News

The Nothobranchius Symposium is a biennial meeting that serves as a platform for researchers with an interest in all aspects of Nothobranchius biology from biomedical to ecological research to meet and discuss ideas.

We will be sponsoring the 4^th Nothobranchius Symposium in Brno, Czech Republic, on 3-5 June 2020, in order to support this interesting scientific community.

Official Twitter account / hashtag: https://twitter.com/Fish_EcoEvo / #notho2020

For more info about the meeting, please visit: https://notho2020.ivb.cz/

We are proud to sponsor the 26^th European Meeting of PhD Students in Evolutionary Biology (EMPSEB26) meeting in Killarney National Park, Ireland, by covering accommodation expenses for all the invited speakers. EMPSEB26 provides students with the opportunity to present their work to an international audience of their peers.

Please visit the official Twitter account (and use #EMPSEB26) for the meeting: https://twitter.com/Empseb26

For more info about the meeting, please visit the meeting website: https://bit.ly/2XvvIbD

Once again, we have agreed to sponsor a symposium. This time for the SEB Annual Meeting in Prague 2020. The symposium is organized by Prof. Patricia A. Wright (Univ. Guelph) and Dr. Jonathan M. Wilson (Wilfrid Laurier Univ.), and we will provide travel funds to three post docs and invited speakers: M. Mandic, S. Fehsenfeld, and M. Giacomin.

Please find a description of the symposium below:

Title: The Ins and Outs of the Ups and Downs: Respiration and Osmoregulation in Fluctuating Environments

Aquatic ectotherms are intimately linked to their environment. Daily and seasonal variation in water conditions (e.g., salinity, oxygen, carbon dioxide) often have dramatic impacts on behaviour and physiology of freshwater and marine organisms. Two critical systems, respiration and osmoregulation are linked through gill morphology and transport processes. The "osmo-respiratory compromise" describes the complex interactions between the two systems. Speakers will explore respiratory and/or osmoregulatory challenges and behaviour in invertebrates and vertebrates facing fluctuating conditions in a wide range of habitats, such as tide pools, coral reefs, mangrove forests and freshwater lakes.

Speaker / Title

• Katie Gilmour (Plenary) / The osmo-respiratory compromise
  University of Ottawa, Canada
• Jehan-Herve Lignot / Osmoregulation in intertidal and estuarine organisms
  University of Montpellier, France
• Tamzin Blewett / Diurnal and seasonal cycles and ion regulation in crustaceans
  University of Alberta, Canada
• Sandra Fehsenfeld / Nitrogen excretion in crustaceans
  University of Quebec at Rimouski, Canada
• Anne Todgham / The impact of multiple stressors on marine invertebrates
  University of California-Davis, U.S.A.
• Phil Munday (Plenary) / Diel CO₂ cycles and the behaviour/physiology of coral reef fishes
  James Cook University, Australia
• Milica Mandic / Cellular responses to daily oxygen variation in fishes
  University of California-Davis, U.S.A.
• Lauren Chapman / Environmental change and shifts in respiratory traits of East African Fishes
  McGill University, Canada
• Marina Giacomin / Osmorespiratory compromise in fishes: lessons from toxicology
• University of Alberta, Canada

These are new free giveaways we will be bringing to trade shows at scientific meetings and conferences in the future:

The neck gaiter is designed with a word cloud made from titles of all the peer-reviewed papers citing use of Loligo^® equipment. It is a multi-functional headpiece that can keep you warm or protect you from the sunlight. The fabric is OEKO® TEX certified.

The micro fiber cloth can be used to clean your glasses, camera lenses, laptop screens etc. and is made from 100 % recycled plastic bottles!

The stainless-steel multi-tool will never rust, bend or dull. It comes with 20 tools including a mirror, nail filer, six hex wrenches, a can opener, fruit peeler, bottle opener, ruler (standard & metric), letter opener, box opener, phone stand, and a flat head screwdriver!

