Freshwater salinization is an increasing ecological and socioeconomic concern, with widespread evidence for increased salinity of inland waters associated with anthropogenic inputs and climate change. However, there remains an incomplete understanding of how increasing salinity of freshwater will alter the diversity and abundance of planktonic communities. We found that at salt concentrations relevant to U.S. and Canada water quality guidelines, the planktonic eukaryote community was highly simplified by the loss of almost all zooplankton and the loss of taxonomic diversity across planktonic groups, with only fungi and phytoplankton remaining at > 640 mg Cl À L À1 . Overall, our findings support that freshwater salinization can have devastating effects on the freshwater planktonic community in a lake without previous history of salt exposure, even at concentrations recommended by guidelines for water quality standards.

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While the usefulness of games extends beyond their entertainment value, the act of playing a game remains essentially tied to its positive experience. Techniques to assess the player’s experience have greatly improved in the past decade, yet several challenges remain such as identifying objective and dynamic measures that reflect the player’s emotions during the game. In this paper, we describe an innovative approach to capture the player’s experience that relies on cognitive sciences and affective neuroscience. Our research endeavor is to contribute to the development of systems capable of predicting the player’s fun based on psychophysiology and in-game behaviors, and adapting the game to maximize that value. We present a use case of our techniques to elicit the player’s affective and cognitive states using an online strategic card game. Preliminary results revealed that electrodermal and respiratory activities were positively associated to the casual gamers’ affective and cognitive states. Such findings suggest that psychophysiological metrics combined with behavioural measures offer a promising avenue to assess the player’s experience in a comprehensive and objective manner.

Each year, millions of tons of sodium chloride are dumped on roads, contributing to the salinization of freshwater environments. Thus, we sought to understand the effect of sodium chloride (NaCl) on freshwater lake prokaryotic communities, an important and understudied component of food webs. Using mesocosms with 0.01–2.74 ppt NaCl (0.27–1110.86 mg/L Cl−), we evaluated the effect generated on the diversity and absolute abundance of prokaryotic populations after three and six weeks. A positive relationship between Cl− values and absolute bacterial abundance was found after three weeks. The influence of eukaryotic diversity variation was observed as well. Significant differentiation of bacterial communities starting at 420 mg/L Cl− was observed after three weeks, levels lower than the Canadian and US recommendations for acute chloride exposure. The partial recovery of a “pre-disturbance” community was observed following a drop in salinity at the threshold level of 420 mg/L Cl−. A gradual transition of dominance from Betaproteobacteria and Actinobacteria to Bacteroidia and Alphaproteobacteria was observed and is overall similar to the natural transition observed in estuaries.