Activité de la phosphatase alcaline bactérienne à l'interface eau-sédiment au sein du réservoir Sahela (Maroc)

Les variations temporelles des concentrations en phosphore, celles des abondances bactériennes et de l'activité de la phosphatase alcaline (APA) ont été estimées in situ en chambre benthique placée en deux points du réservoir Sahela (Maroc) durant les mois de septembre et octobre 98. En période de faible oxygénation, nous avons enregistré des élévations relativement faibles des concentrations en orthophosphates (de 0,020 à 0,035 mg. l-1 au point 1 et 0,015 à 0,025 mg. l-1 au point 2) par rapport au phosphore total (0,080 à 0,100 mg. l-1 au point 1 et de 0,035 à 0,040 mg. l-1 au point 2). À cette période, les abondances bactériennes et l'APA montrent des valeurs maximales (8. 106 bact. ml-1 et 0,323 mmol.PNP l-1.h-1 au point 1 et 6.106 bact. ml-1 et 0,438 mmol.PNP l-1.h-1 au point 2 respectivement). L'apparition des conditions anoxiques et la diminution du pH favorisaient la dissolution du phosphore particulaire et la libération du phosphore réactif soluble. Cette libération s'accompagne d'une élévation des abondances de bactéries anaérobies (de 5.106 à 9,2. 106 bact. ml-1 au point 1 et de 3,8.106 à 7,2. 106 bact. ml-1 au point 2) et une diminution progressive d'APA (de 0,200 à 0,025 mmol.PNP l-1.h-1 au point 1 et de 0,125 à 0,077 mmol.PNP l-1.h-1 au point 2). Ce relargage du phosphore à partir du sédiment est accentué par les rejets domestiques et industriels de la ville de Taounate, ce qui accélère le processus d'eutrophisation de ce réservoir.Temporal variations of phosphorus concentrations, bacterial abundance and alkaline phosphatase activity (APA) were estimated in situ in a benthic chamber. The chamber used has a surface of 0.4m2 and a volume of 90 l ; it resembles those used in oceanography, with a tube connecting the interior of the chamber to the lake surface. The water in the chamber was permanently mixed by an electric agitation system. The chamber was placed at two points in the Sahela reservoir (Morocco). Point 1 was located near Guelta El Haila, a site that receives both domestic and industrial effluent, and point 2 was located in the centre of the reservoir. During the two incubations, eight samples were taken over 24 d in September and October 1998 from point 1, and seven samples were taken from point 2 over 29 d in October. After each sampling, an equal volume of water was injected into the chamber to avoid bubble formation.Under low dissolved oxygen concentrations in the benthic chamber, we noticed a relatively small elevation in orthophosphate concentrations (from 0.020 to 0.035 mg×L-1 at point 1 and from 0.015 to 0.025 mg×L-1 at point 2) in relation to total phosphorus (from 0.080 to 0.100 mg×L-1 and from 0.035 to 0.040 mg×L-1 at points 1 and 2 respectively). The low residual oxygenation of hypolimnic layer allowed the oxidation of iron, manganese and led to their binding to phosphorus released from the interstitial water. Dissociation of calcium-phosphorus complexes as a result of a pH decrease may have contributed to phosphorus release. The orthophosphate concentrations were relatively low, a situation that favours the synthesis of alkaline phosphatase by aerobic bacteria and facultative aerobic bacteria. In this period, the bacterial abundance and APA were comparable and showed the maximal values (8. 106 bact. ml-1 and 0.323 mmol. PNP l-1.h-1 (phosphate nitrophenol) in point 1 and 6. 106 bact. ml-1and 0.438 mmol. PNP l-1.h-1 in point 2 respectively). The lack of a significant correlation between total APA and bacterial abundance at the two sampling points is probably due to the decrease of aerobic bacteria followed by a repopulation with anaerobic bacteria. However, the relative contribution of two bacterial populations that have different sizes, as at points 1 and 2, showed that the majority of total APA was produced by bacteria that are attached to organic matter. Therefore we suggest that attached bacteria contribute more than free bacteria to APA production.The beginning of anoxic conditions and the decrease in pH favored the dissolution of particulate phosphorus and the liberation of reactive phosphorus. We noted an elevation in orthophosphate concentrations (from 0.035 to 0.050 mg×L-1 at point 1 and stabilised at 0.025 mg×L-1 at point 2) and total phosphorus (from 0.100 to 0.150 mg×L-1 at point 1 and from 0.040 to 0.050 mg×L-1 at point 2). This liberation followed an increase in anaerobic bacterial abundance (from 5×106 to 9.2×106 bact×mL-1 at point 1 and from 3.8×106 to 7.2×106 bact×mL-1 at point 2) and the progressive decrease in APA (from 0.200 to 0.025 mmol PNP L-1 ×h-1 at point 1 and from 0.125 to 0.077 mmol PNP L-1 ×h-1 at point 2). The anaerobic bacteria did not activate their alkaline phosphatase and the synthesis of their enzyme was progressively inhibited by a de-repression phenomenon caused by high phosphorus concentrations.We conclude that low oxygen and a decrease in pH favoured the release of phosphorus by dissolution of chemical complexes: calcium-phosphorus, iron-phosphorus, manganese-phosphorus and aluminium-phosphorus. This release is also the result of bacterial phosphatase activity to which fixed bacteria contributed the most. The release of phosphorus from water-sediment interface is further amplified by phosphate import from domestic and industrial waste waters originating from Taounate, which accelerates the eutrophication process in this reservoir