Please stop by our booth to get one (or two). You can find a list of coming events here: https://www.loligosystems.com/events

Dr. Jay Storz and Anthony Signore from University of Nebraska used our BOBS™ instrumentation to measure O₂ affinity (P₅₀) of hemoglobin from Tibetan wolves and mastiffs.

This new impressive research on Tibetan mastiffs gaining high-altitude adaptation by breeding with mountain wolves is highlighted on Live Science (https://www.livescience.com/tibetan-mastiff-wolf-genes.html).

Full article:

Adaptive Changes in Hemoglobin Function in High-Altitude Tibetan Canids Were Derived via Gene
Conversion and Introgression
Anthony V Signore, Ying-Zhong Yang, Quan-Yu Yang, Ga Qin, Hideaki Moriyama, Ri-Li Ge, Jay F Storz (2019)
Molecular Biology and Evolution

Link to article

Yangfan Zhang and his collaborators from University of British Columbia, Canada, used a 10 L Loligo^® swim tunnel to assess the dynamic nature of ṀO_2active near U_crit in rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss). The researchers used various sampling windows and introduced an iterative algorithm which generated a 23 % higher peak ṀO_2active compared to conventional ṀO₂ sampling rates and interval regression analysis of ṀO_2active.
In the current version of AutoResp, calculating ṀO_2active near U_crit is also possible by enabling the mode “Closed respirometry” during this critical phase. This mode enables you to get MO₂ values on-the-fly for any time interval you prefer!

Full article:

Finding the peak of dynamic oxygen uptake during fatiguing exercise in fish
Yangfan Zhang, Matthew J. H. Gilbert, Anthony P. Farrell (2019)
Journal of Experimental Biology

Link to article

Post doc Natalie Pilakouta from University of Glasgow, and her collaborators (Holar College), used the shuttle box system and ShuttleSoft to look at thermal preferences in three-spined stickleback (Gasterosteus aculeatus). The researchers find that fish from both warm (from freshwater warmed by geothermal activity) and cold (from ambient-temperature lakes) habitats had an average preferred temperature of 13 °C, which is considerably lower than the temperatures experienced by fish in warm habitats for most of the year. The results therefore claim to challenge the assumption that temperature preferences in ectotherms will readily evolve as a response to climate change.

Full article:

Temperature preference does not evolve in sticklebacks despite multigenerational exposure to elevated temperatures
Natalie Pilakouta, Shaun S. Killen, Bjarni K. Kristjánsson, Skúli Skúlason, Jan Lindström, Neil B. Metcalfe and Kevin J. Parsons (2019)
bioRxiv

Link to article

Prof. Mikko Nikinmaa from University of Turku, Finland, and his collaborators, used the microplate respirometer to analyze whether exposure to water-soluble fraction (WSF) of crude oil can be associated with changes in interindividual variability in phenotype in Daphnia magna. The 80 µl well microplate allowed the researchers to measure whole animal oxygen consumption rate and found that the variability of oxygen consumption rate decreased in 48 h 30 % WSF-exposed animals as compared to 10 % WSF-exposed or control animals. Furthermore, they observed that the oxygen consumption rates in F₁ and F₂ generations of unexposed and 10 % WSF-exposed Daphnia had decreased from parental F₀ generation and were also lower than in offspring of 30 % WSF-exposed specimens.

Full article:

Water-soluble fraction of crude oil affects variability and has transgenerational effects in Daphnia magna
Mikko Nikinmaa, Emilie Suominen and Katja Anttila (2019)
Aquatic Toxicology

Link to article

Loligo Systems is now on Twitter:

• https://twitter.com/LoligoSystems
• @LoligoSystems
• #LoligoSystems

We would like to tweet or retweet any news you might have about job offerings, new meetings, symposia, papers, grants, courses etc. - so please follow us.

Thanks a lot,

The Loligo Team