Flagella are crucial to the interactions of unicellular organisms with their surrounding aquatic environment. One ecologically important group of flagellates, the dinoflagellates, has a unique flagellar arrangement consisting of a trailing and a transversal flagellum. The latter is recessed within a groove around the cell and drives a hair‐bearing membrane that undulates with a helical beat. Dinoflagellates are further unique...

Acute liver injury (ALI) has a clear requirement for novel therapies. One emerging option is the use of alternatively activated macrophages (AAMs); a distinct subtype of macrophage with a role in liver injury control and repair. In this comprehensive review, we provide an overview of the current limited options for ALI, and the potential advantages offered by AAMs. We describe the evidence supporting their use from in vitro st...

Elongated morphologies are prevalent among motile bacterioplankton in aquatic systems. This is often attributed to enhanced chemotactic ability, but how long is best? We hypothesized the existence of an optimal cell length for efficient chemotaxis resulting from shape‐imposed physical constraints acting on the trade‐off between rapid exploration versus efficient exploitation of nutrient sources. To test this hypothesis, we eva...

Larger testes produce more sperm and therefore improve reproductive success in the face of sperm competition. Adaptation to social mating systems with relatively high and low sperm competition are therefore likely to have driven changes in relative testes size in opposing directions. Here, we combine the largest vertebrate testes mass dataset ever collected with phylogenetic approaches for measuring rates of morphological evol...

We examined spatial and temporal variations in particulate organic matter (POM) dynamics over a fringing coral reef (Ningaloo Reef) in Western Australia during the austral autumn and spring. Total POM concentrations generally did not differ between seasons or reef zones, but the composition of POM, in terms of carbon isotope ratios ( δ 13 C‐POM), carbon to nitrogen ratios (C : N), and fatty acids, changed consistently in water...

Nitrate and nitrite (NO x ) and phosphate (PO 4 ) dynamics over Ningaloo Reef, Western Australia, are shown to depend on oceanographic forcing of coupled mass transfer limited (MTL) gross uptake and gross release from remineralized oceanic particulate organic matter (POM). Estimates of gross release rates increased significantly with increasing POM uptake and were of the same order as gross uptake rates. Gross uptake rates inc...

We critically appraise the recent literature on the paucity of marine insects and conclude that this near‐absence does demand explanation; but this explanation is unlikely to be found in the suggested problems of depth for insect respiratory systems. We tentatively suggest some areas where further consideration may yield fruitful answers to this long‐standing evolutionary riddle.

Estimates of the total lifetime dispersal capacity of individuals comprising invertebrate drift in streams and rivers have proved very difficult to determine empirically. Here we use recent data on dispersal in the amphipod Gammarus pulex L. to illustrate a method for estimating the total distance an individual is likely to travel downstream during the period between hatching and its first reproductive episode. For the system...