Mosquitoes are vectors for several diseases including malaria, yellow and dengue fever, and encephalitis. Culex pipiens is a mosquito species with worldwide distribution whose larvae colonize temporary and permanent aquatic environments (Campos et al. 1993). Cx. pipiens is the most common species in Uruguay, where mosquito-mediated diseases are largely controlled, but the systematic reappearanc...

Parasitic crustaceans serve as both hosts and vectors of viruses as well as of parasites and other microbial pathogenic agents. Few of the presumably numerous associations are known, but many can be anticipated. Recently, branchiurans and gnathiid isopods have been documented to host helminths and blood parasites. Because the agents can be observed readily with a microscope, these are better re...

The Persian Gulf is of great economical, environmental and political importance, and includes around 205 species of fishes that only some of them have been studied parasitologically. From the order Pleuronectiformes ( ray-finned fishes), Psettodes erumei (Psettodidae), Pseudorhombus elevatus (Bothidae) and Brachirus orientalis (Soleidae) were selected for the survey. One hundred and forty eig...

The Persian Gulf is of great economical, environmental and political importance, and includes around 205 species of fishes that only some of them have been studied parasitologically. From the order Pleuronectiformes ( ray-finned fishes), Psettodes erumei (Psettodidae), Pseudorhombus elevatus (Bothidae) and Brachirus orientalis (Soleidae) were selected for the survey. One hundred and forty eig...

The critical role played by copepods in ocean ecology and biogeochemistry warrants an understanding of how these animals may respond to ocean acidification (OA). Whilst an appreciation of the potential direct effects of OA, due to elevated pCO2, on copepods is improving, little is known about the indirect impacts acting via bottom-up (food quality) effects. We assessed, for the first time, the ...

We assess water quality and the status of water bodies with numerous variables, both abiotic and biotic. Up to date, few water quality assessment and ecoremediation measures took the surface water – groundwater ecotone (i.e. the hyporheic zone) into consideration. We developed a new index based on hyporheic copepod fauna. The copepod biodiversity in the hyporheic of 26 Slovenian rivers, belongi...

The ability of planktonic copepods to detect and pursue remote prey is well documented, but there are no empirical descriptions of their three-dimensional (3D) sensory fields. In this study, the attack volume of females of Euchaeta rimana Bradford, a planktonic calanoid copepod, was mapped by plotting the positions of attacked prey within a standardized 3D coordinate system defined by the body ...

Many marine zooplankters, particularly among copepods, are "ambush feeders" that passively wait for their prey and capture them by fast surprise attacks. This strategy must be very demanding in terms of muscle power and sensing capabilities, but the detailed mechanisms of the attacks are unknown. Using high-speed video we describe how copepods perform spectacular attacks by precision maneuverin...

Horizontal and temporal variations in abundance and productivity of phytoand zooplankton were studied in a frontal area in the NW North Sea during September and October 1985. In addition, distributions of several cohorts of herring larvae found in this area were monitored and larval growth and survival estimated. Phytoplankton biomass and productivity as well as copepod productivity peaked in t...