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The aim of this study was to contribute to a better understanding of turbid coastal ecosystems, focusing on spatio-temporal changes at the mesoscale in microphytobenthos structures in a macrotidal bay (Bourgneuf, France). This was based on pigment analysis by high-pressure liquid chromatography (HPLC), reinforced by microscopy observations, in relation to sediment characteristics. Microphytobenthos assemblages of this mudflat were 97% dominated by diatoms, confirmed by HPLC analysis, which showed biomarker pigments of this group: chlorophyllc, fucoxanthin, diadinoxanthin and diatoxanthin. The main assemblage is constituted of epipsammic species, likePlagiogrammopsis,AchnanthesandCocconeis, characterising mixed sediments. However, this could be replaced by epipelic species, likePlagiotropis,PleurosigmaandStaurophora, during summer due to station silting. Microphytobenthic photosynthetic active biomass in the first 2 mm varied spatially and temporally from 12.2 to 186.9 mg chlam–2. The predominance of a biomass spatial variability reflected spatial changes in sediment grain size and water content. Biomass in the first 2 mm represented from 28 to 68% of the total amount in the first 10 mm. This indicated an accumulation of biomass in illuminated layers and a biomass decrease with depth associated with increasing values of the ratio of phaeopigmentsaand fucoxanthin to chlorophylla(phaeoa/chlaand fuco/chla). Both could exceed 1.00 in deeper layers. Temporal changes in microphytobenthos structure at the mesoscale were mainly linked to hydrodynamism. This is stronger in winter and responsible for allochthonous pigment input (lutein and phaeophytinb) and sediment mixing, as grazing activity by macro- and meiofauna, forming chlorophyllabreakdown products, is responsible for an increase in fuco/chlaand phaeoa/chlavalues during spring/summer.

This chapter describes the main properties of the seaweed proteins and their uses in human and animal nutrition. A focus on the biochemical and nutritional properties is developed in this chapter. In addition, some processes such as enzymatic process are discussed as new way to improve the digestibility of algal proteins or to increase the extraction of phycobiliproteins for the use as food additive.

Specimens of a new species of blue diatoms from the genus Haslea Simonsen were discovered in geographically distant sampling sites, first in the Canary Archipelago, then North Carolina, Gulf of Naples, the Croatian South Adriatic Sea, and Turkish coast of the Eastern Mediterranean Sea. An exhaustive characterization of these specimens, using a combined morphological and genomic approach led to the conclusion that they belong to a single new to science cosmopolitan species, Haslea silbo sp. nov. A preliminary characterization of its blue pigment shows similarities to marennine produced by Haslea ostrearia, as evidenced by UV–visible spectrophotometry and Raman spectrometry. Life cycle stages including auxosporulation were also observed, providing data on the cardinal points of this species. For the two most geographically distant populations (North Carolina and East Mediterranean), complete mitochondrial and plastid genomes were sequenced. The mitogenomes of both strains share a rare atp6 pseudogene, but the number, nature, and positions of the group II introns inside its cox1 gene differ between the two populations. There are also two pairs of genes fused in single ORFs. The plastid genomes are characterized by large regions of recombination with plasmid DNA, which are in both cases located between the ycf35 and psbA genes, but whose content differs between the strains. The two sequenced strains hosts three plasmids coding for putative serine recombinase protein whose sequences are compared, and four out of six of these plasmids were highly conserved.

Extended abstract of a paper presented at Microscopy and Microanalysis 2012 in Phoenix, Arizona, USA, July 29 – August 2, 2012.