Sediments are considered as a sink for metals, and the assessment of metal bioavailability for benthic organisms represents a great challenge. Diffusive Gradient in Thin films (DGT), developed to measure labile metals in aquatic media, have more recently been applied to sediment. Nevertheless, few studies have determined the relation between measurements from DGT and bioaccumulation in differen...

Gastrulation constitutes a fundamental yet diverse morphogenetic process of metazoan development. Modes of gastrulation range from stochastic translocation of individual cells to coordinated infolding of an epithelial sheet. How such morphogenetic differences are genetically encoded and whether they have provided specific developmental advantages is unclear. Here we identify two genes, folded g...

Collective animal behaviour occurs at nearly every biological size scale, from single-celled organisms to the largest animals on earth. It has long been known that models with simple interaction rules can reproduce qualitative features of this complex behaviour. But determining whether these models accurately capture the biology requires data from real animals, which has historically been diffi...

The occurrence of sesquiterpenes was investigated with the geosmin-producing cyanobacterium Calothrix PCC 7507. The essential oil obtained by vacuum destillation was studied in more detail by GC-MS methods and superposition with authentic compounds. Geosmin was the dominating compound while the other sesquiterpenes were minor components. Sesquiterpenes that have not been described before in cya...

The diffusive oxygen uptake (DOU) of sediments inhabited by Chironomus riparius and Tubifex tubifex was investigated using a planar oxygen optode device, and complemented by measurements of bioturbation activity. Additional experiments were performed within contaminated sediments to assess the impact of uranium on these processes. After 72h, the two invertebrate species significantly increased ...

Social animals commonly form aggregates that exhibit emergent collective behaviour, with group dynamics that are distinct from the behaviour of individuals. Simple models can qualitatively reproduce such behaviour, but only with large numbers of individuals. But how rapidly do the collective properties of animal aggregations in nature emerge with group size? Here, we study swarms of Chironomus ...

The genetic diversity of natural populations and the increase in global temperature are becoming important issues in ecotoxicological research. We investigated the combined effects of 3 different temperature levels and 6 different levels of genetic diversity on the life history parameters of Chironomus riparius. Inbreeding and loss of genetic variation are major threats to small and endangered ...

During acute exposure, polycyclic aromatic compounds (PACs) act mainly by narcosis, but during chronic exposure the same compounds may exert sublethal life cycle effects. The aim of this study was therefore to evaluate the chronic effects of sediment spiked PACs on the emergence of the midge Chironomus riparius. Three isomer pairs were selected, and 28-day LC50 values and 50% emergence times (E...