ALBERT

Description: This check-list is a compilation of the marine molluscs recorded from Norway and the abyssal depths of the Norwegian Sea. Molluscs not recorded from the Norwegian fauna but found on the North Sea plateau, the British North Sea coast, the Swedish west coast, and in Danish waters are also included. Distributional data are provided for each species. Most commonly used synonyms are listed, together with type species for each accepted generic name. Systematical code numbers are included for easy retrieval of information. An alphabetical index of all generic names mentioned concludes the check-list. Recent taxonomic alterations and all distributional records are documented by literature references.

Description: Morphological characteristics of two large females of Haliphron atlanticus STEENSTRUP (= Alloposus mollis VERRILL) are described and illustrated. The soft and gelatinous body, the shape of the mantle aperture, the formation of the funnel and adhesive apparatus, and the straplike septa connecting the mantle and funnel and containing the stellate ganglion are characteristic features of the species. One specimen, weighing 41 kg after fixation, was found dead near Bergen (60°14′ N, 5°16′ E) in May 1983. The other, weighing 25 kg after being frozen, was caught alive at 210 m off Vestvägöy in the Lofoten archipelago (68°20′ N. 14°14′ E) in November 1984. It was possibly feeding on the prawn, Pandalus borealis KRøYER. Both specimens had arms partly missing and web torn, but were otherwise well preserved. Previous records of H. atlanticus are confined to tropical and warm-temperate areas. The present findings represent the first records from north of 42° N.

Description: Traceability and reliable results are the two pillars of analytical methods; certified reference materials (CRMs) meet this requirement. ISO 17034:2016 credentials provide brief information on general requirements for the competence of Reference Material Producers (RMPs). The different types of CRMs have been produced in recent years for chemical analysis in food, water, soil, and sediment matrices in recent years. This review provides a detailed overview of the development of CRMs in the field of marine environment, as matrix CRMs play an important role in the field of environmental monitoring. COMAR database, EVISA database: materials, LGC standards, and JRC catalogs are very helpful online resources to find various types of CRMs according to the application requirements. Highlights - The classification of certified reference materials (CRMs) in the field of marine environment is presented; - General information about the production and characteristics of CRMs is discussed; - Examples of use of existing marine CRMs are described in detail; - Importance of CRMs for QA/QC and CRMs development for chemical analysis is presented; - The parameters that characterize the CRMs: representativeness, homogeneity, stability, and certified value are provided.

Description: The first recorded specimens of Scaeurgus unicirrhus from the South-East Atlantic are described. Five males and two females were captured on the Valdivia Bank, Walvis Ridge, between 24 and 27°S, 400 miles off the Namibian coast. They are compared with specimens caught from other areas, and historical and geographic surveys of the species are made.

Description: The publications of Matsuoka (1983) and Bujak (1984) on dinoflagellate cysts from the Neogene of Japan and the Paleogene‐Neogene of the Bering Sea‐northern North Pacific areas, respectively, resulted in the erection of two new species by each author which are synonymous. Impagidinium pacificum Bujak and Spiniferites ovatus Bujak are therefore designated junior synonyms of Impagidinium japonicum Matsuoka and Spiniferites hexatypicus Matsuoka. Another species, Spiniferites ovatus Matsuoka, does not occur in the material examined by Bujak. Specimens assigned by Matsuoka to Nematosphaeropsis labyrinthea and Tectatodinium pellitum are reassigned to Nematosphaeropsis lemniscata Bujak and Filisphaera filifera Bujak, respectively. The species Reticulatosphaera stellata Matsuoka, which Matsuoka designated the type species of his new genus Reticulatosphaera, is designated a subjective junior synonym of a species originally named by Benedek (1972) as Cleistosphaeridium actinocoronatum. C. actinocoronatum is transferred to Reticulatosphaera and becomes the type‐species of this genus. Specimens assigned to Areoligera senonensis Lejeune‐Carpentier sensu Gocht 1969 by Matsuoka (1974, 1983) and Tanyosphaeridium fusiform by Matsuoka (1974) are reattributed to Systematophora ancyrea and Distatodinium fusiforme (Matsuoka) comb, nov., respectively. Bujak also erected eight Eocene to Pleistocene concurrent‐range zones, two of which were named the I. pacificum and Spiniferites ovatus Zones. These are renamed the I. japonicum and 5. hexatypicus Zones, and the zonation is modified to extend the Trinovantedinium boreale Zone into the early Oligocene, and to restrict the S. hexatypicus Zone to the Miocene.

