Adaptations to salinity are reviewed throughout development in both species of the genus Homarus. Some populations of homarid lobsters are known to inhabit coastal and estuarine areas where salinity fluctuates. Salinity tolerance varies during development, with 50 % lethal salinities (LS(50)) ranging from approximately 15-17 in larvae to approximately 12 in postlarvae and 10 in adults. La...

Interannual salinity variations in North Atlantic Subtropical Mode Water (STMW) are well known although the cause is less well understood. Attempts to model local salinity variation with local evaporation and precipitation have not been successful and some authors invoke advection of low salinity water as the cause. Examination of the STMW and North American river runoff data suggests that runo...

Classical Darwinian adaptation to a change in environment can ensue when selection favours beneficial genetic variation. How plastic trait responses to new conditions affect this process depends on how plasticity reveals to selection the influence of genotype on phenotype. Genetic accommodation theory predicts that evolutionary rate may sharply increase when a new environment induces plastic re...

Soil salinity is generally spatially heterogeneous, but our understanding of halophyte physiology under such conditions is limited. The growth and physiology of the dicotyledonous halophyte Atriplex nummularia was evaluated in split-root experiments to test whether growth is determined by: (i) the lowest; (ii) the highest; or (iii) the mean salinity of the root zone. In two experiments, plants ...

Salinity varies widely in coastal areas that often have a high abundance of Pseudo-nitzschia H. Peragallo. Pseudo-nitzschia is abundant in Louisiana waters, and high cellular domoic acid has been observed in natural samples but no human illness has been reported. To assess the threat of amnesic shellfish poisoning (ASP), we examined the effect of salinity on Pseudo-nitzschia occurrence in the f...

With the release of large amounts of CO2, ocean acidification is intensifying and affecting aquatic organisms. In addition, salinity also plays an important role for marine organisms and fluctuates greatly in estuarine and coastal ecosystem, where ocean acidification frequently occurs. In present study, flow cytometry was used to investigate immune parameters of haemocytes in the thick shell mu...

Carbonic anhydrase (CA) activity and relative expression of CA mRNA were measured in the gills of the euryhaline green crab Carcinus maenas in response to eyestalk ablation (ESA), injection of eyestalk extract and exposure to low salinity. For crabs acclimated to 32 p.p.t. salinity, ESA alone resulted in an increase in both CA activity and relative mRNA expression in the posterior, ion-transpor...

The salinity budget in a 3-D numerical model of an estuary is analyzed using isohaline surfaces to define the volume of integration. Such surfaces move with the currents, and as a result of turbulent mixing. The isohaline analysis allows us to clarify the processes which create and destroy water in different salinity classes in the estuary. We find that the estuary naturally divides into three ...

The idea of injecting low salinity water into a petroleum reservoir is not novel and was often used in the 70’s prior to the injection of surfactant. Yet, recently it was shown that simply injecting sufficiently low salinity water improves oil recovery (LoSalTM). Many possible mechanisms concerning Low salinity waterflood have been proposed in the literature. This paper describes an experimenta...

Globally, seagrass beds have been recognized as critical yet declining coastal habitats. To mitigate seagrass losses, seagrass restorations have been conducted in worldwide over the past two decades. Seed utilization is considered to be an important approach in seagrass restoration efforts. In this study, we investigated the effects of salinity and temperature on seed germination, seedling esta...