Diurnal temperature fluctuations in an artificial small shallow water body.
Ontology highlight
ABSTRACT: For aquatic biological processes, diurnal and annual cycles of water temperature are very important to plants as well as to animals and microbes living in the water. An existing one-dimensional model has been extended to simulate the temperature profile within a small water body. A year-round outdoor experiment has been conducted to estimate the model input parameters and to verify the model. Both model simulations and measurements show a strong temperature stratification in the water during daytime. Throughout the night, however, a well-mixed layer starting at the water surface develops. Because the water body is relatively small, it appears that the sediment heat flux has a strong effect on the behaviour of the water temperature throughout the seasons. In spring, the water temperature remains relatively low due to the cold surrounding soil, while in autumn the opposite occurs due to the relatively warm soil. It appears that, in small water bodies, the total amount of incoming long wave radiation is sensitive to the sky view factor. In our experiments, the intensity of precipitation also appears to have a small effect on the stratification of the water temperature.
Project description:The rhythm of human life is governed by diurnal cycles, as a result of endogenous circadian processes evolved to maximize biological fitness. Even complex aspects of daily life, such as affective states, exhibit systematic diurnal patterns which in turn influence behaviour. As a result, previous research has identified population-level diurnal patterns in affective preference for music. By analysing audio features from over two billion music streaming events on Spotify, we find that the music people listen to divides into five distinct time blocks corresponding to morning, afternoon, evening, night and late night/early morning. By integrating an artificial neural network with Spotify's API, we show a general awareness of diurnal preference in playlists, which is not present to the same extent for individual tracks. Our results demonstrate how music intertwines with our daily lives and highlight how even something as individual as musical preference is influenced by underlying diurnal patterns.
Project description:Risks of parasitism vary over time, with infection prevalence often fluctuating with seasonal changes in the annual cycle. Identifying the biological mechanisms underlying seasonality in infection can enable better prediction and prevention of future infection peaks. Obtaining longitudinal data on individual infections and traits across seasons throughout the annual cycle is perhaps the most effective means of achieving this aim, yet few studies have obtained such information for wildlife. Here, we tracked spiny common toads (Bufo spinosus) within and across annual cycles to assess seasonal variation in movement, body temperatures and infection from the fungal parasite, Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis (Bd). Across annual cycles, toads did not consistently sustain infections but instead gained and lost infections from year to year. Radio-tracking showed that infected toads lose infections during post-breeding migrations, and no toads contracted infection following migration, which may be one explanation for the inter-annual variability in Bd infections. We also found pronounced seasonal variation in toad body temperatures. Body temperatures approached 0 °C during winter hibernation but remained largely within the thermal tolerance range of Bd. These findings provide direct documentation of migratory recovery (i.e., loss of infection during migration) and escape in a wild population. The body temperature reductions that we observed during hibernation warrant further consideration into the role that this period plays in seasonal Bd dynamics.
Project description:Circadian rhythms are essential in a myriad of physiological processes to maintain homeostasis, especially the redox homeostasis. However, little is known about whether plasma H2S exhibits the physiological diurnal variation. The present study was performed to investigate the diurnal fluctuations of plasma H2S and explore the potential mechanisms. We found that the plasma H2S of the C57BL/6J mice was significantly higher at 19 o'clock than those at 7 o'clock which was not affected by the blood-collecting sequence and the concentrations of plasma cysteine (a precursor of H2S). No significant differences in mRNA or protein expression of the CSE, CBS, or MPST were observed between 7: 00 and 19: 00. There were also no significant differences in the CSE and CBS activities, while the activities of MPST in tissues were significantly higher at 19 o'clock. After treatment with AOAA (a CBS inhibitor) or PPG (a CSE inhibitor) for 14 days, plasma H2S concentrations at 19 o'clock were still significantly higher than those at 7 o'clock, although they were both significantly decreased as compared with controls. Identical findings were also observed in CSE KO mice. We also found the plasma H2O2 concentrations were significantly higher at 19 o'clock than those at 7 o'clock. However, H2O2 concentrations were significantly decreased at 19 o'clock than those at 7 o'clock when mice were exposed to continuous light for 24 h. Meanwhile, the diurnal fluctuations of plasma H2S levels and MPST activities in tissues were disappeared. After treatment with DTT for 14 days, there was no significant difference in plasma H2O2 concentrations between 7 o'clock and 19 o'clock. Meanwhile, the diurnal fluctuations of plasma H2S levels and MPST activities in tissues were disappeared. Identical findings were also observed in SOD2+/- mice. When heart tissues were incubated with increasing concentrations of H2O2in vitro, H2O2 could dose-dependently increase the activity of MPST within a certain concentration range. In conclusion, our studies revealed that plasma H2S concentration and tissue MPST activity exhibited diurnal fluctuations. Modulated by plasma H2O2 concentration, changes of MPST activity probably led to the diurnal fluctuations of plasma H2S.
