Compensatory growth response in three-spined stickleback in relation to feed-deprivation protocols

Different protocols of food deprivation were used to bring two groups of juvenile three-spined sticklebacks Gaslerosteus aculeatus to the same reduced body mass in comparison with a control group fed daily ad libitum. One group experienced I week or deprivation then 2 weeks on maintenance rations. The second group experienced I week of ad lithium feeding followed by 2 weeks of deprivation. The deprived groups were reduced to a mean mass ore. 80% of controls. The compensatory growth response shown when ad libitum feeding was resumed was independent of the trajectory by which the three-spined sticklebacks had reached the reduced body mass. The compensatory response was Sufficient to return the deprived groups to the mass and length trajectories shown by the control group within 4 weeks. There was full compensation for dry mass and total lipid, but incomplete compensation for lipid-free dry mass. Hyperphagia and increased growth efficiency were present in the re-feeding phase, but there was a lag of a week before the hyperphagia was established. The consistency of the compensatory response of immature three-spined sticklebacks provides a potential model system for the analysis and prediction of appetite and growth in teleosts. (C) 2003 The Fisheries Society of the British isles.

Compensatory growth in the gibel carp following feed deprivation: temporal patterns in growth, nutrient deposition, feed intake and body composition

To investigate the nature of compenstory growth in fish, an 8 week study at 28 degreesC was performed on juvenile gibel carp Carassius auratus gibelio weighing 6.6 g. Fish were starved for 0 (control), 1 (Sl)or 2 (S2) weeks and then re-fed to satiation For 5 weeks. Weekly changes in weight gain, feed intake and body composition were monitored during re-feeding. No significant difference was found in final body weight between the three groups, indicating complete compensation in the deprived fish, The deprived groups caught up in body weight with that of the control after 2 weeks of re-feeding. Body fat:lean body mass ratio was restored to the control level within 1 week of re-feeding. In the re-feeding period, weekly gains in body weight, protein. lipid, ash and energy in the S1 group were significantly higher than in the controls for 1 week. For the S2 group, weekly gains in body weight. lipid. ash and energy were higher than in the controls for 2 weeks, and gain in protein was higher than in the controls for 3 weeks, though gain in body energy became elevated again during the last 2 weeks of the experiment. Feed intake remained higher than the control level for 3 weeks in the S1 group and 3 weeks in the SZ group. Growth efficiency was not significantly different among the three groups in any of the weeks during re-feeding. Compensatory responses in growth and especially feed intake tended to last longer than the recovery of body composition. (C) 2001 The Fisheries Society of the British Isles.

Seasonal patterns in feeding ecology of three small fishes in the Biandantang Lake, China

Feeding ecology of three small fish species, Hypseleotris swinhonis, Ctenogobius giurinus and Pseudorasbora parva was studied seasonally in the Biandantang Lake, a small, shallow lake in central China. Gut length, adjusted for total body length, was significantly higher in spring than in other seasons for all the three species. Seasonal changes in gut length were not associated with changes in food quality. Weight of fore-gut contents, adjusted for body weight, was significantly higher in winter and spring than in summer and autumn in H. swinhonis and C. giurinus, and significantly higher in autumn than in spring and summer for P. parva. Percentage of empty fore-guts was highest in summer and lowest in spring for I-I. swinhonis and C. giurinus, and highest in winter and lowest in autumn for P. parva. Diet of the three small fishes showed apparent seasonal changes, and these changes reflected partly the seasonal fluctuations of food resources in environment. Diet breadth was high in winter and low in autumn for H. swinhonis, high in winter and low in spring and summer for C. giurinus, and high in autumn and low in spring for P. parva. Diet overlaps between pairs of species were biologically significant in most cases, except between H. swinhonis and P. parva in summer and autumn and between C. giurinus and P. parva in autumn. (C) 2000 The Fisheries Society of the British Isles.

