Molecular approach to determine contributions of the protist community to particle flux     

Jessica Amacher  Susanne Neuer  Ian Anderson  Ramon Massana 《Deep Sea Research Part I: Oceanographic Research Papers》2009,56(12):2206-2215

The importance of key taxonomic groups of eukaryotic phytoplankton as contributors to downward particle flux was evaluated near the European time-series station (ESTOC) in the eastern subtropical North Atlantic in March 2005. For the first time, molecular (cloning and sequencing) techniques were used to compare plankton communities from various depths in the euphotic zone with clone libraries from surface-tethered particle traps. Analyses of 18S rDNA clone libraries revealed compositional differences between the phytoplankton assemblages in the photic zone and those retrieved from shallow particle traps below, suggesting that not all phytoplankton contribute equally to particle flux. Contrary to expectations, our study also showed that it is not diatoms, despite their high abundance in the water column, but rather small phytoplankton taxa that dominated sequences recovered from trap material. We provide here first observational evidence that large taxa with mineral tests may not necessarily contribute more to export production than do smaller taxa even if the former are abundant in the water column.  相似文献   

Late Quaternary behavior of the East African monsoon and the importance of the Congo Air Boundary     

Jessica E. Tierney  James M. Russell  Jaap S. Sinninghe Damsté  Yongsong Huang  Dirk Verschuren 《Quaternary Science Reviews》2011,30(7-8):798-807

Both Atlantic and Indian Ocean climate dynamics exert influence over tropical African hydroclimate, producing complex patterns of convergence and precipitation. To isolate the Indian Ocean influence on African paleohydrology, we analyzed the deuterium/hydrogen ratio of higher plant leaf waxes (δD_wax) in a 25 000-year sediment record from Lake Challa (3° S, 38° E) in the easternmost area of the African tropics. Whereas both the seismic record of inferred lake level fluctuations and the Branched and Isoprenoidal Tetraether (BIT) index proxy record changes in hydrology within the Challa basin, δD_wax, as a proxy for the isotopic composition of precipitation (δD_P) is interpreted as a tracer of large-scale atmospheric circulation that integrates the history of the moisture transported to the Lake Challa area. Specifically, based on modern-day isotope–rainfall relationships, we argue that Lake Challa δD_wax reflects the intensity of East African monsoon circulation. The three hydrological proxy records show generally similar trends for the last 25 000 years, but there are important differences between them, primarily during the middle Holocene. We interpret this deviation of δD_wax from local hydrological history as a decoupling of East African monsoon intensity – which heavily influences the isotopes of precipitation in East Africa today – from rainfall amount in the Challa basin. In combination, the hydrological proxy data from Lake Challa singularly highlight zonal gradients in tropical African climate that occur over a variety of timescales, suggesting that the Congo Air Boundary plays a fundamental role in controlling hydroclimate in the African tropics.  相似文献   

A methodological framework for assessing and reducing temporal uncertainty in paleovegetation mapping from late-Quaternary pollen records     

Jessica L. Blois  John W. Williams  Eric C. Grimm  Stephen T. Jackson  Russell W. Graham 《Quaternary Science Reviews》2011,30(15-16):1926-1939

Mapping past vegetation dynamics from heterogeneous databases of fossil-pollen records must face the challenge of temporal uncertainty. The growing collection of densely sampled fossil-pollen records with accurate and precise chronologies allows us to develop new methods to assess and reduce this uncertainty. Here, we test our methods in the context of vegetation changes in eastern North America during the abrupt climate changes of the last deglaciation. We use the network of fossil-pollen records in the Neotoma Paleoecology Database (www.neotomadb.org) and data contributed by individual investigators. Because many of these records were collected decades before the current generation of ¹⁴C and age-model technologies, we first developed a framework to assess the overall reliability of ¹⁴C chronologies by systematically evaluating individual ¹⁴C ages and associated chronologies. We developed a qualitative ranking scheme for individual ¹⁴C ages that combines information about their accuracy and precision. ‘Benchmark’ pollen records were defined to have at least one ¹⁴C age with an accuracy within 250 years and a precision less than 500 years that is within 1000 years of the time interval of interest, and at least five pollen samples per 1000 years across this time period. Only 22 of >350 late-Pleistocene pollen cores in eastern North America met the benchmark criteria.We then used Bayesian change-point analysis to identify widespread ecological events (Picea decline, Quercus rise, and Alnus decline), and interpolated the ages of these events from the benchmark sites to non-benchmark sites. Leave-one-out cross-validation analyses with the benchmark sites indicated that the spatial error associated with interpolation was less for inverse distance-weighting (IDW) than thin-plate splines (TPS) and was about 500 years for the three biotic events. By comparison, the difference between the original ages of events at poorly constrained sites and the biostratigraphic ages interpolated from the benchmark sites was close to 1000 years, suggesting that the use of biostratigraphic ages can significantly improve the age models for poorly constrained sites. Overall, these analyses suggest that the temporal resolution of multi-site syntheses of late-Pleistocene fossil-pollen data in eastern North America is about 500 years, a resolution that allows analysis of ecological responses to millennial-scale climate change during the last deglaciation.  相似文献   

