Population Structure of Riverine and Coastal Dolphins Sotalia fluviatilis and Sotalia guianensis: Patterns of Nuclear and Mitochondrial Diversity and Implications for Conservation.

Coastal and freshwater cetaceans are particularly vulnerable due to their proximity to human activity, localized distributions, and small home ranges. These species include Sotalia guianensis, found in the Atlantic and Caribbean coastal areas of central and South America, and Sotalia fluviatilis, distributed in the Amazon River and tributaries. We investigated the population structure and genetic diversity of these 2 species by analyses of mtDNA control region and 8-10 microsatellite loci. MtDNA analyses revealed strong regional structuring for S. guianensis (i.e., Colombian Caribbean vs. Brazilian Coast, FST = 0.807, ΦST = 0.878, P < 0.001) especially north and south of the Amazon River mouth. For S. fluviatilis, population structuring was detected between the western and eastern Amazon (i.e., Colombian Amazon vs. Brazilian Amazon, FST = 0.085, ΦST = 0.277, P < 0.001). Haplotype and nucleotide diversity were higher for S. fluviatilis. Population differentiation was supported by analysis of the microsatellite loci (S. guianensis, northern South America vs. southern South America FST = 0.275, Jost's D = 0.476, P < 0.001; S. fluviatilis, western and eastern Amazon FST = 0.197, Jost's D = 0.364, P < 0.001). Most estimated migration rates in both species overlapped with zero, suggesting no measurable migration between most of the sampling locations. However, for S. guianensis, there was measurable migration in neighboring sampling locations. These results indicate that the small home ranges of these species may act to restrict gene flow between populations separated by relatively short distances, increasing the risk of extirpation of some localized populations in the future if existing threats are not minimized.

Priming of a DNA metabarcoding approach for species identification and inventory in marine macrobenthic communities.

In marine and estuarine benthic communities, the inventory and estimation of species richness are often hampered by the need for broad taxonomic expertise across several phyla. The use of DNA metabarcoding has emerged as a powerful tool for the fast assessment of species composition in a diversity of ecological communities. Here, we tested the amplification success of five primer sets targeting different COI-5P regions by 454 pyrosequencing to maximize the recovery of two simulated macrobenthic communities containing 21 species (SimCom1 and SimCom 2). Species identification was first performed against a compiled reference library of macrobenthic species. Reads with similarity results to reference sequences between 70% and 97% were then submitted to GenBank and BOLD to attempt the identification of concealed species in the bulk sample. The combination of at least three primer sets was able to recover more species than any primer set alone, achieving 85% of represented species in SimCom1 and 76% in SimCom2. Our approach was successful to detect low-frequency specimens, as well as concealed species, in the bulk sample, indicating the potential for the application of this approach on marine bioassessment and inventory, including the detection of "hidden" biodiversity that would hardly be possible based on morphology only.

Comparative biogeography of Chromobacterium from the neotropics.

The genus Chromobacterium encompasses free-living Gram-negative bacteria. Until 2007, the genus consisted of only one species but six species are now recognized. Chromobacterium violaceum is the type species of the genus and is commonly found in soil and water in tropical and sub-tropical regions. We have investigated a collection of 111 isolates displaying violet pigmentation from undisturbed aquatic and soil environments from Brazilian Cerrado ecosystem. The 16S rRNA gene phylogeny revealed that all isolates were allocated in a monophyletic cluster inside the Chromobacterium genus and formed few clusters related most closely with Chromobacterium piscinae. The two sets of isolates from water and soil were analyzed by the repetitive extragenic palindromic (rep)-PCR genomic fingerprinting technique using a BOX-AR1 primer. The antimicrobial susceptibility and the different carbon sources utilized by these isolates were also investigated. Physiological profiles of the isolates generated by BIOLOG GN2 plates showed great versatility in the substrate utilization, much higher than the C. violaceum ATCC 12472. All isolates exhibited a high minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) to ampicillin (MIC > 512 µg/ml) and were inhibited by ciprofloxacin, tetracycline and mercury at the lowest concentration tested (MIC < 2 µg/ml). Thirteen BOX-PCR band patterns were identified from 33 individual fingerprints. Eleven patterns provided evidence for endemic distributions. Antimicrobial susceptibility and BOX-PCR fingerprint clustering showed a clear distinction between Chromobacterium isolates from the water and soil. The results suggested that microenvironment barriers such as water and soil can play an important role in the periodic selection and diversification of Chromobacterium population ecotypes.

