Adaptation

Macroalgal blooms are responses to nutrient enrichment in shallow seagrass ecosystems like the Indian River Lagoon (IRL), Florida. Little is known about nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) limitation or the importance of morphological/physiological characteristics of bloom-forming macroalgae (Ulva lactuca, Hypnea musciformis, and Gracilaria tikvahiae) in the IRL. We hypothesized: 1) all species would proliferate in nutrient-rich Titusville, 2) opportunistic U. lactuca would dominate, 3) Rapid Light Curves (RLCs) would assess nutrient status, and 4) nutrient concentrations would regulate growth more than N:P ratios. Field studies showed rapid biomass doubling times of 2 days (U. lactuca; November 2012) in urbanized Titusville. RLCs in a guano-enriched island off Big Pine Key (BPK) and Titusville (Ulva spp.) were similar due to P-saturation. Laboratory studies showed three-fold higher RLCs and two-fold faster growth at high nutrient concentrations of N and P. Reductions of both N and P will be required to moderate future blooms.

When interpreting how an animal "learns" discrimination tasks, strain capabilities must be considered, and it should be shown that they comprehend the task in a manner consistent with the given interpretation. A novel visual-discrimination (VD) task for relative-size-relations was used to examine visual cue use in C57BL/6J mice, which are shown to have biologically good vision and neurologically intact memory for VD tasks. Results suggest C57BL/6J strain may not be fully capable of relative cue-size associations or even object recognition-based on a water maze VD task. This is in contrast to previous studies suggesting this mice strain is quite strong in visual skills and on VD tasks. Additionally, cue size and/or cue-pairings do appear to influence specific directional preferences or stereotyped behaviors as trainings continued, and these strategies shifted during novel probes. Future studies should assess how mice discriminate between objects and test rat's capabilities on this task.