Clouds on Titan during the Cassini prime mission: A complete analysis of the VIMS data     

Michael E. Brown  Jessica E. Roberts 《Icarus》2010,205(2):571-580

We use data from the VIMS instrument on board the Cassini spacecraft to construct high sensitivity and high spatial-resolution maps of the locations of tropospheric clouds on Titan in the late northern winter season during which the Cassini prime mission took place. These observations show that, in this season, clouds on Titan are strongly hemispherically asymmetric. Mid-latitude clouds, in particular, occur only in the southern hemisphere and have not ever been observed in the north. Such an asymmetry is in general agreement with circulation models where sub-solar surface heating controls the locations of clouds and appears in conflict with models where perennial polar hazes prevent significant summertime polar heating from affecting the circulation. The southern mid-latitude clouds appear to be distributed uniformly in longitude, in contrast to some previous observations. Southern high-latitude clouds exhibit a significant concentration, however, between about 180° and 270°E longitude. A spatially and temporally uniform cloud always appears northward of ∼50°N latitude. This cloud appears unchanged over the course of the observations, consistent with the interpretation that it is caused by continuous ethane condensation as air subsides and radiatively cools through the tropopause. The location of this cloud likely provides a direct tracer of elements of north polar atmospheric circulation, potentially allowing continuous monitoring of circulation changes as Titan passes through equinox into north polar spring and summer. We show that a similar analysis of this dataset by Rodriguez et al. (2009) contains substantial errors and should not be used.  相似文献   

The dust trail of Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko between 2004 and 2006     

Jessica Agarwal  Michael Müller  Mark V. Sykes  Eberhard Grün 《Icarus》2010,207(2):992-1012

We report on observations of the dust trail of Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko (CG) in visible light with the Wide Field Imager at the ESO/MPG 2.2 m telescope at 4.7 AU before aphelion, and at with the MIPS instrument on board the Spitzer Space Telescope at 5.7 AU both before and after aphelion. The comet did not appear to be active during our observations. Our images probe large dust grains emitted from the comet that have a radiation pressure parameter β<0.01. We compare our observations with simulated images generated with a dynamical model of the cometary dust environment and constrain the emission speeds, size distribution, production rate and geometric albedo of the dust. We achieve the best fit to our data with a differential size distribution exponent of −4.1, and emission speeds for a β=0.01 particle of 25 m/s at perihelion and 2 m/s at 3 AU. The dust production rate in our model is on the order of 1000 kg/s at perihelion and 1 kg/s at 3 AU, and we require a dust geometric albedo between 0.022 and 0.044. The production rates of large (>) particles required to reproduce the brightness of the trail are sufficient to also account for the coma brightness observed while the comet was inside 3 AU, and we infer that the cross-section in the coma of CG may be dominated by grains of the order of .  相似文献   

Producing an Indigenous Knowledge Web GIS for Arctic Alaska Communities: Challenges,Successes, and Lessons Learned     

Wendy R. Eisner  Jessica Jelacic  Chris J. Cuomo  Changjoo Kim  Kenneth M. Hinkel  Dorin Del Alba 《Transactions in GIS》2012,16(1):17-37

A traditional knowledge “Iñupiaq Web GIS”, based on a five‐year study and containing observations and environmental knowledge of Iñupiat communities indigenous to Arctic Alaska, was incorporated into a Web‐based platform. The website, “Arctic Cultural Cartography,” was created to be an open portal through which the password‐protected “Iñupiaq Web GIS” could be accessed. We discuss the process of developing the web GIS including the incorporation of user‐friendly features such as links to interactive maps, video clips of interviews, discussion boards, and the integration of popular web interfaces such as Facebook. We also discuss short‐ and long‐term goals for the further development of the GIS, its potential as a sustainable, participatory online database for sharing pertinent ecological knowledge, and challenges in achieving optimal community involvement given constraints imposed by remote locations with limited bandwidth.  相似文献   

Periodic orbits in the generalized perturbed restricted three-body problem     

Jagadish Singh  Jessica Mrumun Begha 《Astrophysics and Space Science》2011,332(2):319-324

This paper studies the existence and stability of equilibrium points under the influence of small perturbations in the Coriolis and the centrifugal forces, together with the non-sphericity of the primaries. The problem is generalized in the sense that the bigger and smaller primaries are respectively triaxial and oblate spheroidal bodies. It is found that the locations of equilibrium points are affected by the non-sphericity of the bodies and the change in the centrifugal force. It is also seen that the triangular points are stable for 0<μ<μ _c and unstable for m_c ￡ m < \frac12\mu_{c}\le\mu <\frac{1}{2}, where μ _c is the critical mass parameter depending on the above perturbations, triaxiality and oblateness. It is further observed that collinear points remain unstable.  相似文献   

