How U.S. ocean policy and market power can reform the coral reef wildlife trade     

Brian N. Tissot  Barbara A. Best  Eric H. Borneman  Andrew W. Bruckner  Cara H. Cooper  Heather D’Agnes  Timothy P. Fitzgerald  Amanda Leland  Susan Lieberman  Amy Mathews Amos  Rashid Sumaila  Teresa M. Telecky  Frazer McGilvray  Brian J. Plankis  Andrew L. Rhyne  Glynnis G. Roberts  Benjamin Starkhouse  Todd C. Stevenson 《Marine Policy》2010

As the world’s largest importer of marine ornamental species for the aquaria, curio, home décor, and jewelry industries, the United States has an opportunity to leverage its considerable market power to promote more sustainable trade and reduce the effects of ornamental trade stress on coral reefs worldwide. Evidence indicates that collection of some coral reef animals for these trades has caused virtual elimination of local populations, major changes in age structure, and promotion of collection practices that destroy reef habitats. Management and enforcement of collection activities in major source countries such as Indonesia and the Philippines remain weak. Strengthening US trade laws and enforcement capabilities combined with increasing consumer and industry demand for responsible conservation can create strong incentives for improving management in source countries. This is particularly important in light of the March 2010 failure of the parties to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) to take action on key groups of corals.  相似文献   

Using the Newly‐created ILE DBMS to Better Represent Temporal and Historical GIS Data     

Vitit Kantabutra  J. B. “Jack” Owens  Daniel P. Ames  Charles N. Burns  Barbara Stephenson 《Transactions in GIS》2010,14(Z1):39-58

This article introduces a type of DBMS called the Intentionally‐Linked Entities (ILE) DBMS for use as the basis for temporal and historical Geographical Information Systems. ILE represents each entity in a database only once, thereby mostly eliminating redundancy and fragmentation, two major problems in Relational and other database systems. These advantages of ILE are realized by using relationship objects and pointers to implement all of the relationships among data entities in a native fashion using dynamically‐allocated linked data structures. ILE can be considered to be a modern and extended implementation of the E/R data model. ILE also facilitates storage of things that are more faithful to the historical records, such as gazetteer entries of places with imprecisely known or unknown locations. This is difficult in Relational database systems but is a routine task using ILE because ILE is implemented using modern memory allocation techniques. We use the China Historical GIS (CHGIS) and other databases to illustrate the advantages of ILE. This is accomplished by modeling these databases in ILE and comparing them to the existing Relational implementations.  相似文献   

Vulnerabilities,competition and rights in a context of climate change toward equitable water governance in Peru's Rio Santa Valley     

Barbara Deutsch Lynch 《Global Environmental Change》2012,22(2):364-373

As glacial retreat changes the hydrology of Peru's Rio Santa, water demand is growing, pollution is worsening, and competition for water among economic sectors, political jurisdictions and upstream and downstream water users is intensifying. The vulnerability of highland communities, food producers, and poor urban neighborhoods in the Santa watershed in the face of these changes is magnified by inequities in water governance, giving rise to water conflict. Peru's new water regime defines water as an economic good and seeks to centralize control over water. This article analyzes implications of this regime for ensuring equity and managing conflict. It concludes that Peru's water regime is more likely to address equity issues when faced with concerted citizen action.  相似文献   

Assessment of coastal flooding hazard along the Emilia Romagna littoral,IT     

Luca Martinelli  Barbara Zanuttigh  Corinne Corbau 《Coastal Engineering》2010,57(11-12):1042-1058

Aim of this paper is to develop simple tools for mapping — at regional and local scale — coastal areas exposed at flooding risk. A two-step simplified procedure for coastal management purposes is presented and is applied to Emilia Romagna (Italy), whose low and sandy coast faces the relatively mild Northern Adriatic Sea. The procedure is composed by a 1D conceptual model to determine flooding probability along wide coastal stretches and by a more detailed 2D Level II reliability method, that provides local quantitative statistical maps of inland flooding propagation. Qualitative maps obtained by literature approaches and quantitative results of flooding probability along the littoral show a good agreement. A coastal flood state indicator is proposed to rapidly assess coastal hazard.  相似文献   

Nonequilibrium Processes in the Solar Corona,Transition Region,Flares, and Solar Wind <Emphasis Type="Italic">(Invited Review)</Emphasis>     

