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Evaluation of European diatom trophic indices Meise Botanic Garden University of Antwerp
Freshwater diatoms are consideredto be reliable indicators of the trophic status of rivers and lakes. In the past 30 years, a number of indicator indices have been developed and used for the assessment of trophic conditions all over Europe. It is however still not clear whether the ecologic signature of diatoms differs between these indicator indices. The present study assessedalarge number of published European indices on the response of ...
Increased food availability at offshore wind farms affects trophic ecology of plaice Pleuronectes platessa Ghent University Research Institute for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food
Offshore wind farms (OWFs) and their associated cables, foundations and scour protection are often constructed in soft -sediment environments. This introduction of hard substrate has been shown to have similar effects as artificial reefs by providing food resources and offering increased habitat complexity, thereby aggregating fish around the turbines and foundations. However, as most studies have focused their efforts on fish species that are ...
Trophic ecology of intertidal harpacticoid copepods, with emphasis on their interactions with bacteria Ghent University
In the era of rapidly changing natural environments, there is an urgent need for understanding biodiversity-ecosystem functioning. Trophic interactions play a key role in structuring the ecosystem. In marine systems, the feeding ecology of the larger-sized species i.e. (top) predators of food webs, is fairly well documented, yet at the basal level of food webs, the complexity of grazer interactions is much higher and trophic linkages are ...
Variability of higher trophic level stable isotope data in space and time University of Antwerp
Rationale 1In shelf and coastal ecosystems, planktonic and benthic trophic pathways differ in their carbon stable isotope ratios (δ13C values) and nitrogen stable isotope ratios (δ15N values) and they increase predictably with trophic level. Stable isotope data are therefore used as a tool to study food webs in shelf and coastal ecosystems, and to assess the diets and foraging behaviour of predators. However, spatial differences and temporal ...
Trophic structure of an African savanna river and organic matter inputs by large terrestrial herbivores: A stable isotope approach KU Leuven
© 2018 John Wiley & Sons Ltd Knowledge of trophic structure is important to understand sources and pathways of energy resources in community ecology and to identify determinants of ecosystem changes. Yet, little is known from rivers of African savanna receiving large inputs of terrestrial organic matter and nutrients by large mammalian herbivores. We used Stable Isotope (δ13C and δ15N) Bayesian Ellipses in R (SIBER) and Layman's ...
Drought altered trophic dynamics of an important natural saline lake: A stable isotope approach KU Leuven
Climate change and associated droughts threaten the ecology and resilience of natural saline lakes globally. There is a distinct lack of research regarding their ecological response to climatic events in the Global South. This region is predicted to experience climatic events such as El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) more often and with greater severity with the potential to alter the structure and functioning of aquatic ecosystems ...
Influence of salt farming on the habitat, trophic ecology and genetic population structure of macroinvertebrates in mangroves Vrije Universiteit Brussel
The increase in population pressure coupled with ignorance and poverty has promoted human activities responsible for the loss, degradation and fragmentation of mangrove ecosystems along the Western Indian Ocean coast. Solar salt farming is one of the human activities that threaten the mangrove ecosystem. The impacts of solar salt farming on the mangrove ecosystem have received little attention but in some countries its impacts they are on a par ...
Long-term warming-induced trophic downgrading in the soil microbial food web University of Antwerp
Climatic warming has been hypothesized to accelerate organic matter decomposition by soil microorganisms and thereby enhance carbon (C) release to the atmosphere. However, the long-term consequences of soil warming on belowground biota interactions are poorly understood. Here we investigate how geothermal warming by 6 degrees C for more than 50 years affects soil microbiota. Using metatranscriptomics we obtained comprehensive profiles of the ...
Mycorrhizal Associations and Trophic Modes in Coexisting Orchids: An Ecological Continuum between Auto- and Mixotrophy KU Leuven
Two distinct nutritional syndromes have been described in temperate green orchids. Most orchids form mycorrhizas with rhizoctonia fungi and are considered autotrophic. Some orchids, however, associate with fungi that simultaneously form ectomycorrhizas with surrounding trees and derive their carbon from these fungi. This evolutionarily derived condition has been called mixotrophy or partial mycoheterotrophy and is characterized by 13C enrichment ...