The cladoceran crustacean Daphnia pulex has served as a standard organism for aquatic toxicity testing for decades. The model organism status of D. pulex rests largely on its remarkable ability to rapidly adapt morphologically, physiologically and behaviorally to a wide range of environmental challenges, as well as on its parthenogenetic reproduction and ease of laboratory culture. As in all mu...

BACKGROUND The cosmopolitan microcrustacean Daphnia pulex provides a model system for both human health research and monitoring ecosystem integrity. It is the first crustacean to have its complete genome sequenced, an unprecedented ca. 36% of which has no known homologs with any other species. Moreover, D. pulex is ideally suited for experimental manipulation because of its short reproductive c...

The cladoceran Daphnia lumholtzi has invaded many US rivers and lakes. To better understand the ecological factors and consequences associated with D. lumholtzi invasion, we carried out a microcosm experiment evaluating competition of D. lumholtzi with a widespread native daphnid, D. pulex. We applied two light treatments to these two different microcosms and found strong context-dependent comp...

The CeO₂ NPs are increasingly used in industry but the environmental release of these NPs and their subsequent behavior and biological effects are currently unclear. This study evaluates for the first time the effects of CeO₂ NPs on the survival and the swimming performance of two cladoceran species, Daphnia similis and Daphnia pulex after 1, 10 and 100 mg.L⁻¹ CeO₂ exposures for 48 h. Acute tox...

It has long been known that polyploid organisms are more prevalent in arctic than in temperate environments. Past explanations for this geographical trend have focused on the role of glacial cycles in generating polyploids and the influence of abiotic factors in favouring polyploidy in the north. In combination, these mechanisms probably suffice to explain the observed geographical cline in plo...

Daphnia p&x (Crustacea, Cladocera) was fed the blue-green algae (Cyanophyceae) Anacystis nidulans, Synechococcus elongata, S. cedrorum, Merismopedia sp., Anabaena flosaquae, Synechocystis sp., and Gloeocapsa alpicola. The green algae ( Chlorophyceae) Ankistrodesmus falcatus and Chlorella uulgaris were used for comparison. Direct observations were made of D. pulex feeding in depression slides fi...

Imai and Iséki [1] introduced the concept of BCK-algebra as a generalization of notions of set difference operation and propositional calculus. The notion of pseudo-BCK algebra was introduced by Georgescu and Iorgulescu [2] as generalization of BCK-algebras not assuming commutativity. Hájek [3] introduced the concept of BL-algebras as the general semantics of basic fuzzy logic (BL-logic). Iorgu...

The ciliate Mesodinium pulex (Class Litostomatea) ingested all 5 species of cryptophytes and the autotrophic dinoflagellate Heterocapsa rotundata offered as prey. Despite this, it could only grow on the cryptophytes Teleaulax sp. and Guinardia theta and the dinoflagellate H. rotundata, because ingestion rates of the other prey cells, even at very high prey concentrations, were too low to suppor...

introduced species are often thought to do well because of an escape from natural enemies. however, once established, they can acquire a modest assemblage of enemies, including parasites, in their new range. Here we quantified prevalence and effects of infection with copepods (family Myicolidae) and pea crabs (Pinnotheres novaezelandiae), in three mussel species, the non-native Musculista senho...

Under favorable conditions, the micro-crustacean Daphnia pulex produces female offspring by parthenogenesis, whereas under unfavorable conditions, they produce male offspring to induce sexual reproduction (environmental sex determination: ESD). We recently established a suitable system for ESD studies using D. pulex WTN6 strain, in which the sex of the offspring can be regulated by alterations ...