The effect of sulfate concentration on (sub)millimeter-scale sulfide δS in hypersaline cyanobacterial mats over the diurnal cycle     

David A. Fike  Niko Finke  Jessica Zha  Tori M. Hoehler 《Geochimica et cosmochimica acta》2009,73(20):6187-6204

Substantial isotopic fractionations are associated with many microbial sulfur metabolisms and measurements of the bulk δ³⁴S isotopic composition of sulfur species (predominantly sulfates and/or sulfides) have been a key component in developing our understanding of both modern and ancient biogeochemical cycling. However, the interpretations of bulk δ³⁴S measurements are often non-unique, making reconstructions of paleoenvironmental conditions or microbial ecology challenging. In particular, the link between the μm-scale microbial activity that generates isotopic signatures and their eventual preservation as a bulk rock value in the geologic record has remained elusive, in large part because of the difficulty of extracting sufficient material at small scales. Here we investigate the potential for small-scale (∼100 μm-1 cm) δ³⁴S variability to provide additional constraints for environmental and/or ecological reconstructions. We have investigated the impact of sulfate concentrations (0.2, 1, and 80 mM SO₄) on the δ³⁴S composition of hydrogen sulfide produced over the diurnal (day/night) cycle in cyanobacterial mats from Guerrero Negro, Baja California Sur, Mexico. Sulfide was captured as silver sulfide on the surface of a 2.5 cm metallic silver disk partially submerged beneath the mat surface. Subsequent analyses were conducted on a Cameca 7f-GEO secondary ion mass spectrometer (SIMS) to record spatial δ³⁴S variability within the mats under different environmental conditions. Isotope measurements were made in a 2-dimensional grid for each incubation, documenting both lateral and vertical isotopic variation within the mats. Typical grids consisted of ∼400-800 individual measurements covering a lateral distance of ∼1 mm and a vertical depth of ∼5-15 mm. There is a large isotopic enrichment (∼10-20‰) in the uppermost mm of sulfide in those mats where [SO₄] was non-limiting (field and lab incubations at 80 mM). This is attributed to rapid recycling of sulfur (elevated sulfate reduction rates and extensive sulfide oxidation) at and above the chemocline. This isotopic gradient is observed in both day and night enrichments and suggests that, despite the close physical association between cyanobacteria and select sulfate-reducing bacteria, photosynthetic forcing has no substantive impact on δ³⁴S in these cyanobacterial mats. Perhaps equally surprising, large, spatially-coherent δ³⁴S oscillations (∼20-30‰ over 1 mm) occurred at depths up to ∼1.5 cm below the mat surface. These gradients must arise in situ from differential microbial metabolic activity and fractionation during sulfide production at depth. Sulfate concentrations were the dominant control on the spatial variability of sulfide δ³⁴S. Decreased sulfate concentrations diminished both vertical and lateral δ³⁴S variability, suggesting that small-scale variations of δ³⁴S can be diagnostic for reconstructing past sulfate concentrations, even when original sulfate δ³⁴S is unknown.  相似文献   

Estimates of lichen growth–rate in northern Sweden     

Wibjörn Karlén  & Jessica L. Black 《Geografiska Annaler: Series A, Physical Geography》2002,84(3-4):225-232

Two lichenometric techniques were compared in a study of lichen growth–rate in northern Sweden. The first technique, based on the maximum lichen diameter on glacier moraines, was identical to the technique used in the 1970s, whereas the other utilized the lichen diameter measured on 100 randomly selected boulders. The results indicate that it does not matter which technique is chosen, as long as the technique is used consistently on both the calibration surfaces and the surfaces to be dated. The use of data from both the 1970s and the 2000s increased the number of calibration surfaces available. The new calibration curve indicates that the age of Little Ice Age moraines was underestimated by up to about 30 years in the study conducted in the 1970s.  相似文献   

The last lavas erupted during the main phase of the Siberian flood volcanic province: results from experimental petrology     

Linda T. Elkins-Tanton  David S. Draper  Carl B. Agee  Jessica Jewell  Andrew Thorpe  P. C. Hess 《Contributions to Mineralogy and Petrology》2007,153(2):191-209

The final lavas of the Siberian flood basalts are a ∼1,000 m thick section of meimechites, high-alkali, high-titanium, hydrous lavas that contrast sharply with the tholeiites that precede them. This paper presents a phase equilibrium study indicating that a candidate primary meimechite magma with 1 wt% water originated at ∼5.5 GPa and 1,700°C, both hotter and shallower than other estimates for melting beneath continental lithosphere. The experiments also suggest that a higher volatile content was involved in meimechite source genesis. Both the absence of orthopyroxene in any experiment and the close field association with carbonatites suggest that the meimechite source region may have been metasomatized with a CO₂-rich fluid. A small additional quantity of CO₂ and water would move magma origination to ∼1,550–1,600°C.  相似文献