Jaroslav Dudík  Elena Dzifčáková  Nicole Meyer-Vernet  Giulio Del Zanna  Peter R. Young  Alessandra Giunta  Barbara Sylwester  Janusz Sylwester  Mitsuo Oka  Helen E. Mason  Christian Vocks  Lorenzo Matteini  Säm Krucker  David R. Williams  Šimon Mackovjak 《Solar physics》2017,292(8):100

We review the presence and signatures of the non-equilibrium processes, both non-Maxwellian distributions and non-equilibrium ionization, in the solar transition region, corona, solar wind, and flares. Basic properties of the non-Maxwellian distributions are described together with their influence on the heat flux as well as on the rates of individual collisional processes and the resulting optically thin synthetic spectra. Constraints on the presence of high-energy electrons from observations are reviewed, including positive detection of non-Maxwellian distributions in the solar corona, transition region, flares, and wind. Occurrence of non-equilibrium ionization is reviewed as well, especially in connection to hydrodynamic and generalized collisional-radiative modeling. Predicted spectroscopic signatures of non-equilibrium ionization depending on the assumed plasma conditions are summarized. Finally, we discuss the future remote-sensing instrumentation that can be used for the detection of these non-equilibrium phenomena in various spectral ranges.  相似文献   

Mycological evidence of coprophagy from the feces of an Alaskan Late Glacial mammoth     

Bas van Geel  R. Dale Guthrie  Jens G. Altmann  Peter Broekens  Ian D. Bull  Fiona L. Gill  Boris Jansen  Aline M. Nieman  Barbara Gravendeel 《Quaternary Science Reviews》2011,30(17-18):2289-2303

Dung from a mammoth was preserved under frozen conditions in Alaska. The mammoth lived during the early part of the Late Glacial interstadial (ca 12,300 BP). Microfossils, macroremains and ancient DNA from the dung were studied and the chemical composition was determined to reconstruct both the paleoenvironment and paleobiology of this mammoth. Pollen spectra are dominated by Poaceae, Artemisia and other light-demanding taxa, indicating an open, treeless landscape (‘mammoth steppe’). Fruits and seeds support this conclusion. The dung consists mainly of cyperaceous stems and leaves, with a minor component of vegetative remains of Poaceae. Analyses of fragments of the plastid rbcL gene and trnL intron and nrITS1 region, amplified from DNA extracted from the dung, supplemented the microscopic identifications. Many fruit bodies with ascospores of the coprophilous fungus Podospora conica were found inside the dung ball, indicating that the mammoth had eaten dung. The absence of bile acids points to mammoth dung. This is the second time that evidence for coprophagy of mammoths has been derived from the presence of fruit bodies of coprophilous fungi in frozen dung. Coprophagy might well have been a common habit of mammoths. Therefore, we strongly recommend that particular attention should be given to fungal remains in future fossil dung studies.  相似文献   

Voracious planktonic hydroids: unexpected predatory impact on a coastal marine ecosystem     

Laurence P. Madin  Stephen M. Bollens  Erich Horgan  Mari Butler  Jeffrey Runge  Barbara K. Sullivan  Grace Klein-Macphee  Edward Durbin  Ann G. Durbin  Donna Van Keuren  Stphane Plourde  Ann Bucklin  M. Elizabeth Clarke 《Deep Sea Research Part II: Topical Studies in Oceanography》1996,43(7-8)

Hydroids are typically attached, benthic cnidarians that feed on a variety of small prey. During sampling on Georges Bank in spring 1994, we found huge numbers of hydroids suspended in the plankton. They fed on young stages of copepods that are an important prey for fish, as well as on young fish themselves. Two independent methods were used to estimate feeding rates of the hydroids; both indicate that the hydroids are capable of consuming from 50% to over 100% of the daily production of young copepods. These results suggest that hydroids can have a profound effect on the population dynamics of zooplankton and young fish on Georges Bank.  相似文献   

Potential Salinity and Temperature Futures for the Chesapeake Bay Using a Statistical Downscaling Spatial Disaggregation Framework     

Barbara A. Muhling  Carlos F. Gaitán  Charles A. Stock  Vincent S. Saba  Desiree Tommasi  Keith W. Dixon 《Estuaries and Coasts》2018,41(2):349-372

