A multitude of anthropogenic stressors drive biodiversity loss and alter ecosystem functioning. Freshwaters, which contribute disproportionally to global biodiversity and biogeochemical cycles, are particularly threatened. Although the relationship between biodiversity and ecosystem functions (BEF) is generally well‐established, especially in terrestrial ecosystems, the role of multiple, co‐occurring stressors in modulating th...

Ethiopia is renowned for its cultural and biological diversity and covers an important share of lion habitat in Africa, providing connectivity between East and Central Africa. The aim of this study was to investigate the status of lions and human–lion conflict in several protected areas of Ethiopia and to present an overview on lion distribution nationally. We used call-ups and semi-structured interviews with 809 randomly sele...

In recent years, preclinical studies have illustrated the potential role of intestinal bacterial composition in the risk of stroke and post-stroke infections. The results of these studies suggest that bacteria capable of producing volatile metabolites, including trimethylamine-N-oxide (TMAO) and butyrate, play opposing, yet important roles in the cascade of events leading to stroke. However, no large-scale studies have been un...

Macrobenthic deposit feeders and bacteria compete for the same detrital food resources. We hypothesize that the spatial scale at which food is distributed in the sediment is an important factor determining the outcome of this competition. Macrobenthic deposit feeders are better adapted for fast consumption of food in concentrated patches, whereas diluted food can only be exploited by bacteria. This hypothesis was tested in an...

Summary Pseudomonas aeruginosa is a ubiquitous Gram‐negative bacterium, which is also able to cause severe opportunistic infections in humans. The colonization of the host is importantly affected by the production of the high‐affinity iron (III) scavenging peptidic siderophore pyoverdine. The species P. aeruginosa can be divided into three subgroups (‘siderovars’), each characterized by the production of a specific pyoverdine...

Summary The biodiversity of the bacterium Pseudomonas aeruginosa in an aquatic environment (the Woluwe River, Brussels, Belgium) was analysed. Surface water was sampled bimonthly over a 1‐year period (2000–2001) at seven sites evenly dispersed over the river. Total bacterial counts were performed and P. aeruginosa strains were isolated on a selective medium. A weighed out sample of 100 randomly chosen presumptive P. aeruginosa...

Recent theoretical work ( Vos et al. 2004 ) predicts that inducible defences prevent strong population fluctuations under high levels of nutrient enrichment. Here we evaluate this model prediction and show that inducible defences in algae stabilize the dynamics of experimentally assembled bi‐ and tritrophic planktonic food chains. At high phosphorus levels, we observed strong population fluctuations in all food chains with und...

In contradiction with field observations, theory predicts that the number of coexisting plankton species at equilibrium cannot exceed the number of limiting resources, which is called the “paradox of the plankton”. Recently, Huisman & Weissing (1999 , 2000 ) showed, in a model study, that the number of coexisting species may exceed the number of limiting resources when internal system feedback induces oscillations or chaos. In...