Search

The age specific patterns of reproduction and mortality dictated by the life history of an organism apply to potential invaders as well as resident species of an area, but whether certain life history traits are more invasive than others is an unresolved issue. We analyze a two-population system of an invading and a resident species and test the effects of age on the probability to invade when the organisms are iteroparous or semelparous. The life history characteristics of the populations are projected in Leslie matrices, and the probability that the invader exceeds different population sizes is calculated by Monte Carlo analysis. The simulations show that (a) the invasion probability of an iteroparous organism increases with age until the individuals introduced are mature for first reproduction, and then becomes independent of age; (b) the invasion probability is more age sensitive for iteroparous organisms with high juvenile mortality (Type III organisms) than for those with a lower (Type I); (c) invading semelparous organisms are most affected by competition from resident organisms; (d) variations in vital rates of semelparous residents have greater influence on the invasion probability of an iteroparous organism than variations in traits of the invader. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Hotspots and coldspots of concentration and biodegradation of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) marginally overlapped at the 0.5–100 m scale in a creosote contaminated soil in southern Sweden, suggesting that concentration and biodegradation had little spatial co-variation. Biodegradation was substantial and its spatial variability considerable and highly irregular, but it had no spatial autocorrelation. The soil concentration of PAHs explained only 20–30% of the variance of their biodegradation. Soil respiration was spatially autocorrelated. The spatial uncoupling between biodegradation and soil respiration seemed to be governed by the aging of PAHs in the soil, since biodegradation of added 13C phenanthrene covaried with both soil respiration and microbial biomass. The latter two were also correlated with high concentrations of phospholipid fatty acids (PLFAs) that are common in gram-negative bacteria. However, several of the hotspots of biodegradation coincided with hotspots for the distribution of a PLFA indicative of fungal biomass. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

A combination of laboratory scale derived correlations and measurements of grain size distribution, DOC (dissolved organic carbon) concentration, and density of suspended bacteria promises to be useful in estimating Hg(II) sorption in heterogeneous streambeds and groundwater environments. This was found by shaking intact sediment and fractions thereof (<63–2000μm) with solutions of HgCl2 (1.0–10.0ngml−1). The intact sediment was also shaken with the Hg(II) solutions separately in presence of DOC (6.5–90.2μgml−1) or brought in contact with suspensions of a strain of groundwater bacteria (2×104–2×106 cellsml−1). Hg(II) sorption was rather weak and positively correlated with the grain size, and the sorption coefficient (K d) varied between about 300 and 600mlg−1. By using the relative surface areas of the fractions, K d for the intact sediment was back calculated with 2% deviation. K d was negatively correlated with the concentration of DOC and positively correlated with the number of bacteria. A multiple regression showed that K d was significantly more influenced by the number of bacteria than by the grain size. The findings imply that common DOC concentrations in groundwater and streambeds, 5–20μgml−1, will halve the K d obtained from standard sorption assays of Hg(II), and that K d will almost double when the cell numbers are doubled at densities that are common in aquifers. The findings suggest that simultaneous measurements of surface areas of sediment particles, DOC concentrations, and bacterial numbers are useful to predict spatial variation of Hg(II) sorption in aquifers and sandy sediments. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

We examined the stability of plasmid RP4 and its expression of antibiotic-resistance genes in suspended and sorbed Pseudomonas putida in aquifer microcosms. Test tubes containing different proportions of sterilized aquifer soil and groundwater were inoculated with bacteria and incubated for up to 26 d. Serial dilutions were made to agar plates with or without antibiotics, to quantify the functional stability of the plasmid. The structural integrity of RP4 was examined by plasmid extraction, digestion with restriction enzymes, and agarose gel electrophoresis. The plasmid-borne resistance gene expression disappeared in 80–90% of the cells during day 1 of incubation in aquifer soil and then remained at that frequency throughout the experiment. The RP4 plasmid was present in cells without antibiotic-resistance gene expression, indicating that the observed loss of plasmid-encoded activity was most likely due to a reduction in expression of the resistance genes. The increased growth rate in groundwater amended with glucose and phosphate had no significant influence on plasmid loss or antibiotic-resistance expression, suggesting that plasmid loss and antibiotic-resistance expression were independent of the growth rate. Most of the reduction of resistance gene expression was associated with the presence of soil particles, and 70% of the resistance expression was retained in bacteria incubated for 1 d in groundwater alone. Bacteria sorbed to the soil particles had a lower frequency of expression of resistance genes than suspended bacteria, but the difference was not caused by sorbed inorganic or organic chemicals. Resistance gene expression was partly recovered in suspended bacteria after in vitro exposure to the antibiotics and after first isolating on agar without antibiotics and then replica plating to agar containing the antibiotics. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]