Publications

ancient and recent duplications support functional diversity of daphnia opsins.	daphnia pulex has the largest known family of opsins, genes critical for photoreception and vision in animals. this diversity may be functionally redundant, arising from recent processes, or ancient duplications may have been preserved due to distinct functions and independent contributions to fitness. we analyzed opsins in d. pulex and its distant congener daphnia magna. we identified 48 opsins in the d. pulex genome and 32 in d. magna. we inferred the complement of opsins in the last common an ...	2017	28004131
transcriptomic responses in the bloom-forming cyanobacterium microcystis induced during exposure to zooplankton.	the bloom-forming, toxic cyanobacterium microcystis synthesizes multiple secondary metabolites and has been shown to deter zooplankton grazing. however, the biochemical and/or molecular basis by which microcystis deters zooplankton remains unclear. this global transcriptomic study explored the response of microcystis to direct and indirect exposures to multiple densities of two cladoceran grazers, daphnia pulex and d. magna higher densities of both daphnids significantly reduced microcystis cell ...	2017	28003198
how does the cladoceran daphnia pulex affect the fate of escherichia coli in water?	the faecal indicator escherichia coli plays a central role in water quality assessment and monitoring. it is therefore essential to understand its fate under various environmental constraints such as predation by bacterivorous zooplankton. whereas most studies have examined how protozooplankton communities (heterotrophic nanoflagellates and ciliates) affect the fate of e. coli in water, the capacity of metazooplankton to control the faecal indicator remains poorly understood. in this study, we i ...	2017	28178322
genomics of environmentally induced phenotypes in 2 extremely plastic arthropods.	understanding how genes and the environment interact to shape phenotypes is of fundamental importance for resolving important issues in adaptive evolution. yet, for most model species with mature genetics and accessible genomic resources, we know little about the natural environmental factors that shape their evolution. by contrast, animal species with deeply understood ecologies and well characterized responses to environmental cues are rarely subjects of genomic investigations. here, we previe ...	2017	21525179
comparative luciferase assay for establishing reliable in vitro screening system of juvenile hormone agonists.	the cultured cell-based in vitro assay using the stringency of ligand-receptor interactions is typically useful for screening certain hormone agonists from among a very large number of molecules. however, ligands are frequently altered or modified through evolution; indeed, even in the same receptor orthologs, different ligand sensitivity profiles are considered to arise among species and/or taxa. such ligand transition has been observed in juvenile hormone (jh), one of the most important endocr ...	2017	28261832
evolution of a predator-induced, nonlinear reaction norm.	inducible, anti-predator traits are a classic example of phenotypic plasticity. their evolutionary dynamics depend on their genetic basis, the historical pattern of predation risk that populations have experienced and current selection gradients. when populations experience predators with contrasting hunting strategies and size preferences, theory suggests contrasting micro-evolutionary responses to selection. daphnia pulex is an ideal species to explore the micro-evolutionary response of anti-p ...	2017	28835554
conservation of the notch antagonist hairless in arthropods: functional analysis of the crustacean daphnia pulex hairless gene.	the notch signaling pathway is highly conserved in all animal metazoa: upon notch receptor activation, transcription of notch target genes is turned on by an activator complex that centers on the transcription factor csl. in the absence of signal, csl assembles transcriptional repression complexes that display remarkable evolutionary diversity. the major antagonist of notch signaling in insects named hairless was originally identified in drosophila melanogaster. it binds to the drosophila csl ho ...	2017	28861687
function, diversity, and application of insect juvenile hormone epoxidases (cyp15).	juvenile hormones (jhs) represent a family of sesquiterpenoid hormones in insects, and they play a key role in regulating development, metamorphosis, and reproduction. the last two steps of the jh biosynthetic pathway, epoxidation and methyl esterification of farnesoic acid to jh, are insect specific, and thus have long been considered a promising target for biorational insecticides. recently, the enzymes involved in the last two steps have been molecularly identified: jh acid methyltransferase ...	2017	23586995
interaction between stress induced by competition, predation, and an insecticide on the response of aquatic invertebrates.	the present study investigated the effects of species interactions like competition and (intraguild) predation on the sensitivity of aquatic organisms to the insecticide chlorpyrifos. in the first experiment, combined effects of chlorpyrifos and different levels of intraspecific and interspecific interaction were assessed on gammarus pulex survival using asellus aquaticus as an interacting species. intraspecific and interspecific interactions increased the time to extinction of g. pulex up to a ...	2017	28295548
interaction of the red pigment-concentrating hormone of the crustacean daphnia pulex, with its cognate receptor, dappu-rpchr: a nuclear magnetic resonance and modeling study.	the primary sequence of the red pigment-concentrating hormone (rpch) receptor of the water flea, daphnia pulex, was used in homology modeling to construct the first 3d model of a crustacean g-protein coupled receptor, dappu-rpchr. this receptor was found to belong to the class a subfamily of gpcrs with a disulfide bridge between cys72 and cys150 and an ionic lock between arg97 and thr224 and thr220. nmr restrained molecular dynamics was used to determine the structure of an agonist, dappu-rpch, ...	2018	28837848
pulsed light reduces the toxicity of the algal toxin okadaic acid to freshwater crustacean daphnia pulex.	this constitutes the first study to report on the reduction in toxicity of the dinoflagellate algal toxin okadaic acid after novel pulsed light (pl) treatments where ecotoxicological assessment was performed using a miniaturised format of the conventional in vivo freshwater crustacean daphnia sp. acute toxicity test. bivalves accumulate this toxin, which can then enter the human food chain causing deleterious health effects such as diarrhetic shellfish poisoning. this miniaturised toxicological ...	2018	29052147