Estuaries are productive and ecologically important ecosystems, incorporating environmental drivers from watersheds, rivers, and the coastal ocean. Climate change has potential to modify the physical properties of estuaries, with impacts on resident organisms. However, projections from general circulation models (GCMs) are generally too coarse to resolve important estuarine processes. Here, we statistically downscaled near-surface air temperature and precipitation projections to the scale of the Chesapeake Bay watershed and estuary. These variables were linked to Susquehanna River streamflow using a water balance model and finally to spatially resolved Chesapeake Bay surface temperature and salinity using statistical model trees. The low computational cost of this approach allowed rapid assessment of projected changes from four GCMs spanning a range of potential futures under a high CO₂ emission scenario, for four different downscaling methods. Choice of GCM contributed strongly to the spread in projections, but choice of downscaling method was also influential in the warmest models. Models projected a ~2–5.5 °C increase in surface water temperatures in the Chesapeake Bay by the end of the century. Projections of salinity were more uncertain and spatially complex. Models showing increases in winter-spring streamflow generated freshening in the Upper Bay and tributaries, while models with decreased streamflow produced salinity increases. Changes to the Chesapeake Bay environment have implications for fish and invertebrate habitats, as well as migration, spawning phenology, recruitment, and occurrence of pathogens. Our results underline a potentially expanded role of statistical downscaling to complement dynamical approaches in assessing climate change impacts in dynamically challenging estuaries.  相似文献   

Monitoring and Modeling of Syringodium filiforme (Manatee Grass) in Southern Indian River Lagoon     

Christopher Buzzelli  Rebecca Robbins  Peter Doering  Zhiqiang Chen  Detong Sun  Yongshan Wan  Barbara Welch  Arthur Schwarzschild 《Estuaries and Coasts》2012,35(6):1401-1415

Decreased salinity and submarine light associated with hurricanes of 2004?C2005 impacted seagrass habitats in the Florida coastal zone. A combination of salinities ??20 and light attenuation ??1.5?m^?1 resulting from the freshwater discharge in 2005 were among the drivers for a widespread decrease in the coverage and biomass of Syringodium filiforme (manatee grass) in 2006. These observations provided an opportunity to develop and apply a modeling framework to simulate responses of S. filiforme to variable water quality. The framework connects water column variables to field monitoring of seagrass abundance and salinity growth response experiments. The base model was calibrated with macrophyte abundance observed in southern Indian River Lagoon (IRL) from 2002 to 2007 and tested against shoot data from a different time (1997?C2002) and nearby location in the IRL. Model shoot biomass (gC?m^?2) was similar to field observations (r ²?=?0.70) while responding to monthly seasonal fluctuations in salinity and light throughout the 6-year simulations. Field and model results indicated that S. filiforme growth and survival were sensitive to, and increased with, rising salinity throughout 2007. This modeling study emphasizes that discharge, salinity, and submarine light are inter-dependent variables affecting South Florida seagrass habitats on seasonal to inter-annual time scales.  相似文献   

Relict sand dredging for beach nourishment in the central Tyrrhenian Sea (Italy): effects on benthic assemblages     

Barbara La Porta  Monica Targusi  Loretta Lattanzi  Paola La Valle  Daniela Paganelli  & Luisa Nicoletti 《Marine Ecology》2009,30(S1):97-104

The aim of this study is to analyse the effects in space and time of relict sand-dredging activities on macrobenthic assemblages, in an area situated offshore Montalto di Castro (central Tyrrhenian Sea, Italy), and to analyse the recolonisation processes of macrobenthos in the dredged areas. The area in question is characterised by relict sand deposits (Holocenic paleo-beaches), used for beach nourishment along the Latium coast. The effects of sand extraction on benthic assemblages were investigated before, during and after three dredging operations. The sites analysed are located within the dredged areas (inside stations) and in neighbouring, not dredged, areas (outside stations). The results showed that the impact of sand extraction was confined to the dredged stations and to the areas in proximity to the dredged areas. During dredging activities, the structure of benthic assemblages within the impacted stations was characterised by low species richness and diversity. Both the direct removal of sediment and the re-suspension and consequent deposition of fine sediment affected benthic assemblages of the impacted stations. A few months after the dredgings, a recolonisation process was still observed at all the impacted stations. A gradual recolonisation process was observed at those stations affected by only one dredging, whereas a different recolonisation was observed at those stations affected by two dredgings over time. This study suggests that differences of re-colonisation processes of benthic assemblages are related to the intensity of dredging operations in terms of dredging frequency.  相似文献