Interactions amongst environmental factors appear to dominate the response of this alga, highlighting the necessity to investigate the impact of environmental factors in conjunction, rather than in an isolated fashion, especially if our aim is to gain insight into the

future fate of coral reefs (Harvey et al. 2013). We would like to thank C. Champ, A. Chai and G. Bernal Carrillo for their help in the field. This research was conducted with the permission of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority (permit G11/34458) and funded by ARC Linkages (LP0775303, and DZNeP cell line LP0989845), ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies (0561435), a Queensland Smart State Fellowship to Prof Ove Hoegh-Guldberg co-funded by the Great Barrier Reef Foundation, and a PADI Foundation grant to DB. “
“Phthalate esters (PEs) are endocrine-disrupting pollutants that are ubiquitous in the environment and can be degraded by microorganisms. In this study, we investigated the kinetics and pathway of biodegradation of

di-n-butyl phthalate (DBP), diethyl phthalate (DEP), and dimethyl phthalate (DMP) by cyanobacteria Anabaena flos-aquae G. S. West (strain 4054) and two strains of Microcystis aeruginosa (Kütz.) Kütz. (strain 2396 and strain SM). Gas chromatography/mass spectroscopy (GC/MS) and a deuterium-labeled compound were used to analyze the degrading intermediates. The findings revealed that all three organisms were capable of metabolizing PE, and that among these organisms, A. flos-aquae learn more achieved the highest degradation. Additionally, the biodegradation of DBP, DEP, and DMP followed

first-order kinetics. Moreover, the results of the enzymatic study suggested that PE was degraded through transesterification on the side chains rather than deesterification. Finally, experiments using deuterium-labeled DBP showed that there were two degradation pathways: C16 C14 C12 C10 C8 and C16 C15 C13 C11 C9. Based on our results, the biodegradation pathway of PE for cyanobacteria PLEK2 was suggested. “
“Smith (1944) divided the familiar genus Volvox L. into four sections, placing seven species that lacked cytoplasmic bridges between adult cells in the section Merrillosphaera. Herein, we describe a new member of the section Merrillosphaera originating from Texas (USA): Volvox ovalis Pocock ex Nozaki et A. W. Coleman sp. nov. Asexual spheroids of V. ovalis are ovoid or elliptical, with a monolayer of 1,000–2,000 somatic cells that are not linked by cytoplasmic bridges, an expanded anterior region, and 8–12 gonidia in the posterior region. Visibly asymmetric cleavage divisions do not occur in V. ovalis embryos as they do Volvox carteri F. Stein, Volvox obversus (W. Shaw) Printz, and Volvox africanus G. S. West, so the gonidia of the next generation are not yet recognizable in V. ovalis embryos prior to inversion. Molecular phylogenetic analyses of the five chloroplast genes and the internal transcribed spacer (ITS) regions of nuclear rDNA indicated that V.