Weakly coupled two slow- two fast systems, folded node and mixed mode oscillationsM

We study Mixed Mode Oscillations (MMOs) in systems of two weakly coupled slow/fast oscillators. We focus on the existence and properties of a folded singularity called FSN II that allows the emergence of MMOs in the presence of a suitable global return mechanism. As FSN II corresponds to a transcritical bifurcation for a desingularized reduced system, we prove that, under certain non-degeneracy conditions, such a transcritical bifurcation exists. We then apply this result to the case of two coupled systems of FitzHugh- Nagumo type. This leads to a non trivial condition on the coupling that enables the existence of MMOs

The converse of Schur's Lemma in group rings

In this paper, we study the structure of group rings by means of endomorphism rings of their modules. The main tools used here, are the subrings fixed by automorphisms and the converse of Schur's lemma. Some results are obtained on fixed subrings and on primary decomposition of group rings

Perfect rings for which the converse of Schur's lemma holds

If M is a simple module over a ring R then, by the Schur's lemma, the endomorphism ring of M is a division ring. However, the converse of this result does not hold in general, even when R is artinian. In this short note, we consider perfect rings for which the converse assertion is true, and we show that these rings are exactly the primary decomposable ones

Fence-sitters Protect Cooperation in Complex Networks

Evolutionary game theory is one of the key paradigms behind many scientific disciplines from science to engineering. In complex networks, because of the difficulty of formulating the replicator dynamics, most of previous studies are confined to a numerical level. In this paper, we introduce a vectorial formulation to derive three classes of individuals' payoff analytically. The three classes are pure cooperators, pure defectors, and fence-sitters. Here, fence-sitters are the individuals who change their strategies at least once in the strategy evolutionary process. As a general approach, our vectorial formalization can be applied to all the two-strategies games. To clarify the function of the fence-sitters, we define a parameter, payoff memory, as the number of rounds that the individuals' payoffs are aggregated. We observe that the payoff memory can control the fence-sitters' effects and the level of cooperation efficiently. Our results indicate that the fence-sitters' role is nontrivial in the complex topologies, which protects cooperation in an indirect way. Our results may provide a better understanding of the composition of cooperators in a circumstance where the temptation to defect is larger.Comment: an article with 6 pages, 3 figure

Emergence of Cooperation in Non-scale-free Networks

Evolutionary game theory is one of the key paradigms behind many scientific disciplines from science to engineering. Previous studies proposed a strategy updating mechanism, which successfully demonstrated that the scale-free network can provide a framework for the emergence of cooperation. Instead, individuals in random graphs and small-world networks do not favor cooperation under this updating rule. However, a recent empirical result shows the heterogeneous networks do not promote cooperation when humans play a Prisoner's Dilemma. In this paper, we propose a strategy updating rule with payoff memory. We observe that the random graphs and small-world networks can provide even better frameworks for cooperation than the scale-free networks in this scenario. Our observations suggest that the degree heterogeneity may be neither a sufficient condition nor a necessary condition for the widespread cooperation in complex networks. Also, the topological structures are not sufficed to determine the level of cooperation in complex networks.Comment: 6 pages, 5 figure

