News

One of the products we offer is a swim tunnel for aquatic animals. It is “like a treadmill for fish”, we usually answer, when asked what a swim tunnel is for. But what is a swim tunnel actually used for?

A good example is found in a recent press release featuring UNT professor, Ed Mager. The press release describes why Ed and his team’s research on four species of Guadalupe River fish is important. Ed explains that:

“Once we understand the swimming performance of the river’s occupants, we can make recommendations of maximum water flow rates that can be incorporated into the planning of waterway crossings.”

In other words, the research team use one of our swim tunnels to examine the maximum sustained velocity and burst speed of the Guadalupe Bass (the state fish of Texas), Guadalupe Roundnose Minnow, Guadalupe Darter and Plateau Shiner that all inhabit the river at various life stages. The Loligo swim tunnel (see picture above) enables the team to swim the fish at different water velocities in a fully controlled environment while they are able to automatically measure their oxygen consumption rate, at the same time. The setup further allows accurate control of temperature, and the option to film the swimming fish from different angles, if needed.

Overall, you may find a swim tunnel used in physiology studies and in research on energetics, behavior, biomechanics and kinematics – not only in fish, but essentially in any aquatic animals that meet the physical requirements of the swim tunnel.

Daniel Montgomery and Rod Wilson from University of Exeter and their collaborators used our BOBS™ instrumentation to measure haemoglobin-O₂ affinity (P₅₀) on European sea bass in hypoxic conditions.

Their findings suggest that it is worthwhile considering the Hb-O₂ affinity in hypoxia studies because of the effects of the naturally raised CO₂ levels that follows a hypoxic event.

Full article:

Rising CO₂ enhances hypoxia tolerance in a marine fish
Montgomery, Daniel W; Simpson, Stephen D; Engelhard, Georg H; Birchenough, Silvana NR; Wilson, Rod W; (2019)
Scientific reports

Link to article

The latest version of LoliTrack is out! This major upgraded version features many improvements and additions as well as a much faster performance on regular PCs.

IMPORTANT: We offer a 50 % discount to all LoliTrack 1-4 and DanioTrack license holders. This offer is valid in 2020 only. For more information, click here.

MICROPLATE TRACKING
LoliTrack 5 includes several tracking tools that will save a lot of time. An example is tracking organisms in 24-, 48-, and 96-well microtiter plates for fast screening of activity levels or locomotion:

BODY POINTS
Another example is that LoliTrack 5 can identify specific body points (tail, head, midline center, center of gravity) as well as the object midline which is especially useful for studying kinematics (tail beat frequency, body oscillations etc.) or specific behavior (direction of orientation or movement, turning rate etc.). A new parameter, “BEND”, can be calculated as well giving body angles, i.e., for automated tracking of tailbeat frequency or other body oscillations:

Nearest Neighbor Distance / Inter-Individual Distance
You can export a visual representation as well as the position data for nearest neighbor distance and inter-individual distance for multiple objects:

HEAT MAP
Heat mapping is now an option as well for specific parameters like position, speed, acceleration etc.:

ERROR CORRECTION TOOLS
Other important updates include the possibility to correct tracking errors like object identity switching or even if the object leaves and re-enters the arena.

3D TRACKING
LoliTrack 5 supports 3D tracking and analysis. With two cameras (or video files), users can track and analysis the behavior of a single object in 3D. The 3D tracking feature further allows exporting the trajectories as a 3D model or as video for data presentation:

PERFORMANCE
LoliTrack 5 has been optimized with performance in mind. On regular Windows 10 PCs, users of LoliTrack 5 will find that calibrating, creating filters and indeed tracking runs more smoothly and faster compared to the previous version, LoliTrack 4. The follow diagram shows six examples of how many seconds it took to track the same video in LoliTrack 5 compared to LoliTrack 4:

VIDEO FILE COMPATIBILITY
LoliTrack 5 now supports most video file formats unlike previous version that only handled .AVI files.

VIDEO CAMERA
Another new feature in LoliTrack 5 is the built-in video recorder. The video recorder allows the user to capture and edit videos from within LoliTrack 5 using most cameras connected to the PC.

USER-INTERFACE
The entire LoliTrack 5 interface has been redesigned to meet today’s clean and streamlined user demands. Tracking a video follows an intuitive step-by-step procedure: Load video file > Calibration > Masking > Filtering > Tracking > Analysis. Several time-saving features have been added; including the option to track a user-defined interval of the entire video or to quickly define the filter by subtracting the background.

We are happy to be sponsoring the NoWPaS 2020 meeting at Laugarvatn, Iceland, on March 2^nd – 7^th. NoWPas focuses on all anadromous salmonid species and will be celebrating its 15^th anniversary this year.

NoWPaS has succeeded in organizing annual workshops since its inception in Norway in 2005. Over the next fourteen years, a total of 380 early-stage researchers and 59 invited speakers have had the opportunity to give oral presentations regarding their research on salmonids.

The workshop is free for all delegates and is first come, first serve among eligible applicants.

We hope for a great meeting in Iceland!

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