Effect of ration and body size on the energy budget of juvenile white sturgeon

Growth and energy budget were measured for three sizes(2.4, 11.1 and 22.5 g) of juvenile white sturgeon Acipenser transmontanus held at 18.5 degrees C and fed tubificid worms at different levels ranging from starvation to ad libitum. For each size-class, specific growth rate increased linearly with increasing ration, and conversion efficiency was highest at the maximum ration. Growth rate decreased with increasing fish size at the maximum ration, but increased with size al each restricted ration. Conversion efficiency increased with increasing ration for each size-class and was usually highest at the maximum ration. Faecal production accounted for 3.2-5.2% of food energy. The proportion of food energy lost in nitrogenous excretion decreased with increasing ration. With increases in ration, the allocation of metabolizable energy to metabolism decreased, while that to growth increased. Fish size had no significant effect on the allocation of metabolizable energy to metabolism or growth. Al the maximum ration, on average 64.9% of metabolizable energy was spent on metabolism, and 35.1% on growth. (C) 1996 The Fisheries Society of the British Isles

Kondo effect in a triangular triple quantum dots ring with three terminals

For a triangular triple quantum dots (TTQDs) ring with three terminals, when lowering one of the dot-lead coupling to realize the left-right (L-R) reflection symmetry coupling, the internal C-upsilon of the TTQDs is well preserved in the absence of many-body effect for the symmetric distribution of the dot-lead coupling on the molecular orbits. In the presence of Kondo effect, the decrement of one of the dot-lead couplings suppresses the inter-dot hopping. This happens especially for the coupled quantum dot (QD), which decouples with the other two ones gradually to form a localized state near the Fermi level As a result, the internal dynamic symmetry of the TTQDs ring is reduced to L-R reflection symmetry, and simultaneously, the linear conductance is lifted for the new forming molecular orbit near the Fermi level

FLOW STRUCTURES IN THREE-DIMENSIONAL FISH-LIKE SWIMMING

The swimming of a fish-like body is numerical simulated. The wake structures consist of a series of hairpin-like vortices braided together. The caudal fins generated vorticity interacts constructively with the body-bounded vorticity.

Effects of Ionizing Radiation on Three-Dimensional Human Vessel Models: Differential Effects According to Radiation Quality and Cellular Development

Little is known about the effects of space radiation on the human body. There are a number of potential chronic and acute effects, and one major target for noncarcinogenic effects is the human vasculature. Cellular stress, inflammatory response, and other radiation effects on endothelial cells may affect vascular function. This study was aimed at understanding the effects of space ionizing radiation on the formation and maintenance of capillary-like blood vessels. We used a 3D human vessel model created with human endothelial cells in a gel matrix to assess the effects of low-LET protons and high-LET iron ions. Iron ions were more damaging and caused significant reduction in the length of intact vessels in both developing and mature vessels at a dose of 80 cGy. Protons had no effect on mature vessels up to a dose of 3.2 Gy but did inhibit vessel formation at 80 cGy. Comparison with gamma radiation showed that photons had even less effect, although, as with protons, developing vessels were more sensitive. Apoptosis assays showed that inhibition of vessel development or deterioration of mature vessels was not due to cell death by apoptosis even in the case of iron ions. These are the first data to show the effects of radiation with varying linear energy transfer on a human vessel model. (C) 2011 In Radiation Research Society

New parameters of many-body potentials: studying the thermal and mechanical properties of noble metals

New parameters of nearest-neighbor EAM (1N-EAM), n-th neighbor EAM (NN-EAM), and the second-moment approximation to the tight-binding (TB-SMA) potentials are obtained by fitting experimental data at different temperatures. In comparison with the available many-body potentials, our results suggest that the 1N-EAM potential with the new parameters is the best description of atomic interactions in studying the thermal expansion of noble metals. For mechanical properties, it is suggested that the elastic constants should be calculated in the experimental zero-stress states for all three potentials. Furthermore, for NNEAM and TB-SMA potentials, the calculated results approach the experimental data as the range of the atomic interaction increases from the first-neighbor to the sixth-neighbor distance.

Evaluation of a combined wavelet and a combined principal component analysis classification system for BCG diagnostic problem

Heart disease is one of the main factor causing death in the developed countries. Over several decades, variety of electronic and computer technology have been developed to assist clinical practices for cardiac performance monitoring and heart disease diagnosis. Among these methods, Ballistocardiography (BCG) has an interesting feature that no electrodes are needed to be attached to the body during the measurement. Thus, it is provides a potential application to asses the patients heart condition in the home. In this paper, a comparison is made for two neural networks based BCG signal classification models. One system uses a principal component analysis (PCA) method, and the other a discrete wavelet transform, to reduce the input dimensionality. It is indicated that the combined wavelet transform and neural network has a more reliable performance than the combined PCA and neural network system. Moreover, the wavelet transform requires no prior knowledge of the statistical distribution of data samples and the computation complexity and training time are reduced.

