Holocene survival of the wild horse in Europe: a matter of open landscape?     

Robert S. Sommer  Norbert Benecke  Lembi Lõugas  Oliver Nelle  Ulrich Schmölcke 《第四纪科学杂志》2011,26(8):805-812

The wild horse Equus ferus was one of the most frequent species of the Late Pleistocene large ungulate fauna in Eurasia and played an important role in the subsistence of human groups, especially at the end the Late Glacial. It is frequently assumed that E. ferus became extinct in Europe at the beginning of the Holocene because of the development of woodlands and loss of open habitats. Because of its preference for open habitats and in spite of its adaptability, the appearance or disappearance of the wild horse could therefore be a suitable palaeoecological indicator for the opening of the Holocene primeval woodlands. We revised the dating and reliability of the subfossil record and dated several bones by atomic mass spectrometry ¹⁴C dating. From the beginning of the Holocene (9600 cal a BC) to the end of the Atlantic Period (3750 cal a BC) there are 207 archaeological sites with wild horse records available in Europe. E. ferus survived the Pleistocene Holocene transition in Europe, but the spatiotemporal dynamics of populations fluctuated remarkably in the early and middle Holocene. Small and sparse populations increasingly became extinct during the early Holocene, until between 7100 and 5500 cal a BC the wild horse was almost absent in central parts of the European Lowlands. Particular conditions in natural open patches in the canopy forests, chalklands and floodplains may have maintained the local survival of the horse in some regions of the Lowlands, however. In the Late Atlantic, between 5500 and 3750 cal a BC the range of the wild horse was again extended. It re‐immigrated into central and western Europe, probably as a consequence of increasing landscape opening by Neolithic peoples. The data presented here may be a valuable part of the debate on the degree of openness of the early and middle Holocene landscape. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.  相似文献   

Last straw versus Blitzkrieg overkill: Climate-driven changes in the Arctic Siberian mammoth population and the Late Pleistocene extinction problem     

P.A. Nikolskiy  L.D. Sulerzhitsky  V.V. Pitulko 《Quaternary Science Reviews》2011,30(17-18):2309-2328

A set of radiocarbon dates on woolly mammoth were obtained from several regions of Arctic Siberia: the New Siberian Islands (n = 68), north of the Yana-Indigirka Lowland (n = 43), and the Taimyr Peninsula (n = 18). Based on these and earlier published dates (n = 201) from the East Arctic, a comparative analysis of the time-related density distribution of ¹⁴C dates was conducted. It was shown that the frequencies of ¹⁴C dates under certain conditions reflect temporal fluctuations in mammoth numbers. At the end of the Pleistocene the number of mammoths in the East Arctic changed in a cyclic manner in keeping with a general “Milankovitch-like” trend. The fluctuations in numbers at the end of the Pleistocene occurred synchronously with paleoenvironmental changes controlled by global climatic change. There were three minima of relative mammoth numbers during the last 50 000 years: 22 000, 14 500–19 000, and 9500 radiocarbon years ago, or around 26 000, 16–20 000, and 10 500 calendar years respectively. The last mammoths lived on the New Siberian Islands, which were connected to the continent at that time, 9470 ± 40 radiocarbon years ago (10 700 ± 70 calendar years BP). This new youngest date approximates the extinction time of mammoths in the last continental refugium of the Holarctic. The adverse combination of environmental parameters was apparently a major factor in the critical reduction in mammoth numbers. The dispersal of humans into the Arctic areas of Siberia no later than 28 000 radiocarbon years ago did not overtly influence animal numbers. Humans were not responsible for the destruction of a sustainable mammoth population. The expanding human population could have become fatal to mammoths during strong the minima of their numbers, one of which occurred at the very beginning of the Holocene.  相似文献   

