TY - JOUR A1 - Koussoroplis, Apostolos-Manuel A1 - Schälicke, Svenja A1 - Raatz, Michael A1 - Bach, Moritz A1 - Wacker, Alexander T1 - Feeding in the frequency domain BT - Coarser-grained environments increase consumer sensitivity to resource variability, covariance and phase JF - Ecology letters N2 - Theory predicts that resource variability hinders consumer performance. How this effect depends on the temporal structure of resource fluctuations encountered by individuals remains poorly understood. Combining modelling and growth experiments with Daphnia magna, we decompose the complexity of resource fluctuations and test the effect of resource variance, supply peak timing (i.e. phase) and co-limiting resource covariance along a gradient from high to low frequencies reflecting fine- to coarse-grained environments. Our results show that resource storage can buffer growth at high frequencies, but yields a sensitivity of growth to resource peak timing at lower ones. When two resources covary, negative covariance causes stronger growth depression at low frequencies. However, negative covariance might be beneficial at intermediate frequencies, an effect that can be explained by digestive acclimation. Our study provides a mechanistic basis for understanding how alterations of the environmental grain size affect consumers experiencing variable nutritional quality in nature. KW - Cholesterol KW - covariance KW - Daphnia KW - digestive acclimation KW - dynamic energy budgets KW - food quality KW - phosphorus KW - storage KW - unbalanced diets Y1 - 2019 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1111/ele.13267 SN - 1461-023X SN - 1461-0248 VL - 22 IS - 7 SP - 1104 EP - 1114 PB - Wiley CY - Hoboken ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Martin-Creuzburg, Dominik A1 - Oexle, Sarah A1 - Wacker, Alexander T1 - Thresholds for sterol-limited growth of Daphnia magna: A comparative approach using 10 different sterols JF - Journal of chemical ecology N2 - Arthropods are incapable of synthesizing sterols de novo and thus require a dietary source to cover their physiological demands. The most prominent sterol in animal tissues is cholesterol, which is an indispensable structural component of cell membranes and serves as precursor for steroid hormones. Instead of cholesterol, plants and algae contain a variety of different phytosterols. Consequently, herbivorous arthropods have to metabolize dietary phytosterols to cholesterol to meet their requirements for growth and reproduction. Here, we investigated sterol-limited growth responses of the freshwater herbivore Daphnia magna by supplementing a sterol-free diet with increasing amounts of 10 different phytosterols and comparing thresholds for sterol-limited growth. In addition, we analyzed the sterol composition of D. magna to explore sterol metabolic constraints and bioconversion capacities. We show that dietary phytosterols strongly differ in their potential to support somatic growth of D. magna. The dietary threshold concentrations obtained by supplementing the different sterols cover a wide range (3.5-34.4 mu g mg C-1) and encompass the one for cholesterol (8.9 mu g mg C-1), indicating that certain phytosterols are more efficient in supporting somatic growth than cholesterol (e.g., fucosterol, brassicasterol) while others are less efficient (e.g., dihydrocholesterol, lathosterol). The dietary sterol concentration gradients revealed that the poor quality of particular sterols can be alleviated partially by increasing dietary concentrations, and that qualitative differences among sterols are most pronounced at low to moderate dietary concentrations. We infer that the dietary sterol composition has to be considered in zooplankton nutritional ecology to accurately assess potential sterol limitations under field conditions. KW - Cholesterol KW - Daphnia KW - Food quality KW - Nutrition KW - Phytosterols KW - Sterols Y1 - 2014 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1007/s10886-014-0486-1 SN - 0098-0331 SN - 1573-1561 VL - 40 IS - 9 SP - 1039 EP - 1050 PB - Springer CY - Dordrecht ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Yang, Fang A1 - Lai, Xinlong A1 - Deng, Li A1 - Liu, Xiaoxiao A1 - Li, Jian A1 - Zeng, Shuixiu A1 - Zhang, Cheng A1 - Hocher, Carl-Friedrich A1 - Hocher, Berthold T1 - Association of endothelin-1 gene polymorphisms with the clinical phenotype in primary nephrotic syndrome of children JF - Life sciences : molecular, cellular and functional basis of therapy N2 - Aims:This study aims to investigate the relationship between plasma endothelin-1 (ET-1) concentrations, ET-1 gene polymorphisms in loci rs5370, rs1630736, 3A/4A and clinical features of primary nephrotic syndrome (NS) in children. Materials and methods: Thirty-six children with primary NS were selected as case group, and 94 healthy children were selected as control group. All subjects were genotyped for three single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) (rs5370, rs10478694 [3A4A) and rs 1630736) in the ET-1 gene by gene sequencing. The plasma ET-1 concentrations were measured using a radio-immunoassay. Key findings: Plasma ET-1 concentrations were higher in NS patients (P = 0.007) as compared to healthy children. The allele frequencies between control and NS patients were significantly different only with respect to the rs10478694 SNP of the ET-1 gene. The allele frequencies between control and NS patients for the rs5370 SNP showed a trend towards difference (P = 0.057). Plasma cholesterol in NS patients is associated with both: the Cl genotype in locus rs5370 and the 3A4A genotype in locus rs10478694 (P < 0.05 in both cases). Significance: The ET systems might play a disease modifying role in pediatric NS. Plasma cholesterol, a hallmark of NS. seems to be associated with genetic variations within the human ET-1 gene. (C) 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. KW - Endothelin-1 KW - Gene polymorphism KW - Childhood nephrotic syndrome KW - Cholesterol Y1 - 2014 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lfs.2014.04.010 SN - 0024-3205 SN - 1879-0631 VL - 118 IS - 2 SP - 446 EP - 450 PB - Elsevier CY - Oxford ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Sperfeld, Erik A1 - Martin-Creuzburg, Dominik A1 - Wacker, Alexander T1 - Multiple resource limitation theory applied to herbivorous consumers Liebig's minimum rule vs. interactive co-limitation JF - Ecology letters N2 - There is growing consensus that the growth of herbivorous consumers is frequently limited by more than one nutrient simultaneously. This understanding, however, is based primarily on theoretical considerations and the applicability of existing concepts of co-limitation has rarely been tested experimentally. Here, we assessed the suitability of two contrasting concepts of resource limitation, i.e. Liebigs minimum rule and the multiple limitation hypothesis, to describe nutrient-dependent growth responses of a freshwater herbivore (Daphnia magna) in a system with two potentially limiting nutrients (cholesterol and eicosapentaenoic acid). The results indicated that these essential nutrients interact, and do not strictly follow Liebigs minimum rule, which consistently overestimates growth at co-limiting conditions and thus is not applicable to describe multiple nutrient limitation of herbivorous consumers. We infer that the outcome of resource-based modelling approaches assessing herbivore population dynamics strongly depends on the applied concept of co-limitation. KW - Cholesterol KW - Daphnia magna KW - eicosapentaenoic acid KW - essential resources KW - food quality KW - herbivore KW - multi-nutrient limitation KW - nutritional ecology KW - von Liebig Y1 - 2012 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1461-0248.2011.01719.x SN - 1461-023X VL - 15 IS - 2 SP - 142 EP - 150 PB - Wiley-Blackwell CY - Malden ER -