28 Introduction In 1999, the Bahamian government announced a plan to protect 20% of the Bahamian marine environment as no-take marine reserves.1 Nursery habitats for two species of ecological and economic value, the Nassau grouper, Epinephelus striatus, and spiny lobster, Panulirus argus, will represent a significant component of the future marine protected areas. Both the Nassau grouper and sp...

The red seaweeds belonging to the genus Laurencia are well known as halogenated secondary metabolites producers, mainly terpenoids and acetogennins. Several of these chemicals exhibit important ecological roles and biotechnological applications. However, knowledge regarding the genes involved in the biosynthesis of these compounds is still very limited. We detected 20 different genes involved i...

The effects of patch size and isolation on metapopulation dynamics have received wide empirical support and theoretical formalization. By contrast, the effects of patch quality seem largely underinvestigated, partly due to technical difficulties in properly assessing quality. Here we combine habitat-quality modeling with four years of demographic monitoring in a metapopulation of greater white-...

Six populations of Laurencia nangii were found to produce three bromoallenes; dihydroitomanallene B (1), itomanallene B (2) and pannosallene (3). Prior to this report, L. nangii were only known to produce C(15)-acetogenins with acetylene functionality. This could be regarded as a new chemical race of L. nangii. The compound structures were elucidated on the basis of spectroscopic analysis and c...

In the present study, we investigated the antileishmanial activity of sesquiterpene elatol, the major constituent of the Brazilian red seaweed Laurencia dendroidea (Hudson) J.V. Lamouroux, against L. amazonensis. Elatol after 72 h of treatment, showed an IC(50) of 4.0 μM and 0.45 μM for promastigote and intracellular amastigote forms of L. amazonensis, respectively. By scanning and transmission...

In addition to 13 known compounds, four new bisabolane sesquiterpenes, okamurenes A-D (1-4), a new chamigrane derivative, okamurene E (5), and a new C₁₂-acetogenin, okamuragenin (6), were isolated from the marine red alga Laurencia okamurai. The structures of these compounds were determined through detailed spectroscopic analyses. Of these, okamurenes A and B (1 and 2) are the first examples of...

A unifying stereochemical analysis for the formation of the constitutional isomeric halogenated C(15)-acetogenin medium-ring ether natural products from Laurencia species is presented, where an intramolecular bromonium ion assisted epoxide ring-opening reaction of enantiomerically pure epoxides can account for ring-size, the position of the halogen substituents, and relative and absolute config...

Red algae of Laurencia continue to provide wide structural diversity and complexity of halogenated C15 acetogenin medium-ring ethers. Here, we described the isolation of three new C15 acetogenins (3-5), and one truncated derivative (6) from Laurencia viridis collected on the Canary Islands. These compounds are interesting variations on the pinnatifidenyne structure that included the first examp...

Edwardsiella tarda was isolated from patients, water tortoises (Clemmys caspica), and samples of water from Lake Kinnereth, the river Jordan, well water, and sewage water. Of the 53 isolates, 35 belonged to completely identified serotypes, among them 7 new ones. Fourteen cultures had O antigens, and one had an H antigen, different from those previously described. Three serotypes isolated from p...