Spring phenologies are advancing in many ecosystems associated with climate warming causing unpredictable changes in ecosystem functioning. Here we establish a phenological model for Daphnia, an aquatic keystone herbivore based on decadal data on water temperatures and the timing of Daphnia population maxima from Lake Constance, a large European lake. We tested this model with long-term time-se...

In this investigation, I set out to confirm or possibly disprove the notion that Cyclooxygenase-2 (Cox-2) inhibitors causes increased cardiovascular (CV) risk. To state my objective more precisely, I wanted to find a relationship between hear rate and concentration that would look like a y = IxI (these bars are the absolute value notation) graph where x> 0 (“x” being concentration, and “y” bein...

We describe the draft genome of the microcrustacean Daphnia pulex, which is only 200 megabases and contains at least 30,907 genes. The high gene count is a consequence of an elevated rate of gene duplication resulting in tandem gene clusters. More than a third of Daphnia's genes have no detectable homologs in any other available proteome, and the most amplified gene families are specific to the...

Several aquatic organisms are able to withstand extreme desiccation in at least one of their life stages. This is commonly known as "anhydrobiosis." It was often thought that to tolerate such a desiccated state required high amounts of compatible solutes such as the nonreducing disaccharide trehalose, which protects cellular structures by water replacement and glass formation. Trehalose levels ...

Toxic algal blooms are an important problem worldwide. The literature on toxic cyanobacteria blooms in inland waters reports widely divergent results on whether zooplankton can control cyanobacteria blooms or cyanobacteria suppress zooplankton by their toxins. Here we test whether this may be due to genotype × genotype interactions, in which interactions between the large-bodied and efficient g...

A common prediction of evolutionary theory is that the strength of interspecific competition should decline over time among sympatric populations of competing species. Here we provide experimental evidence of historical declines in competition effects among competing zooplankton populations. Using diapausing eggs, we resurrected clones of three species of zooplankton obtained from different per...

Increased algal blooms are a threat to aquatic ecosystems worldwide, although the combined effects of multiple stressors make it difficult to determine the underlying causes. We explore whether changes in trophic interactions in response to declining calcium (Ca) concentrations, a water quality issue only recently recognized in Europe and North America, can be linked with unexplained bloom prod...

BACKGROUND To better understand the potential ecotoxicological impacts of silver nanoparticles released into freshwater environments, the Daphnia magna 48-hour immobilization test was used. METHODS The toxicities of silver nitrate, two types of colloidal silver nanoparticles, and a suspension of silver nanoparticles were assessed and compared using standard OECD guidelines. Also, the swimming...

The planktonic freshwater crustacean of the genus Daphnia are a model system for biomedical research and, in particular, invertebrate-parasite interactions. Up until now, no virus has been characterized for this system. Here we report the discovery of an iridovirus as the causative agent of White Fat Cell Disease (WFCD) in Daphnia WFCD is a highly virulent disease of Daphnia that can easily be ...

Here, we report 2 novel intron gains segregating in populations of Daphnia pulex endemic to Oregon. These novel introns do not have an obvious source and are not present in any D. pulex populations outside Oregon, other species of Daphnia that we examined, or any other organism for which sequence data are available. Furthermore, the novel introns are both found in the same gene, a Rab GTPase (r...