Habitat provision of barnacle tests for overcrowded periwinkles          下载免费PDF全文

Ana C. F. Silva  Vanessa Mendonça  Rita Paquete  Nuno Barreiras  Catarina Vinagre 《Marine Ecology》2015,36(3):530-540

In habitats where competition for space is a shaping force of animal distribution such as in the intertidal rocky ecosystem, new habitats are readily taken by colonising species. We examined the importance of empty Chthamalus spp. tests as a habitat for the intertidal common periwinkle Melaraphe neritoides on Portuguese rocky shores. The role played by the space between neighbouring barnacles as a habitat for other species has been largely studied with regard to how an ecosystem functions, whereas the equivalent role of empty barnacle tests remains largely unknown. The small periwinkle is one of the most abundant snails in European rocky shores and is an important prey for key mobile predators. Biological facilitation is common in the rocky intertidal zone, where biological structures often potentiate the abundance of other species. The role played by barnacles as biological facilitators through habitat provision is not fully understood. In this study, the abundance and morphometric features of empty barnacle tests and their occupants were examined across shore levels and shores with differing exposures, as these are important gradients explaining barnacle distribution. The availability of empty barnacle tests was also experimentally manipulated to examine the percentage, time and length of occupation. Empty barnacles were more abundant on the midshore of sheltered shores and barnacle tests were wider on the upper shore but taller on the midshore. The minimum barnacle test occupation rate by the periwinkle was 70%. Barnacle shell height was an important factor determining snail occupation, where taller barnacles harboured significantly more, but not necessarily larger, snails. Snails outside the barnacle tests were significantly larger than those found within, suggesting that this crustacean group has an increased importance as a habitat for juvenile snails, thus potentially influencing the population dynamics of M. neritoides. We found that occupation of experimentally created empty barnacles was extremely high (70%) on the day after, and remained at 100% after 3 months of monitoring. Our study is the first of its kind to focus on the features of barnacle tests that snails occupy and their occupying snail traits. According to our results, it is clear that barnacles have an important role in providing additional habitat for young gastropods. The small periwinkle is an important grazer and prey for intertidal and subtidal foraging predators; hence, the potential refuge role of barnacle tests for juvenile M. neritoides may be important in the dynamics of intertidal communities.  相似文献   

High connectivity and directional gene flow in European Atlantic and Mediterranean populations of Ciona intestinalis sp. A          下载免费PDF全文

Ornella Affinito  Nikos Andreakis  Luigi Caputi  Rita Marino  Raimondo Pannone  Paolo Sordino  Gabriele Procaccini 《Marine Ecology》2015,36(4):1230-1243

Understanding the factors that cause population divergence has long been of interest to marine biologists in their attempts to interpret the effect of human‐mediated vectors. Broadcast‐spawning species with limited dispersal capability are excellent candidates to measure the present‐day patterns of genetic diversity. The tunicate Ciona intestinalis (Ascidiacea) is comprised of a complex of morphologically cryptic species that form vigorous aggregates in eutrophic habitats (harbors, gulfs and lagoons) where they can compete with the epibenthic community and cause biofouling problems. This study investigated biogeographic variability and migration patterns of C. intestinalis sp. A along Northeast Atlantic and Mediterranean coasts using microsatellite markers. Data presented here on 371 specimens collected from 17 populations reveal high genetic polymorphism, but with a deficit of heterozygote deficiency. Absence of evidence for isolation by distance suggests that the genetic patterns do not reflect the geographic distribution of sampled populations. Substantial gene flow and artificial potential for dispersal boost high levels of within‐population genetic variability and prevent genetic differentiation within and between seas. A predominant eastward migration pattern was revealed by the data set, with very limited opportunity for C. intestinalis sp. A to travel westward. This directional movement indicates that other properties (e.g. habitat quality, genetic traits, mating system, life cycle) may cause adaptive divergence at a large biogeographic scale.  相似文献   

Synthetic Spectra of Long-Period Variables: A First Comparison with ISO Observations     

Rita Loidl  Josef Hron  Susanne Höfner  Uffe G. ørgensen  Bernhard Aringer  Franz Kerschbaum 《Astrophysics and Space Science》1997,251(1-2):243-246

Exploratory synthetic spectra were computed for carbon-rich long-period variables. We used dynamic model atmospheres of Höfner &; Dorfi (1997) and calculated partial pressures, absorption- and scattering coefficients as input for the spectral synthesis code of Jørgensen et al. (1992). First ISO SWS-observations of the carbon-Mira T Dra are compared with our synthetic spectra.  相似文献   

Model Atmospheres of AGB Stars: Dynamics, Molecules and Dust     

Susanne Höfner  Uffe G. Jφrgensen  Rita Loidl 《Astrophysics and Space Science》1997,255(1-2):281-287