Project description:By sequencing 36 cDNA libraries with Illumina technology, we identified genes differentially expressed in soybean plants in response to water deficit and genes that were either up- or down-regulated in different periods of the day. Of 54,175 predicted soybean genes (Glyma v1.1), 35.52% exhibited expression oscillations in a 24 h period. This number increased to 39.23% when plants were submitted to water deficit. Major differences in gene expression were observed in the control plants from late day (ZT16) until predawn (ZT20) periods, indicating that gene expression oscillates during the course of 24 h in normal development. Under water deficit, dissimilarity increased in all time-periods, indicating that the applied stress influenced gene expression. Results suggest that time of day, as well as light and temperature oscillations that occur considerably affect the regulation of water deficit stress response in soybean plants.
Project description:By sequencing 36 cDNA libraries with Illumina technology, we identified genes differentially expressed in soybean plants in response to water deficit and genes that were either up- or down-regulated in different periods of the day. Of 54,175 predicted soybean genes (Glyma v1.1), 35.52% exhibited expression oscillations in a 24 h period. This number increased to 39.23% when plants were submitted to water deficit. Major differences in gene expression were observed in the control plants from late day (ZT16) until predawn (ZT20) periods, indicating that gene expression oscillates during the course of 24 h in normal development. Under water deficit, dissimilarity increased in all time-periods, indicating that the applied stress influenced gene expression. Results suggest that time of day, as well as light and temperature oscillations that occur considerably affect the regulation of water deficit stress response in soybean plants. Gene expression analysis of soybean leaves under water deficit in 6 periods of day by sequencing 36 libraries, in triplicate, in Illumina platform.
Project description:Water immersion insertion has been documented to decrease procedure-related discomfort during colonoscopy. There was used warm water infusion for colonoscope insertion in most of the water immersion colonoscopy trials.
The investigators have been using room temperature water (20-24°C) for water immersion and the investigators did not notice any drawback of it. In our opinion, it is simpler and cheaper option for water immersion colonoscopy and proof of its efficacy and safety could support the use of water immersion technique in routine practice.
The primary endpoint is cecal intubation time and the investigators suppose that the use of warm water infusion does not shorten it significantly. Patient comfort during colonoscope insertion, water consumption, length of the scope while reaching the cecum, need for external compression, need for positioning of the patient and endoscopist´s difficulty with colonoscopy will be also assessed.
Project description:The size of an organism matters for its metabolic, growth, mortality, and other vital rates. Scale-free community size spectra (i.e., size distributions regardless of species) are routinely observed in natural ecosystems and are the product of intra- and interspecies regulation of the relative abundance of organisms of different sizes. Intra- and interspecies distributions of body sizes are thus major determinants of ecosystems' structure and function. We show experimentally that single-species mass distributions of unicellular eukaryotes covering different phyla exhibit both characteristic sizes and universal features over more than four orders of magnitude in mass. Remarkably, we find that the mean size of a species is sufficient to characterize its size distribution fully and that the latter has a universal form across all species. We show that an analytical physiological model accounts for the observed universality, which can be synthesized in a log-normal form for the intraspecies size distributions. We also propose how ecological and physiological processes should interact to produce scale-invariant community size spectra and discuss the implications of our results on allometric scaling laws involving body mass.
