Habitat loss and fragmentation have caused declines in the abundance and distribution of butterflies, particularly habitat specialists. The Chequered Skipper, Carterocephalus palaemon , has been extinct in England since 1976 after declining from the 1940s predominantly due to changes in woodland management including afforestation and the decline in traditional coppice management. To enable C. palaemon to flourish again, this s...

Genetic diversity and population structure of New Zealand populations of the pot‐belly seahorse Hippocampus abdominalis were explored via three mitochondrial DNA markers (814 bp of cytochrome b, 624 bp of cytochrome oxidase 1 and 404 bp of the control region) and four microsatellite loci (Habd3, Habd6, Habd7 and Habd9). These markers revealed between 0.7–2.2% sequence divergence and 32–46 alleles with low differentiation among...

Summary Ruegeria (previously Silicibacter ) pomeroyi DSS‐3, a marine roseobacter, can catabolize dimethylsulfoniopropionate (DMSP), a compatible solute that is made in large amounts by marine plankton and algae. This strain was known to demethylate DMSP via a demethylase, encoded by the dmdA gene, and it can also cleave DMSP, releasing the environmentally important volatile dimethyl sulfide (DMS) in the process. We found that...

Summary A bacterium in the genus Halomonas that grew on dimethylsulfoniopropionate (DMSP) or acrylate as sole carbon sources and that liberated the climate‐changing gas dimethyl sulfide in media containing DMSP was obtained from the phylloplane of the macroalga Ulva. We identified a cluster that contains genes specifically involved in DMSP catabolism ( dddD, dddT ) or in degrading acrylate ( acuN , acuK ) or that are required...

Summary The marine alphaproteobacterium Roseovarius nubinhibens ISM can produce the gas dimethyl sulfide (DMS) from dimethylsulfoniopropionate (DMSP), a widespread secondary metabolite that occurs in many phytoplankton. Roseovarius possesses a novel gene, termed dddP , which when cloned, confers on Escherichia coli the ability to produce DMS. The DddP polypeptide is in the large family of M24 metallopeptidases and is wholly di...

Summary The α‐proteobacterium Sulfitobacter EE‐36 makes the gas dimethylsulfide (DMS) from dimethylsulfoniopropionate (DMSP), an abundant antistress molecule made by many marine phytoplankton. We screened a cosmid library of Sulfitobacter for clones that conferred to other bacteria the ability to make DMS. One gene, termed dddL , was sufficient for this phenotype when cloned in pET21a and introduced into Escherichia coli . Clo...