Endocrine disruption compounds (EDC) are known to affect reproduction, development, and growth of exposed organisms. Although in vertebrates, EDCs mainly act through steroid receptors (e.g. androgen estrogen receptors), their absence many invertebrates suggests the involvement another biological pathway endocrine effects. As retinoid signaling is present almost all Metazoa its gastropods (i.e. ...

Local adaptation is an important principle in a world of environmental change and might be critical for species persistence. We tested the hypothesis that replicated populations can attain rapid local adaptation under two varying laboratory environments. Clonal subpopulations of the cyclically parthenogenetic rotifer Brachionus calyciflorus were allowed to adapt to two varying harsh and a benig...

The introduction of aquatic species in resting life stages by the release of ballast water is a less well-known but potentially important invasive species vector. Best-management practices designed to minimize transport of ballast water cannot eliminate this threat, because residual water and sediment are retained in ballast tanks after draining. To evaluate the potential efficacy of chemical t...

Rotifers have often been used as indicators of sudden changes in physical and chemical features of the aquatic environment. Such features vary greatly during flood pulse events in small lakes connected to major floodplains. However, few are the studies that investigate the consequences of the flood pulse in rotifer species composition, abundance, richness and diversity, especially in Amazonian ...

The uptake of resources from the environment is a vital process for all organisms. Many experimental studies have revealed that the rate at which this process occurs depends critically on the resource concentration, a relationship called ‘‘functional response.’’ However, whether the concentration of the consumer normally affects the functional response has been the subject of a long-standing, p...

Growth rates of anchovy larvae, Engraulis mordax, reared for 19 days under constant environmental conditions on a diet of laboratory-cultured organisms, exceeded the growth rates of anchovies fed on a diet of wild plankton. The rotifer Brachionus plicatilis was found to be a nutritious food source when fed to the larvae in concentrations of 10 to 20/ml and in combination with the dinoflagellate...