The Quaternary Lancaster Sound trough‐mouth fan,NW Baffin Bay     

Gang Li  David J.W. Piper  D. Calvin Campbell 《第四纪科学杂志》2011,26(5):511-522

The development of the Lancaster Sound Trough Mouth Fan (TMF) and glacial history in Arctic Canada were studied using a high‐resolution seismic profile across the entire fan and two piston cores. Stacked tills separated by erosion surfaces on the shelf pass seaward through till deltas into thick transparent glacigenic debris flow (GDF) deposits on the slope, separated by thin, well‐stratified glaciomarine layers. An age model was built by ties to the Ocean Drilling Program Site 645. The deepest GDF on the seismic profile was indicative of the onset of shelf‐crossing glaciation in the Early Pleistocene. The transition of the growth of Lancaster Sound TMF from an aggradational sequence (unit M) to an aggradational–progradational sequence (unit F) occurred at the Middle Pleistocene transition in glacial cyclicity. In the most recent glacial cycle, GDF sheets were deposited during Heinrich events 4 and 2 according to the correlation of the main detrital carbonate beds in two piston cores. The outmost till wedge reflects the maximum advance of the grounding glacier, far seaward of previously proposed Last Glacial Maximum ice extent. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.  相似文献   

Topics The Precambrian fossils of Charnwood Forest     

Trevor D. Ford 《Geology Today》1999,15(6):230-234

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An overview of the ACE‐2 CLOUDYCOLUMN closure experiment     

J. L. Brenguier  P. Y. Chuang  Y. Fouquart  D. W. Johnson  F. Parol  Hanna Pawlowska  Jacques Pelon  Lothar Schüller  F. Schröder  J. Snider 《Tellus. Series B, Chemical and physical meteorology》2000,52(2):815-827

CLOUDYCOLUMN is one of the 6 ACE‐2 projects which took place in June‐July 1997, between Portugal and the Canary Islands. It was specifically dedicated to the study of changes of cloud radiative properties resulting from changes in the properties of those aerosols which act as cloud condensation nuclei. This process is also refered to as the aerosol indirect effect on climate. CLOUDYCOLUMN is focused on the contribution of stratocumulus clouds to that process. In addition to the basic aerosol measurements performed at the ground stations of the ACE‐2 project, 5 instrumented aircraft carried out in situ characterization of aerosol physical, chemical and nucleation properties and cloud dynamical and microphysical properties. Cloud radiative properties were also measured remotely with radiometers and a lidar. 11 case studies have been documented, from pure marine to significantly polluted air masses. The simultaneity of the measurements with the multi‐aircraft approach provides a unique data set for closure experiments on the aerosol indirect effect. In particular CLOUDYCOLUMN provided the 1st experimental evidence of the existence of the indirect effect in boundary layer clouds forming in polluted continental outbreacks. This paper describes the objectives of the project, the instrumental setup and the sampling strategy. Preliminary results published in additional papers are briefly summarized.  相似文献   

Lessons from a Disturbance Experiment in the Intertidal Zone of an Exposed Sandy Beach     

D. S. Schoeman  A. Mclachlan  J. E. Dugan 《Estuarine, Coastal and Shelf Science》2000,50(6):869

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Shear stress statistics and wall similarity analysis in turbulentboundary layers using a high-resolution 3-D ADVP     

Hurther  D. Lemmin  U. 《Oceanic Engineering, IEEE Journal of》2000,25(4):446-457

Three-dimensional (3-D) quasi-instantaneous acoustic Doppler velocity profiles at the center of uniform, turbulent open-channel flow over smooth and rough beds have been analyzed for the dynamics of coherent structures. The qualitative aspects of simultaneously measured Eulerian velocity and shear stress signatures identify coherent structures in the water column. A cumulant discard method is applied to describe the statistical properties of the covariance terms u'w' along the mean flow and v'w' across the mean flow relative to their time means. Conditional statistics and conditional sampling are used to compare the theoretical and experimental relative covariance contributions from the four quadrants in the longitudinal and transverse planes. The results in the (u', w') plane show the dominance of ejections (quadrant 2; u'<0, w'>0) and sweeps (quadrant 4; u'>0, w'<0). In contrast, the distribution of fractional v'w' events in the transverse plane is quasi-uniform over the four quadrants. Based on these experimentally determined statistical properties of the covariance terms in different flow conditions, a simplified form of the vertical turbulent energy flux in the intermediate flow region is given and the concept of wall similarity in turbulent boundary layers is validated. Since the validity of the wall similarity concept over a wide range of bed roughness has been shown, it is proposed to determine the mean bed friction velocity from the evaluation of the vertical turbulent energy flux  相似文献   