The atmospheres and circumstellar envelopes of AGB stars are characterized by complex physical phenomena like shock waves caused by stellar pulsation or formation of molecules and dust which often lead to a heavy mass loss and have a strong influence on IR properties as observed by ISO. To allow a physical interpretation of various observations we have constructed improved dynamical model atmospheres of long-period variables. In this contribution we mainly investigate the dependence of the atmospheric structure and its variability on stellar pulsation, molecular opacities and time-dependent dust formation. IR spectra resulting from our models are discussed in detail by Loidl et al. (1997b) and compared to ISO-SWS spectra obtained by Hron et al. (1997). This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.  相似文献   

Total and methylmercury in three species of sea turtles of Baja California Sur     

Kampalath R  Gardner SC  Méndez-Rodríguez L  Jay JA 《Marine pollution bulletin》2006,52(12):1816-1823

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Life in the Universe—A Beginner's Guide. Lewis Dartnell. Oneworld Publications, Oxford, England, UK (2007) (202pp., UK £9.99 or US $14.95, Paperback, ISBN-13:).     

Rita Schulz   《Planetary and Space Science》2008,56(7)

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An improved upper-bound pushover procedure for seismic assessment of high-rise moment resisting steel frames     

Abdallah Yacine Rahmani  Nouredine Bourahla  Rita Bento  Mohamed Badaoui 《Bulletin of Earthquake Engineering》2018,16(1):315-339

In recent years, nonlinear static procedures (NSPs) have gained considerable popularity as an efficient tool in the performance based seismic design practice. This was backed by extensive corroboration studies that have demonstrated its good accuracy in estimating the seismic response of regular structures. Despite the numerous improvements of the original versions of NSPs, their use to assess the seismic response of irregular structures and high-rise buildings is still challenging; they are not able to predict with sufficient accuracy all the complexities associated to the seismic response of this type of structures. Thus, an improved upper-bound (IUB) pushover procedure for seismic assessment of plane frames is presented in this paper, aiming to enhance the accuracy of existing methods in predicting the seismic behaviour of high-rise buildings. The novelty of this proposal is based on the adjustment of the pattern of the lateral load of the upper-bound pushover method applied to tall structures. The accuracy of the procedure is tested using nine, twelve, fifteen and twenty storeys steel buildings. The results of the (IUB) are compared to those of the capacity spectrum method, the modal pushover analysis, the upper bound pushover analysis, the modified upper bound pushover analysis and the non-linear time history analysis (NTHA). In most cases, the proposed procedure shows better results and closer to those obtained by NTHA.  相似文献   

The shape of the seismic response interaction diagram: The effect of combination rules in response spectrum analysis     

Manuel Ritto-Corrêa  Ana Rita Tomaz  Luís Guerreiro 《地震工程与结构动力学》2020,49(14):1428-1451

This paper deals with the construction of seismic response interaction diagrams that show the correlation of multiple responses and are important to determine the critical combination of modal responses. Many design problems, such as column design under combined axial force and bending moments, fall into this category. We address general modal and multicomponent combination rules and study their effect on the shape of the response interaction diagrams, thus extending previous work done for quadratic combination rules. Special attention is given to multilinear combination rules which lead to polyhedral shapes. Having developed efficient methods to deal with polyhedral shapes, we explore the idea of adopting a multilinear modal combination rule to compose with a multicomponent percentage rule.  相似文献   

Tidal response to sea level rise and bathymetric changes in the German Wadden Sea     

Wachler  Benno  Seiffert  Rita  Rasquin  Caroline  Kösters  Frank 《Ocean Dynamics》2020,70(8):1033-1052

Ocean Dynamics - Tidally dominated coasts are directly affected not only by projected rise in mean sea level, but also by changes in tidal dynamics due to sea level rise and bathymetric changes. By...  相似文献   

Genetic variability of the blue and red shrimp Aristeus antennatus in the Western Mediterranean Sea inferred by DNA microsatellite loci     

Rita Cannas  Flavio Sacco  Maria Cristina Follesa  Andrea Sabatini  Marco Arculeo  Sabrina Lo Brutto  Teresa Maggio  Anna Maria Deiana  Angelo Cau 《Marine Ecology》2012,33(3):350-363

Genetic variation at eight microsatellite loci was studied in nine populations of the blue and red shrimp Aristeus antennatus to investigate whether distinct stocks are present in the Western Mediterranean Sea. A high level of gene flow and no evidence of genetic partitioning were discovered. No significant variation was found (F_ST = 0.00673, P-value = 0.067) even when shrimps from exploited and those from deep-water unexploited grounds were compared. No evidence of reduction or expansion of population size in the recent past was found, as indicated by the bottleneck and interlocus g-tests. Our results are consistent with previous studies using mitochondrial gene methods and allozymes, indicating that, for this species, extensive pelagic larval dispersal and adult migration are probably responsible for the genetic homogeneity observed. In particular, due to a different bathymetric distribution of males and females, reported to be associated with different water masses and hence with possible differential dispersal capacity between sexes, the hypothesis of sex-biased dispersal was tested. Mean values of corrected assignment indices and mean relatedness values were higher for males, suggesting that females are the more widely dispersing sex. Molecular assessment of A. antennatus from the Western Mediterranean provides data of biological and evolutionary interest for the successful management of such a highly valuable fishery resource.  相似文献