Molecular analysis of maltotriose active transport and fermentation by Saccharomyces cerevisiae reveals a determinant role for the AGT1 permease.

Incomplete and/or sluggish maltotriose fermentation causes both quality and economic problems in the ale-brewing industry. Although it has been proposed previously that the sugar uptake must be responsible for these undesirable phenotypes, there have been conflicting reports on whether all the known alpha-glucoside transporters in Saccharomyces cerevisiae (MALx1, AGT1, and MPH2 and MPH3 transporters) allow efficient maltotriose utilization by yeast cells. We characterized the kinetics of yeast cell growth, sugar consumption, and ethanol production during maltose or maltotriose utilization by several S. cerevisiae yeast strains (both MAL constitutive and MAL inducible) and by their isogenic counterparts with specific deletions of the AGT1 gene. Our results clearly showed that yeast strains carrying functional permeases encoded by the MAL21, MAL31, and/or MAL41 gene in their plasma membranes were unable to utilize maltotriose. While both high- and low-affinity transport activities were responsible for maltose uptake from the medium, in the case of maltotriose, the only low-affinity (K(m), 36 +/- 2 mM) transport activity was mediated by the AGT1 permease. In conclusion, the AGT1 transporter is required for efficient maltotriose fermentation by S. cerevisiae yeasts, highlighting the importance of this permease for breeding and/or selection programs aimed at improving sluggish maltotriose fermentations.

With a little help from DNA barcoding: investigating the diversity of Gastropoda from the Portuguese coast.

The Gastropoda is one of the best studied classes of marine invertebrates. Yet, most species have been delimited based on morphology only. The application of DNA barcodes has shown to be greatly useful to help delimiting species. Therefore, sequences of the cytochrome c oxidase I gene from 108 specimens of 34 morpho-species were used to investigate the molecular diversity within the gastropods from the Portuguese coast. To the above dataset, we added available COI-5P sequences of taxonomically close species, in a total of 58 morpho-species examined. There was a good match between ours and sequences from independent studies, in public repositories. We found 32 concordant (91.4%) out of the 35 Barcode Index Numbers (BINs) generated from our sequences. The application of a ranking system to the barcodes yield over 70% with top taxonomic congruence, while 14.2% of the species barcodes had insufficient data. In the majority of the cases, there was a good concordance between morphological identification and DNA barcodes. Nonetheless, the discordance between morphological and molecular data is a reminder that even the comparatively well-known European marine gastropods can benefit from being probed using the DNA barcode approach. Discordant cases should be reviewed with more integrative studies.

Starting a DNA barcode reference library for shallow water polychaetes from the southern European Atlantic coast.

Annelid polychaetes have been seldom the focus of dedicated DNA barcoding studies, despite their ecological relevance and often dominance, particularly in soft-bottom estuarine and coastal marine ecosystems. Here, we report the first assessment of the performance of DNA barcodes in the discrimination of shallow water polychaete species from the southern European Atlantic coast, focusing on specimens collected in estuaries and coastal ecosystems of Portugal. We analysed cytochrome oxidase I DNA barcodes (COI-5P) from 164 specimens, which were assigned to 51 morphospecies. To our data set from Portugal, we added available published sequences selected from the same species, genus or family, to inspect for taxonomic congruence among studies and collection location. The final data set comprised 290 specimens and 79 morphospecies, which generated 99 Barcode Index Numbers (BINs) within Barcode of Life Data Systems (BOLD). Among these, 22 BINs were singletons, 47 other BINs were concordant, confirming the initial identification based on morphological characters, and 30 were discordant, most of which consisted on multiple BINs found for the same morphospecies. Some of the most prominent cases in the latter category include Hediste diversicolor (O.F. Müller, 1776) (7), Eulalia viridis (Linnaeus, 1767) (2) and Owenia fusiformis (delle Chiaje, 1844) (5), all of them reported from Portugal and frequently used in ecological studies as environmental quality indicators. Our results for these species showed discordance between molecular lineages and morphospecies, or added additional relatively divergent lineages. The potential inaccuracies in environmental assessments, where underpinning polychaete species diversity is poorly resolved or clarified, demand additional and extensive investigation of the DNA barcode diversity in this group, in parallel with alpha taxonomy efforts.

