Desiccation tolerance, the ability to survive nearly total dehydration, is a rare strategy for survival and reproduction observed in all taxa. However, the mechanism and regulation of this phenomenon are poorly understood. Correlations between desiccation tolerance and potential effectors have been reported in many species, but their physiological significance has not been established in vivo. ...

Geese are large, herbivorous birds that graze in huge flocks in ways that may have a considerable impact on vegetation. This is exemplified best in two subspecies of snow geese, the lesser and the greater, both of which have increased dramatically in numbers in recent decades. In arctic coastal salt marshes, moderate goose grazing on Puccinellia phryganodes enhances plant production, but if it ...

Cyanobacteria (blue-green algae) are estimated to have evolved 3.5 billion years ago, at which time they began to add oxygen to the existing anaerobic atmosphere, actually changing the chemistry of the planet and allowing new life forms to evolve. These ubiquitous microbes are capable of tolerating desiccation, hypersalinity, hyperthermal conditions, and high ultraviolet radiation, often for ex...

Coastal lagoons are dynamic transitional water ecosystems hosting valuable biological communities, including rich and diverse macrophyte assemblages. Aquatic macrophytes must cope with large fluctuations of environmental conditions on a spatial seasonal scale. Salinity is one the most variable parameters, changing from nearly freshwater to hypersalinity, it known have strong influence compositi...

Mangroves are one of the few woody ecosystems that grow in hot-arid climates. They can survive extreme conditions low precipitation, high solar radiation, wide temperature fluctuations and hypersalinity. These unique mangroves have distinct geomorphology, hydrology, forest structure, tree physiology, soil biogeochemistry. In this review, supported by field data from Australia Mexico, we explore...

The latest Neoproterozoic extinction of the Ediacara biota has been variously attributed to catastrophic removal by perturbations to global geochemical cycles, 'biotic replacement' by Cambrian-type ecosystem engineers, and a taphonomic artefact. We perform the first critical test of the 'biotic replacement' hypothesis using combined palaeoecological and geochemical data collected from the young...

Lake Bonney is one of several permanently ice-covered lakes in the McMurdo Dry Valleys, Antarctica, which maintain the only year-round biological activity on the Antarctic continent. Vertically stratified populations of autotrophic microorganisms occupying the water columns are adapted to numerous extreme conditions, including very low light, hypersalinity, ultra-oligotrophy and low temperature...

Lake St. Lucia, iSimangaliso Wetland Park, South Africa, is the largest estuarine lake in Africa. Extensive use and manipulation of the rivers flowing into it have reduced freshwater inflow, and the lake has also been subject to a drought of 10 years. For much of this time, the estuary has been closed to the Indian Ocean, and salinities have progressively risen throughout the system, impacting ...

This study investigated the expression of aquaporin 2 (AQP2) and its newly found alternatively spliced isoform (alternative AQP2) and the functions of these AQP2 isoforms in the cellular hyperosmotic tolerance in the bottlenose dolphin, ITALIC! Tursiops truncatus mRNA sequencing revealed that alternative AQP2 lacks the fourth exon and instead has a longer third exon that includes a part of the ...

Festuca rubra is an abundant supratidal grass on sub-arctic James Bay (Canada) shorelines, forming extensive near-monocultures that are used as forage by nesting and migrating geese. Studies at other, more northern North American locations have shown grubbing by geese can have severe consequences for intertidal and supratidal marshes, but these studies have focussed on plant communities that di...