Description: The marine environment encompasses a huge biological diversity and can be considered as an underexplored location for prospecting bioactive molecules. In this review, the current state of art about antimicrobial molecules from marine bacteria has been summarized considering the main phylum and sources evolved in a marine environment. Considering the last two decades, we have found as most studied group of bacteria producers of substances with antimicrobial activity is the Firmicutes phylum, in particular strains of the Bacillus genus. The reason for that can be attributed to the difficult cultivation of typical Actinobacteria from a marine sediment, whose members are the major producers of antimicrobial substances in land environments. However, a reversed trend has been observed in recent years with an increasing number of reports settling on Actinobacteria. Great diversity of chemical structures have been identified, such as fijimicyns and lynamicyns from Actinomycetes and macrolactins produced by Bacillus.

Description: Introduction: The marine environment is a very promising resource for natural product research, with many of these reaching the market as new drugs, especially in the field of cancer therapy as well as the drug discovery pipeline for new antimicrobials. Exploitation for bioactive marine compounds with unique structures and novel bioactivity such as the isoquinoline alkaloid; trabectedin, the polyether macrolide; halichondrin B, and the peptide; dolastatin 10, requires the use of analytical techniques, which can generate unbiased, quantitative, and qualitative data to benefit the biodiscovery process. Metabolomics has shown to bridge this understanding and facilitate the development of new potential drugs from marine sources and particularly their microbial symbionts. Areas covered: In this review, articles on applied secondary metabolomics ranging from 1990–2018 as well as to the last quarter of 2019 were probed to investigate the impact of metabolomics on drug discovery for new antibiotics and cancer treatment. Expert opinion: The current literature review highlighted the effectiveness of metabolomics in the study of targeting biologically active secondary metabolites from marine sources for optimized discovery of potential new natural products to be made accessible to a R&D pipeline.

Description: Freshwater sponges can be considered a promising new source of bioactive compounds for the pharmaceutical industry; however, the research on their chemical composition is still in the incipient stage. We evaluated the most endemic Amazonian freshwater sponge species from the Drulia and Metania genera by untargeted metabolomic approaches, based on UHPCL-HRMS, in order to identify chemical markers and explore the diversity of specialized metabolites. The use of untargeted approaches allowed us to observe subsets of metabolites that enabled the characterization of, not only each genus, but also, of each species. Freshwater sponge species presented themselves as rich sources of fatty acids and sterols, which were putatively identified. These metabolites were suggested as chemical markers for further targeted metabolomic studies.

Description: The Imperial Cormorant Phalacrocorax atriceps is an inshore foraging, diving seabird (Cooper 1985) distributed throughout the southern hemisphere south of 45°S (Watson 1975). A brief description of the diet of the Imperial Cormorant at Marion Island has been published (Blankley 1981). We present here a more comprehensive report based on food samples collected throughout the year.

Description: Chemical composition of Zostera marina L. seed and shoots was determined. Morphology and histochemistry of mature seeds were studied by fluorescence, brightfield and scanning electron microscopy to locate storage constituents in the seed. Starch content in the mature seed was 51% and was the major storage reserve in the embryo and a minor component in the testa. Starch in the shoots ranged from 0.3 to 2.3%. Protein, located in the embryo as small protein bodies, comprised about 9.0% of the seed. Protein in shoots ranged from 6–15%. Protein quality of both seeds and shoots resembled corn in composition, and the first limiting amino acid was lysine. Shoots were high in minerals, fiber and ash, while seeds were lower in these constituents. Fat was low (0.3–1.7%) in both shoots and seeds.