Metabolism of polychaete Neanthes japonica Izuka: relations to temperature, salinity and body weight

Polychaete Neanthes japonica is a species geographically specific in China and Japan with important scientific implication and commercial value. In this study, the relations of body weight, salinity and temperature to oxygen consumption and ammonia excretion of N. japonica were determined. Three different groups in body weight (large: 2.34 +/- 0.36 g, middle: 1.50 +/- 0.21 g and small: 0.62 +/- 0.12 g) were set for all experiments. Results show that the body weight is negatively related to the rates of oxygen consumption and ammonia excretion; and the relationship is significant. The oxygen consumption and ammonia excretion at 24A degrees C decreased at salinity from 5 to 30 and increased above 30, indicating that both lower and higher salinity are adverse and certain degree of salinity stress is necessary for enhancing the energy demand. At salinity 30, rising temperature from 18A degrees C to 30A degrees C, the oxygen consumption increased before 27A degrees C and then decreased. However, the relation of ammonia excretion and temperature seems more complex. Two-way ANOVA shows that salinity, temperature and body weight all have a significant effect on the oxygen consumption and ammonia excretion of the worm. Moreover, interaction between salinity/temperature and body weight is also significant. O:N (oxygen/nitrogen) ratio varies greatly in this case from 5.97 to 463.22, indicating that N. japonica can regulate the type of metabolic substrate against environment changes.

C, N and P regeneration by a detritivorous fish, Liza haematocheila T. & S.: effects of temperature, diet and body size

Detritus, as a nutrients reservoir, affects the trophic structure and dynamics of communities and supports a greater diversity of species and longer food chains. Detritivorous fish is an important organism to regenerate the nutrients from sediments. Despite the numerous studies on the nutrients cycle in fish, only a few attempts have been made to quantify the regenerating ability. In the present study, we chose the common detritivorous fish redeye mullet as the research object. Redeye mullet is also a common poly-culture fish in China. Diet, including a commercial diet mostly used in aquaculture and a home-made diet with contents close to detritus, was used and considered as a fixed factor. Temperature was also considered as a fixed factor as much research has shown that temperature has significant effects on fish metabolism. Moreover, body size was regarded as a covariate under analysis of covariance. Three key nutrients, namely carbon, nitrogen and phosphorus, were used to measure the nutrient-regenerating ability of redeye mullet under laboratory conditions. The results showed that the nutrient regeneration in percent of the consumption decreased with increasing temperature. Carbon and nitrogen regeneration of redeye mullet fed on commercial diet was lower than those of the home-made diet group, while the opposite was found for phosphorus. In each group, the amount of regenerated nutrients increased linearly with body size. Fed on the home-made diet, 5-g fish at 25 degrees C can regenerate 210.822 mg C, 37.533 mg N and 0.727 mg P per day.

Effects of diet and body size on phosphorus utilization of Liza haematocheila T. & S.

A 21-d laboratory experiment was conducted to study, the phosphorus (P) utilization of two different diets by redlip mullet Liza haematocheila T. & S. Sand-filtered water in salinity 30 and temperature 25 degrees C was used. Twenty-nine fish individuals were divided into three groups: 11 to group 1 (G1) fed on diet 1, 11 to group 2 (G2) fed on diet 2, and 7 to contrast group. Diet 1 was a commercial feed, more valuable in nutrition than diet 2 that similar to natural detritus. The results show the intake phosphorus (IP) of G1 was significantly higher than that of G2, and both increased linearly with body size at a certain amount of diet. The retention phosphorus (RP) in fish of G1 was lower than G2. The relationship between retention phosphorus and body size was positive and stronger in G2. Significant difference in faecal phosphorus (FP) was found between G1 and G2. Body size significantly impacted the excretion phosphorus (EP) in G1 but G2. The loss of intake phosphor-us in G1 was 10.83-20.27 mg per g fish weight gain, higher than that in G2 for 6.63-9.56. Of the phosphor-us, about 10% was allocated into growth, 50% in faeces, and the rest lost in excretion. The main part of phosphorus was lost in faeces but excretion. The phosphorus budget of the fish could be described as 100IP = 7.40RP + 47.39FP + 36.63EP (Diet 1) or 100IP = 11.93RP + 56.64FP + 21.76EP (Diet 2).

Morphology and infraciliature of three species of Metaurostylopsis (Ciliophora, Stichotrichia): M. songi n. sp., M. salina n. sp., and M. marina (Kahl 1932) from sediments, saline ponds, and coastal waters.

