Doliolids and salps are pelagic tunicates that reproduce both asexually and sexually during their life history, occasionally forming massive blooms (> 1000 ind. m −3 ) that can clear large volumes of water daily. Although blooms of doliolids and salps are often associated with pulses of primary productivity, little is understood about their life history dynamics in response to the full range of oceanographic conditions they en...

Rapid warming could drastically alter host–parasite relationships, which is especially important for fisheries crucial to human nutrition and economic livelihoods, yet we lack a synthetic understanding of how warming influences parasite‐induced mortality in these systems. We conducted a meta‐analysis using 266 effect sizes from 52 empirical papers on harvested aquatic species and determined the relationship between parasite‐in...

Large cell neuroendocrine carcinoma (LCNEC) of the lung is an aggressive malignancy, with brain metastases (BM) occurring in approximately 20% of cases. There are currently no therapy guidelines for this population as only few data on the management of LCNEC and BM have been published. For this retrospective single center study, patients with LCNEC and BM were identified from the Vienna Brain Metastasis Registry. Data on clini...

Bloom‐forming gelatinous zooplankton occur circumglobally and significantly influence the structure of pelagic marine food webs and biogeochemical cycling through interactions with microbial communities. During bloom conditions especially, gelatinous zooplankton are keystone taxa that help determine the fate of primary production, nutrient remineralization, and carbon export. Using the pelagic tunicate Dolioletta gegenbauri as...

Gelatinous zooplankton play a crucial role in pelagic marine food webs, however, due to methodological challenges and persistent misconceptions of their importance, the trophic role of gelatinous zooplankton remains poorly investigated. This is particularly true for small gelatinous zooplankton including the marine pelagic tunicate, Dolioletta gegenbauri . D. gegenbauri and other doliolid species occur persistently on wide sub...

Gelatinous zooplankton play a crucial role in marine planktonic food webs. However, primarily due to methodological challenges, the in situ diet of zooplankton remains poorly investigated and little is known about their trophic interactions including feeding behaviour, prey selection and in situ feeding rates. This is particularly true for gelatinous zooplankton including the marine pelagic tunicate, Dolioletta gegenbauri . In...

Anthropogenic atmospheric loading of CO 2 raises concerns about combined effects of increasing ocean temperature and acidification, on biological processes. In particular, the response of appendicularian zooplankton to climate change may have significant ecosystem implications as they can alter biogeochemical cycling compared to classical copepod dominated food webs. However, the response of appendicularians to multiple climat...

Zooxanthellate cnidarians are trophically complex, relying on both autotrophy and heterotrophy. Although several aspects of heterotrophy have been studied in these organisms, information linking prey capture with digestion is still missing. We used prey‐specific PCR ‐based tools to assess feeding and prey digestion of two zooxanthellate cnidarians – the tropical sea anemone A iptasia sp. and the scleractinian coral O culina ar...

To investigate whether particles are ingested or merely trapped in the house of the appendicularian Oikopleura dioica, we developed a real‐time quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR) assay and applied it in a controlled study where O. dioica was fed three types of algae at different concentrations. At particle concentrations ranging from 100 to 10,000 cells mL −1 , highest ingestion efficiencies (75‐96%) were observed w...