Étude du régime alimentaire de deux souches de truite arc-en-ciel marocaine et bulgare dans deux plans d'eau du Moyen-Atlas Amghass I et Amghass II

Le présent travail porte sur l'étude du régime alimentaire de deux souches de truites arc-en-ciel : la souche marocaine issue de croisements de truites arc-en-ciel en provenance d'Europe et d'Amérique du nord et la souche bulgare introduite au Maroc en 1987. Les milieux d'étude sont deux plans d'eau du Moyen-Atlas marocain (Amghass I et Amghass II) présentant des eaux de bonne qualité physique et chimique et une diversité biologique (invertébrés) assez importante. Afin de déterminer les préférences alimentaires de ces deux souches nous avons évalué : le spectre alimentaire, déterminé par les abondances relatives, les coefficients d'occurrence des proies ingérées, l'indice alimentaire de Lauzanne pour les différentes catégories de proies et l'intensité de prédation des truites.Les résultats ont montré une similitude au niveau des régimes alimentaires des deux souches caractérisés par une nette préférence pour les larves et nymphes d'Insectes considérées comme proies essentielles.This current work is about the study of the dietary regime of two species of rainbow trout. The Moroccan kind is a cross breed of the European and North American Rainbow trout and the Bulgarian trout introduced into Morocco since 1987.The environments of study are two stretches of water in the "Moyen-Atlas" (Amghass I and Amghass II), which present water of good physical and chemical quality and are of quite important biological diversity.To determine the dietary preferences of the two species, we evaluated several parameters: the dietary spectrum which is determined by the relative abundance and the coefficient of occurence of ingested prey, the index alimentary of Lauzanne for the different categories of prey and how predatory the trout areThe results have shown a similarity in the level of dietary regimes of the two populations outlined by a clear preference for larvae and nymph insects which are considered to be essential prey

Automated verification of shape, size and bag properties.

In recent years, separation logic has emerged as a contender for formal reasoning of heap-manipulating imperative programs. Recent works have focused on specialised provers that are mostly based on fixed sets of predicates. To improve expressivity, we have proposed a prover that can automatically handle user-defined predicates. These shape predicates allow programmers to describe a wide range of data structures with their associated size properties. In the current work, we shall enhance this prover by providing support for a new type of constraints, namely bag (multi-set) constraints. With this extension, we can capture the reachable nodes (or values) inside a heap predicate as a bag constraint. Consequently, we are able to prove properties about the actual values stored inside a data structure

Processus d'eutrophisation : activité de la phosphatase alcaline du microplancton d'un réservoir mésotrophe marocain (Allal El Fassi)

L'activité de la phosphatase alcaline (APA) bactérienne et phytoplanctonique a été mesurée bimensuellement du mois de mars au mois de décembre 1998 au sein d'un réservoir mésotrophe situé dans une zone à climat semi-aride (Allal El Fassi, Maroc). Les résultats montrent que l'APA totale est importante (0,107-1,780 mmol PNP·l-1·h-1) et majoritairement d'origine bactérienne (> 60 %) au niveau de l'épilimnion, alors qu'elle est à dominance algale (> 58 %) dans le méta- et l'hypolimnion. L'absence de corrélation entre l'APA totale et les concentrations en orthophosphates suggère que l'hydrolyse par cette enzyme n'est pas significative dans le processus de régénération du phosphore dans ce réservoir. Par conséquent, l'APA ne pourrait pas être un indicateur fiable du déficit en phosphore dans le milieu.Bacterial and phytoplanktonic alkaline phosphatase activity (APA) was measured from march to December 1998 in the mesotrophic Allal El Fassi reservoir located in the semi-arid zone (Morocco). The total APA varied between 0.107-1.780 mmol PNP·L-1·h-1. In epilimnion, the bacterioplankton contributed significantly (> 60%) to total APA. In the meta and hypolimnion, the APA was predominantly algal (> 58%). No correlation between APA and orthophosphates indicate that the hydrolysis by this enzyme was not a significant process in recycling of phosphorus in Allal El Fassi reservoir. Consequently, the APA was not a valid test of phosphorus deficiency