Two new urostylid ciliates, Metaurostylopsis songi n. sp. and Metaurostylopsis salina n. sp. and Metaurostylopsis marina (Kahl 1932) are investigated using live observation and protargol impregnation. These species were isolated in Korea from intertidal sediments, saline ponds, and coastal waters. Metaurostylopsis songi is in vivo about 120 pm x 25 mu m, has a slenderly ellipsoidal body, colorless cortical granules in rows on ventral and dorsal body sides, about 54 macronuclear nodules, 28-47 adoral membranelles, five frontal, two or three frontoterminal and six or seven transverse cirri, and 9-12 midventral cirral pairs followed posteriorly by 1-3 single cirri. In vivo M. salina is about 60 pin x 25 mu m, has a pyriform body, colorless cortical granules irregularly arranged, about 45 macronuclear nodules, 18-23 adoral membranelles, three frontal, three to five frontoterminal and two to five transverse cirri, and four or five midventral cirral pairs followed posteriorly by five to seven single cirri. Both species have three marginal cirral rows on each body side and 3 long dorsal kineties. The Korean specimens of M. marina match the Chinese population in all main features. Metaurostylopsis songi differs from M. marina by the more slender body, the number of frontal cirri (invariably five vs. four), and the arrangement of cortical granules (in rows on dorsal and ventral cortex vs. only along dorsal kinetics and anterior body margin). Metaurostylopsis salina differs from its congeners by the distinctly smaller size, the pyriform body shape, the scattered cortical granules (vs. in rows), and number of frontal cirri. It differs from M. marina also by the number of midventral cirral pairs (four or five vs. seven to 11).

Growth of eight Pacific abalone families at three temperatures

Growth rates, measured as shell length and body weight daily growth, were studied in the eight families of Pacific abalone, Haliotis discus hannai Ino, reared at 12, 16 and 20 degrees C for 40 d respectively. The results show that J(1)Rh family grew the best at 12 degrees C, with growth rates of (32.88 +/- 4.66) mu m/d and (5.24 +/- 1.84) mg/d. C(1)Jm family had the highest growth rates of (58.00 +/- 2.00) mu m/d and (9.71 +/- 1.21) mg/d at 16 degrees C. J(1)Jm family ranked the first at 20 degrees C, with growth rates of (66.00 +/- 1.76) mu m/d and (10.99 +/- 0.34) mg/d. RjRh family had the slowest growth rates at all three temperatures. Shell length growth rates were 18.25, 33.00 and 43.13 mu m/d respectively, while body weight growth rates were 2.47, 2.56 and 4.75 mg/d respectively. Both temperature and family had significant effect on growth rates (P<0.05). At 16 and 20 degrees C, maternal effects on growth rates were not significant (P>0.05), but paternal effects on growth rates were significant (P<0.05). Results of this study indicate genetic difference among the families and importance of selecting male breeders in the commercial hatchery.

Summer diet of two sympatric species of raptors Upland Buzzard (Buteo hemilasius) and Eurasian Eagle Owl (Bubo bubo) in alpine meadow: problem of coexistence

Summer diets of two sympatric raptors Upland Buzzards (Buteo hemilasius Temminck et Schlegel) and Eurasian Eagle Owls (Bubo bubo L. subsp. Hemachalana Hume) were studied in an alpine meadow (3250 m a.s.l.) on Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, China. Root voles Microtus oeconomus Pallas, plateau pikas Ochotona curzoniae Hodgson, Gansu pikas O. cansus Lyon and plateau zokors Myospalax baileyi Thomas were the main diet components of Upland Buzzards as identified through the pellets analysis with the frequency of 57, 20, 19 and 4%, respectively. The four rodent species also were the main diet components of Eurasian Eagle Owls basing on the pellets and prey leftovers analysis with the frequency of 53, 26, 13 and 5%, respectively. The food niche breadth indexes of Upland Buzzards and Eurasian Eagle Owls were 1.60 and 1.77 respectively (higher value of the index means the food niche of the raptor is broader), and the diet overlap index of the two raptors was larger (C-ue = 0.90) (the index range from 0 - no overlap - to I - complete overlap). It means that the diets of Upland Buzzards and Eurasian Eagle Owls were similar (Two Related Samples Test, Z = -0.752, P = 0.452). The classical resource partitioning theory can not explain the coexistence of Upland Buzzards and Eurasian Eagle Owls in alpine meadows of Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. However, differences in body size, predation mode and activity rhythm between Upland Buzzards and Eurasian Eagle Owls may explain the coexistence of these two sympatric raptors.