Project description:To study behavioral thermoregulation, it is useful to use thermal sensors and physical models to collect environmental temperatures that are used to predict organism body temperature. Many techniques involve expensive or numerous types of sensors (cast copper models, or temperature, humidity, radiation, and wind speed sensors) to collect the microhabitat data necessary to predict body temperatures. Expense and diversity of requisite sensors can limit sampling resolution and accessibility of these methods. We compare body temperature predictions of small lizards from iButtons, DS18B20 sensors, and simple copper models, in both laboratory and natural conditions. Our aim was to develop an inexpensive yet accurate method for body temperature prediction. Either method was applicable given appropriate parameterization of the heat transfer equation used. The simplest and cheapest method was DS18B20 sensors attached to a small recording computer. There was little if any deficit in precision or accuracy compared to other published methods. We show how the heat transfer equation can be parameterized, and it can also be used to predict body temperature from historically collected data, allowing strong comparisons between current and previous environmental temperatures using the most modern techniques. Our simple method uses very cheap sensors and loggers to extensively sample habitat temperature, improving our understanding of microhabitat structure and thermal variability with respect to small ectotherms. While our method was quite precise, we feel any potential loss in accuracy is offset by the increase in sample resolution, important as it is increasingly apparent that, particularly for small ectotherms, habitat thermal heterogeneity is the strongest influence on transient body temperature.
Project description:To predict the most likely scenarios, the consequences of the rise in water surface temperature have been studied using various methods. We tested the hypothesis that winter water warming significantly alters the importance and nature of the relationships in zooplankton communities in shallow reservoirs. These relationships were investigated using network graph analysis for three thermal variants: warm winters (WW), moderate winters (MW) and cold winters (CW). The CW network was the most cohesive and was controlled by eutrophic Rotifera and Copepoda, with a corresponding number of positive and negative interspecific relationships. An increase in water temperature in winter led to a decrease in the centrality of MW and WW networks, and an increase in the importance of species that communicated with the highest number of species in the subnetworks. The WW network was the least cohesive, controlled by psammophilous and phytophilous rotifers, and littoral cladocerans. Adult copepods were not identified in the network and the importance of antagonistic relationships decreased, indicating that the WW network structure was weak and unstable. This study can serve as a model for generalisations of zooplankton community response to the disappearance of long winter periods of low temperatures, as predicted in global climate change projections.
Project description:Climate change scenarios predict that lake water temperatures will increase up to 4°C and rainfall events will become more intense and frequent by the end of this century. Concurrently, supply of humic substances from terrestrial runoff is expected to increase, resulting in darker watercolor ("brownification") of aquatic ecosystems. Using a multi-seasonal, low trophic state mesocosm experiment, we investigated how higher water temperature and brownification affect plankton community composition, phenology, and functioning. We tested the hypothesis that higher water temperature (+3°C) and brownification will, a) cause plankton community composition to shift toward small sized phytoplankton and cyanobacteria, and, b) extend the length of the growing season entailing higher phytoplankton production later in the season. We demonstrate that the 3°C increase of water temperature favored the growth of heterotrophic bacteria and small sized autotrophic picophytoplankton cells with significantly higher primary production during warmer fall periods. However, 3X darker water (effect of brownification) caused no significant changes in the plankton community composition or functioning relative to control conditions. Our findings reveal that increased temperature change plankton community structure by favoring smaller sized species proliferation (autotrophic phytoplankton and small size cladocerans), and increase primary productivity and community turnover. Finally, results of this multi-seasonal experiment suggest that warming by 3°C in aquatic ecosystems of low trophic state may cause planktonic food web functioning to become more dominated by fast growing, r-trait species (i.e., small sizes and rapid development).