Interspecific competition affects temperature stability in Daisyworld     

JOEL E. COHEN  ALBERT D. RICH 《Tellus. Series B, Chemical and physical meteorology》2000,52(3):980-984

The model of Daisyworld showed that nonteleological mechanistic responses of life to the physical environment can stabilize an exogenously perturbed environment. In the model, 2 species of daisies, black and white, stabilize the global temperature of a planet exposed to different levels of insolation. In both species, the response of the growth rate to local temperature is identical, but differences in albedo between the 2 species generate differences in local temperatures. The shifting balance between the daisies keeps the global temperature in a range suitable for life. Watson and Lovelock made the stronger claim that "the model always shows greater stability with daisies than it does without them." We examined this claim by introducing an extra source of competition into the equations that describe the interactions between the daisy species. Depending on the parameters of competition, temperatures can vary more widely with increasing insolation in the presence of daisies than without them. It now seems possible, timely and perhaps necessary, to include an accurate representation of interspecific competition when taking account of vegetational influences on climate.  相似文献   

Seagrass ecophysiology meets ecological genomics: are we ready?     

Gabriele Procaccini  Sven Beer  Mats Björk  Jeanine Olsen  Silvia Mazzuca  Rui Santos 《Marine Ecology》2012,33(4):522-527

In March 2011, the Ecophysiology and Genetics Working Groups of the European Science Foundation COST Action ES 0906, entitled Seagrass Productivity: From Genes to Ecosystem Management, organized an exploratory workshop entitled “Linking Ecophysiology and Ecogenomics in Seagrass Systems”. The goal of the workshop was to discuss how to integrate comparative gene expression studies with physiological processes such as photosynthetic performance, carbon and nitrogen utilization and environmental adaptation. The main questions discussed for integrative research related to mechanisms of carbon utilization, light requirements, temperature effects and natural variation in pH and ocean acidification. It was concluded that the seagrass research community is still in the nascent stages of linking ecophysiology with genomic responses, as carbon and nitrogen metabolism of seagrasses have not been sufficiently well studied. Likewise, genomic approaches have only been able to assign meaningful interpretations to a handful of differentially expressed genes. Nevertheless, the way forward has been established.  相似文献   

Coral communities and reefs from Guerrero,Southern Mexican Pacific     

Ramón A. López‐Pérez  Luis E. Calderón‐Aguilera  Héctor Reyes‐Bonilla  José D. Carriquiry  Pedro Medina‐Rosas  Amilcar L. Cupul‐Magaña  María D. Herrero‐Pérezrul  Héctor A. Hernández‐Ramírez  Miguel Á. Ahumada‐Sempoal  Betsabe M. Luna‐Salguero 《Marine Ecology》2012,33(4):407-416

Corals in the Eastern Pacific extend south from the Gulf of California to Ecuador and oceanic Chile, and west from Colombia to Clipperton Atoll. Nevertheless, large stretches of the Mexican Pacific remain fundamentally unstudied. Therefore, to assess the current conditions of coral communities, a coastal fringe ～300 km long (17°40′ N, 101°39′ W to 16°46′ N, 99°49′ W) was surveyed within the Southern Mexican Pacific, between 2005 and 2009. Fifteen stony coral species were identified at 13 coral communities and six Pocillopora‐dominated fringing reefs, with Pocillopora verrucosa and Pocillopora damicornis the primary contributing taxa. Reef development was identified in embayments or behind rocks or islands that offered shelter from northern and northwestern winds. Observations of Pocillopora effusus, Pocillopora inflata, Porites lobata, Pavona clavus, and Pavona varians expanded the species known geographic ranges by several degrees of latitude, suggesting reef building fauna comprised a mixture of widespread and relatively rare Eastern Pacific corals. Results indicated greater live coral cover in the Ixtapa‐Zihuatanejo area (15–73%) than in the Acapulco localities, which had high algal dominance; the reefs in the latter region exhibited high erosion. Regional differences are likely the result of long‐standing anthropogenic pressures around Acapulco since 1950, when it became an important tourist destination. This paper is the first detailed report of ecologically stressed corals and coral reefs from the state of Guerrero on the Mexican Southern Pacific coast.  相似文献