The Bay of Biscay (northeast Atlantic) is an open marine ecosystem of particular concern in current European environmental policies. Indeed, it supports both a high biological diversity and numerous anthropogenic activities such as important fisheries. For the first time, stable isotope analyses (SIA) of carbon and nitrogen and analysis of total mercury (T-Hg) concentrations in the muscle (edib...

A series of field studies were conducted to gain a better understanding of the bioaccumulation and dynamics of polychlorinated biphenyl (PCB) congeners in the aquatic food web of the Kalamazoo River flood plain. Representative species of passerine birds, mammals, fish, aquatic plants, invertebrates, and colocated sediments were collected from areas located within submerged portions of the forme...

In most ecosystems, microbes are the dominant consumers, commandeering much of the heterotrophic biomass circulating through food webs. Characterizing functional diversity within the microbiome, therefore, is critical to understanding ecosystem functioning, particularly in an era of global biodiversity loss. Using isotopic fingerprinting, we investigated the trophic positions of a broad diversi...

The release of chemicals following herbivore grazing on primary producers may provide feeding cues to carnivorous predators, thereby promoting multitrophic interactions. In particular, chemicals released following grazing on phytoplankton by microzooplankton herbivores have been shown to elicit a behavioural foraging response in carnivorous copepods, which may use this chemical information as a...

Mercury (Hg) is a neurotoxin that can be particularly harmful to top predators because it biomagnifies through the food web. Due to variation in the food web structure, variation in Hg exposure in predators may represent variation in diet rather than Hg availability. We measured Hg in eggs from six seabird species (N = 537) over 47 years. In contrast to expectation, storm-petrels feeding partia...

Conceptual models of adaptive radiation predict that competitive interactions among species will result in an early burst of speciation and trait evolution followed by a slowdown in diversification rates. Empirical studies often show early accumulation of lineages in phylogenetic trees, but usually fail to detect early bursts of phenotypic evolution. We use an evolutionary simulation model to a...

Global warming is widely predicted to reduce the biomass production of top predators, or even result in species loss. Several exceptions to this expectation have been identified, however, and it is vital that we understand the underlying mechanisms if we are to improve our ability to predict future trends. Here, we used a natural warming experiment in Iceland and quantitative theoretical predic...

Organohalogenated compounds are widespread in the marine environment and can be a serious threat to organisms in all levels of aquatic food webs, including elasmobranch species. Information about the concentrations of POPs (persistent organic pollutants) and of MeO-PBDEs (methoxylated polybrominated diphenyl ethers) in elasmobranchs is scarce and potential toxic effects are poorly understood. T...

Available online 8 April 2008 0079-6611/$ see front matter Published by Elsevier doi:10.1016/j.pocean.2008.03.011 * Corresponding author. E-mail address: [email protected] (J.J. Polo Application of a lower trophic ecosystem model coupled with an ocean circulation model allows us to derive a time series of estimated plankton biomass for waters around Kure Atoll, Pearl & Hermes Atoll and ...

The current study deals with the physicochemical characterization, temporal variability and trophic state evaluation of a post glacial mountain lake in eastern Himalaya during the period of 2014-2016. Notable seasonal variations are recorded for physicochemical parameters of lake water. The values for electrical conductivity, total suspended solids, total dissolved solids, total alkalinity and ...