Publications by EEOB faculty in 14 - 24 Feb 2014
Photo courtesy Captain John, from a creative commons license.
Physical-biological coupling and the challenge of understanding fish recruitment in freshwater lakes
Stuart A. Ludsin, Kristen M. DeVanna, Ralph EH Smith. 2014. Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences 00, 00--00. DOI: 10.1139/cjfas-2013-0512
Abstract Marine fisheries recruitment research has emphasized approaches that explore physical-biological interactions during early life stages (ELS). Herein, we review evidence that such approaches would benefit our understanding of fish recruitment in large freshwater lakes, which exhibit similar physical processes and contain fishes with comparable life-history characteristics as marine ecosystems. A review of the primary literature (1965-2008) for freshwater and marine ecosystems revealed that coupled biophysical research on fish ELS: 1) has benefited our ability to understand and predict fish recruitment in marine ecosystems; 2) has been virtually absent from small lake ecosystems but has been growing in the Laurentian Great Lakes; and 3) has shown that, similar to marine ecosystems, physical processes can control fish recruitment in large lakes through direct and indirect pathways, often involving interactions between biological processes and physicochemical conditions. In addition to identifying specific research gaps and opportunities, this perspective points to the need for increased research on physical-biological coupling as it affects fish recruitment in lake ecosystems and a continued erosion of barriers between marine and freshwater recruitment science.
See Stu's recent feature on climate.gov
Cellular metabolic rates in cultured primary dermal fibroblasts and myoblast cells from fast-growing and control Coturnix quail
Ana Gabriela Jimenez, Clara Cooper-Mullin, Nicholas B Anthony, Joseph B Williams. 2014. Comparative Biochemistry and Physiology Part A: Molecular & Integrative Physiology, in press. DOI: 10.1016/j.cbpa.2014.02.006
Abstract Fibroblast cells have been extensively used in research, including in medicine, physiology, physiological-ecology, and conservation biology. However, whether the physiology of fibroblasts reflects the physiology of other cell types in the same animal is unknown. Dermal fibroblasts are responsible for generating connective tissue and involved in wound healing, but generally, this cell type is thought to be metabolically inactive until it is required at the site of tissue damage. Thus, one might question whether fibroblasts are a representative model system to portray the metabolic profile of the whole organism, as compared with cells isolated from other tissues, like the muscle, brain or kidneys. To explore whether fibroblasts have the same metabolic profile as do myoblast cells, we cultured cells from day-old chicks of quail (Coturnix coturnix japonica) selected for fast-growth or normal growth (our control group). Our results suggest that isolated primary fibroblasts and myoblast cells had higher rates of glycolysis, oxygen consumption and more mitochondria in the fast-growing line than in the control line. Our findings lend support for the idea that fibroblasts are a representative cell system to characterize the whole organism metabolic signature at the cellular-level. These data are striking, however, because fibroblasts had higher rates of metabolism for every parameter measured than myoblast cells isolated from the same individuals
