This book presents a compendium of molecular biology applications for the study of aquatic community ecology. The collection presents the diversity of approaches that have been used, and provides future directions for the study of `molecular ecology' of aquatic communities, from viruses to fish, and in aquatic systems ranging from freshwater streams and lakes to estuaries and oceans. This collection of papers will provide a useful text and resource for upper-level undergraduate and graduate students in ecology, as well as for the researcher and educator.

Aquatic microbial ecology, a growing interdisciplinary field, has become increasingly compartmentalized in recent years. The aim of this volume is to propose a framework for biochemical and molecular approaches, which are employed ever more widely in studies of aquatic microbial communities and ecosystem functioning. The book presents state of the art applications of modern molecular research techniques to a range of topics in ectoenzymes microbial carbon metabolism bacterial population dynamics RNA chemotaxonomy of microbial communities plasmids and adaptation to environmental conditions. Written for limnologists, marine biologists, and all researchers interested in environmental microbiology and molecular aspects of ecology, this volume will provide a stimulating introduction to this emerging field.

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Researchers in the field of ecological genomics aim to determine how a genome or a population of genomes interacts with its environment across ecological and evolutionary timescales. Ecological genomics is trans-disciplinary by nature. Ecologists have turned to genomics to be able to elucidate the mechanistic bases of the biodiversity their research tries to understand. Genomicists have turned to ecology in order to better explain the functional cellular and molecular variation they observed in their model organisms. We provide an advanced-level book that covers this recent research and proposes future development for this field. A synthesis of the field of ecological genomics emerges from this volume. Ecological Genomics covers a wide array of organisms (microbes, plants and animals) in order to be able to identify central concepts that motivate and derive from recent investigations in different branches of the tree of life. Ecological Genomics covers 3 fields of research that have most benefited from the recent technological and conceptual developments in the field of ecological genomics: the study of life-history evolution and its impact of genome architectures; the study of the genomic bases of phenotypic plasticity and the study of the genomic bases of adaptation and speciation.

A NATO ASI on "Molecular Ecology of Aquatic Microbes" was held at II Ciocco, Lucca, Italy from 28 August - 9 September 1994. The aims of the ASI were to evaluate the potential for molecular biology to solve some important questions in aquatic microbiology, particularly in relation to biogeochemical cycling and microbial physiology. Techniques developed by molecular biologists have now been adopted by a wide range of scientific disciplines. In the last 5 years, aquatic microbial ecologists have begun to incorporate these methods into their research and, as a result, are developing a much clearer understanding of phylogenetic diversity, the molecular basis of physiological acclimations and the transduction of environmental signals and organism responses. The aim of this ASI was to assess progress in this new field of research, to compare and describe techniques and experimental approaches, and to foster communication between disciplines. The ASI offered an excellent opportunity to bring together aquatic ecologists with molecular biologists and to encourage efficient technology transfer. The meeting of information on the status provided a forum for detailed and broad exchange and trends of aquatic molecular ecology and to assess how emerging molecular techniques might solve some important problems in ecology which have prove intractable because of lack of appropriate methodologies.

This book aims to serve as a centralized reference document for students and researchers interested in aspects of marine nitrogen fixation. Although nitrogen is a critical element in both terrestrial and aquatic productivity, and nitrogen fixation is a key process that balances losses due to denitrification in both environments, most resources on the subject focuses on the biochemistry and microbiology of such processes and the organisms involved in the terrestrial environment on symbiosis in terrestrial systems, or on largely ecological aspects in the marine environment. This book is intended to provide an overview of N2 fixation research for marine researchers, while providing a reference on marine research for researchers in other fields, including terrestrial N2 fixation. This book bridges this knowledge gap for both specialists and non-experts, and provides an in-depth overview of the important aspects of nitrogen fixation as it relates to the marine environment. This resource will be useful for researchers in the specialized field, but also useful for scientists in other disciplines who are interested in the topic. It would provide a possible text for upper division classes or graduate seminars.

Although all living beings modify their environment, human beings have acquired the ability to do so on a superlative space-time scale. As a result of industrialization and the use of new technologies, the anthropogenic impact has been increasing in the last centuries, causing reductions in the sizes or the extinction of numerous wild populations. In this sense, from the field of conservation genetics, various efforts have been made in recent decades to provide new knowledge that contributes to the conservation of populations, species, and habitats. In this book, we summarize the concrete contributions of researchers to the conservation of the Neotropical mammals using Molecular Ecology techniques. The book is divided into three major sections. The first section provides an up-to-date review of the conservation status of Neotropical mammals, the applications of the molecular markers in its conservation, and the use of non-invasive and forensic genetic techniques. The second and third sections present, respectively, a series of case studies in various species or taxonomic groups of Neotropical mammals.

The cyanobacteria inhabit every illuminated environment on Earth, from polar lakes to desert crusts and through their phototrophic metabolism play essential roles in global geochemical cycles. With the discovery of marine Synechococcus and Prochlorococcus almost 30 years ago, cyanobacteria have now earned their place as dominant primary producers contributing over 25 percent of global photosynthesis. Their global abundance is now explained from the coexistence of ecotypes that occupy different niches along spatial and temporal gradients. New ecotypes of Synechococcus have been identified as abundant components of microbial communities in freshwater environments and marginal seas. Extensive comparative genomics of marine and freshwater picocyanobacteria have begun to unmask adaptations to light and nutrient (N, P, Fe) limitation that these diverse environments present. Novel types of cyanobacterial diazotrophy input new N and structure microbial communities in the open sea. Current challenges include the understanding of the interactions between marine cyanobacteria and other microbes in their immediate community. In contrast, mesotrophic and eutrophic environments such as the Laurentian Great Lakes have been increasingly affected by nuisance and toxic cyanobacterial blooms that have yielded severe declines in water quality. Factors promoting bloom formation and the functional roles of toxins are important issues being addressed today.

This new edition will build upon the strengths of the earlier work but will be thoroughly revised throughout to incorporate findings from new technologies and methods (notably the rapid development of molecular genetic methods and stable isotope techniques) that have allowed a rapid and ongoing development of the field.