Similar ecological assays may lead to the identification of microbial key players and provide many exciting insights into biofouling related microorganisms.
We advocate the use of large-scale field bio-inventories, combined with molecular gut-content assays and ecological network analysis as regular components of the preparation and design phases of all future risk-assessment programs.
The subfunctionalization of ERs presents an interesting challenge to the use of in vitro estrogen screening assays as ecological risk assessment tools for aquatic environments.
To study the accumulation and contamination of heavy metals (i.e., Cd, Cr, Cu, Ni, and Zn) in soil, air, and water, few insect species were assayed as ecological indicators.
Generation of a complete plastome sequence from representative species can hence provide information related to evolutionary history, and permit the development of sequence-based tools such as molecular genetic marker assays for ecological studies and DNA barcode-based diagnostics for species identification.
In addition to complex relationships between omic responses and ecological outcome, standardized, validated exposure assay and analysis procedures are lacking (Ankley et al. 2006).
Although parasites are treated as a selective force acting on the immune system, few studies within ecological immunology use parasite-specific assays of immune function [15].
Obviously, the above hypotheses, based solely on bioinformatic analysis of transcriptome sequences, need further investigations, in particular ecological experiments and functional protein assays, to functionally link the proposed candidate genes to the observed traits.
Most of the African OPXV ecological surveillance studies have used serological assays that cross react between members of the OPXV genus and are not able to distinguish between exposures to different OPXV species.
Growing databases of genome sequences are of significant interest for improving the designs of specific detection assays, conducting epidemiological and ecological studies, microbial forensics [ 58] and classification of novel bacterial isolates.
