Desert fishes are some of the most imperiled vertebrates worldwide due to their low economic worth and because they compete with humans for water. An ecological complex of fishes, 2 suckers (Catostomus latipinnis, Catostomus discobolus) and a chub (Gila robusta) (collectively managed as the so-called three species) are endemic to the U.S. Colorado River Basin, are affected by multiple stressors...

An environment intensively studied from many perspectives, through the efforts of an interdisciplinary team of biologists, ecologists, geneticists, chemists, pedologists, etc. is Moara Domnească agroecosystem. Located in the North-East of Bucharest, the Moara Domnească Lake is used for irrigation of the neighbouring agricultural areas and also for pisciculture (Stavrescu-Bedivan et al., 2011). ...

Brominated flame retardants (BFRs) are widely used industrial chemicals, residues of which can be nowadays found in all environmental compartments. The widespread presence of BFRs in various environmental compartments and food chain is a consequence of both their broad application area and physico-chemical properties, such as resistance to degradation and high lipophilicity. Alike in the case o...

Biochemical analysis of organisms to assess exposure to environmental contaminants is of great potential use. Biochemical markers, specifically liver enzymes of the first and the second phase of xenobiotic transformation - cytochrome P450 (CYP 450), ethoxyresorufin-O-deethylase (EROD), glutathione-S-transferase (GST) and tripeptide reduced glutathione (GSH) - were used to assess contamination o...

In order to study the responses of wild fish to environmental contaminations, different sites (two references and three contaminated) were sampled across the Walloon hydrographical network (southern Belgium). The status of fish communities was characterized according to an index of biotic integrity (IBI). Furthermore, population structure, reproductive parameters and biochemical assays were per...

Population structure can significantly affect genetic-based demographic inferences, generating spurious bottleneck-like signals. Previous studies have typically assumed island or stepping-stone models, which are characterized by symmetric gene flow. However, many organisms are characterized by asymmetric gene flow. Here, we combined simulated and empirical data to test whether asymmetric gene f...

BACKGROUND Brominated flame retardants (BFRs)--polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) and hexabromocyclododecane (HBCD)--belong to the group of relatively "new" environmental contaminants. The occurrence of these compounds in the Czech aquatic ecosystem was for the first time documented within the 3-year monitoring study initiated in 2001. In 2002-2003 HBCD and the major PBDE congeners (28, 47,...