Environmental Science · Ecology
A genomic study of wild Atlantic salmon across North America suggests that interbreeding with escaped farmed salmon could interfere with genetic differences linked to local climate adaptation. The researchers say this interaction may add to the effects of climate change, although the study did not directly measure how introgression changes salmon survival or climate responses.
Bromeliad water tanks may provide short-lived aquatic habitats for Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis, the fungus that causes amphibian chytrid disease. Researchers detected the fungus in 11.3% of sampled bromeliads and found it in 23.0% of sampled amphibians, with amphibian prevalence linked to elevation, rainfall and temperature.
A study of seafood sold in Asturias, northern Spain, found that some products labeled as native European lobster and razor clams were instead non-native species. Researchers also developed naked-eye DNA tests and used one in a restaurant pilot that detected seafood fraud.
A new tool called plsMD reconstructs antibiotic-resistance plasmids from short-read bacterial genome data. It outperformed existing tools on two datasets, although its performance was lower on a newly sequenced-isolate dataset than on an established benchmark.
