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...

Transitions between saline and fresh waters have been shown to be infrequent for microorganisms. Based on host-specific interactions, the presence of specific clades among hosts suggests the existence of freshwater-specific viral clades. Yet, little is known about the composition and diversity of the temperate freshwater viral communities, and even if freshwater lakes and marine waters harbor d...

Freshwater sponges (Porifera; Spongillina) include 6 families. Some of them are endemic of ancient lakes Baikal, Tanganyika, Ohrid and Malawi. Others families are cosmopolitan and inhabit inland waters worldwide. Freshwater sponges are important for cleaning of water due their filter activity and are often main part of benthos in the lakes. The taxonomy of freshwater sponges is difficult that c...

Organisms around the globe are experiencing novel environments created by human activities. One such disturbance of growing concern is the salinization of freshwater habitats from the application of road deicing salts, which creates salinity levels not experienced within the recent evolutionary history of most freshwater organisms. Moreover, salinization can induce trophic cascades and alter th...

BACKGROUND Large-scale inter-basin water transfer (IBWT) projects are commonly proposed as solutions to water distribution and supply problems. These problems are likely to intensify under future population growth and climate change scenarios. Scarce data on the distribution of freshwater fishes frequently limits the ability to assess the potential implications of an IBWT project on freshwater ...

This paper presents a new method to calculate the freshwater target for water using networks with single contaminant. The pinch point is determined by exploiting one of the features of water-pinch-analysis: freshwater is only necessary below the pinch. With the known pinch point, the calculation of the freshwater target becomes very simple, especially for the networks with many streams. The res...

The anti-predator behaviours of a New Zealand freshwater crayfish (Paranephrops zealandicus) to the native long-finned eel (Anguilla dieffenbachii) and the introduced brown trout (Salmo trutta) were investigated. Crayfish modified their behaviour in the presence of both trout and eels. However, a significantly greater number of defensive chela displays and swimming responses were made to eels t...

Conservation of freshwater ecosystems for aesthetic, ethical, and utilitarian reasons is a top global conservation priority owing to the richness of freshwater biodiversity and the extent of threats against it (Dudgeon et al., 2006). For instance, on a per unit area basis, freshwaters contain the most diversity of fishes; some 10,000 species of freshwater fishes (c. 40% of Department of Zoology...