Refine
Year of publication
- 2015 (2) (remove)
Document Type
- Doctoral Thesis (1)
- Master's Thesis (1)
Has Fulltext
- yes (2) (remove)
Keywords
- Adhäsion (1)
- Amazonia (1)
- Amazonien (1)
- Austenitischer Stahl (1)
- Bakterien (1)
- Biofilm (1)
- Biofouling (1)
- Bioreaktor (1)
- Epifluoreszenzmikroskopie (1)
- Folie (1)
Institute
- Institut für Integrierte Naturwissenschaften, Abt. Biologie (2) (remove)
Taxonomy and Systematics of Spiny-Backed Treefrogs, Genus Osteocephalus (Amphibia: Anura: Hylidae)
(2015)
The pan-Amazonian treefrog genus Ostecephalus is poorly understood both on a taxonomic and phylogenetic level. The status of several frogs already or not yet referred to the genus is unclear and the relationships among the genus and with respect to related genera is not understood. In this work O. cabrerai (Cochran and Goin, 1970) from Colombia and Peru is redescribed and O. festae (Peracca, 1904) from the foothills of the Andes in Ecuador is revalidated. Hyla inframaculata Boulenger, 1882, from the lower Amazon in Brazil, is reallocated to Osteocephalus and O. elkejungingerae (Henle, 1981) from the Andean foothills in Peru is shown to be a synonym of Hyla mimetica (Melin, 1941), the valid name being O. mimeticus. Hyla vilarsi Melin, 1941 is considered a valid species in the genus Osteocephalus and revalidated from the synonymies of several other frogs. Three new species, O. castaneicola from northern Bolivia and southern Peru, O. duellmani from a sub-Andean mountain range in southern Ecuador, and O. camufatus from central Amazonian Brazil, are described. A phylogenetic analysis based on up to nine mitochondrial genes and one nuclear one reveals the paraphyly of the genus as previously understood with respect to the genus Tepuihyla. A new taxonomy is proposed, securing the monophyly of Osteocephalus and Tepuihyla by rearranging and redefining the content of both genera. A new genus, Dryaderces, is erected for the sister group of Osteocephalus. The colouration of newly metamorphosed individuals is proposed as a morphological synapomorphy for Osteocephalus. Five monophyletic species groups within Osteocephalus are recognized, three species of Osteocephalus (O. germani, O.rnphasmatus, O. vilmae) and three species of Tepuihyla (T. celsae, T. galani, T. talbergae) synonymized and three species (Hyla helenae to Osteocephalus, O.rnexophthalmus to Tepuihyla and O. pearsoni to Dryaderces gen. n.) reallocated. Furthermore, nine putative new species are flagged (an increase to 138% of the current diversity), an indication that species numbers are largely underestimated, with most hidden diversity centred on widespread and polymorphic nominal species. The evolutionary origin of breeding strategies within Osteocephalus is discussed in the light of this new phylogeny and a novel type of amplexus (gular amplexus) is described.
Heat exchangers are used for thickening of various products or desalination of saltwater. Nevertheless, they are used as cooling unit in industries. Thereby, the stainless steel heat transferring elements get in contact with microorganism containing media, such as river water or saltwater, and corrode. After at least two years of utilization the material is covered with bacterial slime called biofilm. This process is called biofouling and causes loss in efficiency and creates huge costs depending on cleaning technique and efficiency. Cleaning a heat exchanger is very expensive and time consuming. It only can be done while the device is out of business.
Changing the surface properties of materials is the best and easiest way to lengthen the initial phase of biofilm formation. This leads to less biofouling (Mogha et al. 2014).
Thin polymer films as novel materials have less costs in production than stainless steel and are easy to handle. Furthermore, they can be functionalzed easily and can be bougth in different sizes all over the world. Because of this, they can reduce the costs of cleaning techniques and lead to a longer high efficiency state of the heat exchanger. If the efficiency of the heat exchanger decreases, the thin polymer films can be replaced.
For a successful investigation of the microbial and the process engineering challenges a cooperation of Technical University of Kaiserslautern (chair of seperation science and technology) and University of Koblenz-Landau (working goup microbiology) was established.
The aim of this work was design engineering and production of a reactor for investigation of biofouling taking place on thin polymeric films and stainless steel. Furthermore, an experimental design has to be established. Several requirements have to be applied for these tasks. Therefore, a real heat exchanger is downscaled, so the process parameters are at least comparable. There are many commercial flow cell kits available. Reducing the costs by selfassembling increased the number of samples, so there is a basis for statistic analysis. In addition, fast and minimal invasive online-in-situ microscopy and Raman spectroscopy can be performed. By creating laminary flow and using a weir we implemented homogenous inflow to the reactors. Reproduceable data on biomass and cell number were created.
The assessment of biomass and cell number is well established for drinking water analysis. Epifluorescense microscopy and gravimetric determination are the basic techniques for this work, too. Differences in cell number and biomass between surface modifications and materials are quantified and statistically analysed.
The wildtype strain Escherichia coli K12 and an inoculum of 500 ml fresh water were used to describe the biofouling of the films. Thereby, we generated data with natural bacterial community in unknown media properties and data with well known media properties, so the technical relevance of the data is given.
Free surface energy and surface roughness are the first attachment hurdles for bacteria. These parameters were measured according to DIN 55660 and DIN EN ISO 4287. The materials science data were correlated with the number of cells and the biomass. This correlation acts as basal link of biofouling as biological induced parameter to the material properties. Material properties for reducing the biofouling can be prospected.
By using Raman spectroscopy as a cutting edge method future investigations could be shortened. If biomass or cell number can be linked with the spectra, new functional materials can be investigated in a short time.