reinforced by development ...

We use sequence data derived from six DNA gene loci to examine evolutionary and biogeographic affinities among all freshwater crab families. With an emphasis on the Afrotropical fauna that includes Africa, Madagascar, and the Seychelles, we test the proposed Gondwanan cladogenesis of the group. Phylogenetic results demonstrate that contemporary distribution patterns of freshwater crab lineages ...

The potential utilization of cyanobacteria for the biological production of alkanes represents an exceptional system for the next generation of biofuels. Here, we analyzed a diverse group of freshwater and marine cyanobacterial isolates from Indian culture collections for their ability to produce both alkanes and alkenes. Among the 50 cyanobacterial isolates screened, 32 isolates; 14 freshwater...