In a small isolated lake in Slovakia, the fish acanthocephalan Pomphorhynchus laevis using Gammarus balcanicus and the minnow Phoxinus phoxinus, respectively, as its intermediate and final hosts, represented a dominant helminth species. Its prevalence and intensity of infection in fish showed no significant variation during a year fluctuating above the mean values of 89% and 6.6 worms per fish....

We studied the developmental acquisition of three of the cotransmitters found in the gastropyloric receptor (GPR) neurons of the stomatogastric nervous systems of the lobsters Homarus americanus and Homarus gammarus. By using wholemount immunocytochemistry and confocal microscopy, we examined the distribution of serotonin-like, allatostatin-like, and FLRF(NH2)-like immunoreactivities within the...

Nonnative species that form novel habitats strongly affect ecosystem processes. The effects of these ecosystem engineers can be both positive and negative but the mechanisms behind their effects are not well described. In this study we determined the relative importance of three main mechanisms by which invasive ecosystem engineers can facilitate native fauna. The engineer may provide new physi...

We designed fluorescence in situ hybridization probes for two distinct microsporidian clades and demonstrated their application in detecting, respectively, Nosema/Vairimorpha and Dictyoceola species. We used them to study the vertical transmission of two microsporidia infecting the amphipod Gammarus duebeni.