Regulation of Saccharomyces cerevisiae maltose fermentation by cold temperature and CSF1

Foi estudado o efeito da baixa temperatura (10ºC) na fermentação de maltose por uma cepa de S. cerevisiae selvagem, e uma cepa csf1D mutante incapaz de transportar glicose e leucina a baixas temperaturas. A baixa temperatura afeta a cinética da fermentação por diminuir a velocidade de crescimento e rendimento celular final, com quase nenhum etanol produzido a partir de maltose pelas células selvagems a 10ºC. A cepa csf1D foi incapaz de crescer em maltose a 10ºC, indicando que o gene CSF1 é também necessário para a utilização de maltose a baixas temperaturas. Entretanto, o mutante também mostrou inibição acentuada da fermentação de glicose e maltose por estresse salino, indicando que CSF1 também estaria envolvido na regulação de outros processos fisiológicos, incluindo a homeostase iónica.

Regulation of Saccharomyces cerevisiae maltose fermentation by cold temperature and CSF1

We studied the influence of cold temperature (10ºC) on the fermentation of maltose by a S. cerevisiae wild-type strain, and a csf1delta mutant impaired in glucose and leucine uptake at low temperatures. Cold temperature affected the fermentation kinetics by decreasing the growth rate and the final cell yield, with almost no ethanol been produced from maltose by the wild-type cells at 10ºC. The csf1delta strain did not grew on maltose when cultured at 10ºC, indicating that the CSF1 gene is also required for maltose consumption at low temperatures. However, this mutant also showed increased inhibition of glucose and maltose fermentation under salt stress, indicating that CSF1 is probably involved in the regulation of other physiological processes, including ion homeostasis.

Foi estudado o efeito da baixa temperatura (10ºC) na fermentação de maltose por uma cepa de S. cerevisiae selvagem, e uma cepa csf1delta mutante incapaz de transportar glicose e leucina a baixas temperaturas. A baixa temperatura afeta a cinética da fermentação por diminuir a velocidade de crescimento e rendimento celular final, com quase nenhum etanol produzido a partir de maltose pelas células selvagems a 10ºC. A cepa csf1delta foi incapaz de crescer em maltose a 10ºC, indicando que o gene CSF1 é também necessário para a utilização de maltose a baixas temperaturas. Entretanto, o mutante também mostrou inibição acentuada da fermentação de glicose e maltose por estresse salino, indicando que CSF1 também estaria envolvido na regulação de outros processos fisiológicos, incluindo a homeostase iónica.

Regulation of Saccharomyces cerevisiae maltose fermentation by cold temperature and CSF1

We studied the influence of cold temperature (10ºC) on the fermentation of maltose by a S. cerevisiae wild-type strain, and a csf1delta mutant impaired in glucose and leucine uptake at low temperatures. Cold temperature affected the fermentation kinetics by decreasing the growth rate and the final cell yield, with almost no ethanol been produced from maltose by the wild-type cells at 10ºC. The csf1delta strain did not grew on maltose when cultured at 10ºC, indicating that the CSF1 gene is also required for maltose consumption at low temperatures. However, this mutant also showed increased inhibition of glucose and maltose fermentation under salt stress, indicating that CSF1 is probably involved in the regulation of other physiological processes, including ion homeostasis.

Foi estudado o efeito da baixa temperatura (10ºC) na fermentação de maltose por uma cepa de S. cerevisiae selvagem, e uma cepa csf1delta mutante incapaz de transportar glicose e leucina a baixas temperaturas. A baixa temperatura afeta a cinética da fermentação por diminuir a velocidade de crescimento e rendimento celular final, com quase nenhum etanol produzido a partir de maltose pelas células selvagems a 10ºC. A cepa csf1delta foi incapaz de crescer em maltose a 10ºC, indicando que o gene CSF1 é também necessário para a utilização de maltose a baixas temperaturas. Entretanto, o mutante também mostrou inibição acentuada da fermentação de glicose e maltose por estresse salino, indicando que CSF1 também estaria envolvido na regulação de outros processos fisiológicos, incluindo a homeostase iónica.