ALBERT

Description: A map of the tidal flats of China, Manchuria and Korea depicted in US Army Map Service Series L500, L542 and L552 topographic maps (compiled between 1950 and 1964). The topographic maps were georeferenced against prominent topographical features in L1T processed Landsat imagery and the foreshore flat class was manually delineated. For further information refer to Murray et. al. (2014).

Description: Vazella pourtalesi presence and absence data were obtained from several different sources: DFO's multispecies trawl survey conducted in the Maritimes Region between 2007 to 2017 (presences and absences), DFO optical (in-house camera/video and remotely operated vehicle) benthic surveys conducted between 2001 and 2017 (presences only), and commercial bycatch records from the Fisheries Observer Program (FOP) from 1997 to 2007, and 2010 to 2015 (presences only). The DFO multispecies trawl survey is stratified random (by depth) and conducted using primarily Western IIA trawl gear. The average distance of these tows is ~ 3.17 km. Absence records were created from null (zero) catches that occurred in the same surveys. Commercial bycatch data between 1997 to 2007 from the Fisheries Observer Program was further post-processed and validated for accuracy, while the data from 2010 to 2015 was extracted directly from the Maritimes Fishery Science Database managed by DFO. Commercial trawls are much longer in duration and may follow bottom contours and/or retrace their footprint through the course of a 10+ km tow. For both the DFO multispecies trawl survey and FOP data, start coordinates were used to represent the tow, whereas for the DFO benthic imagery survey data the actual location of the V. pourtalesi record in situ was used. A 1 x 1 km grid matching that of the environmental data was placed over the study area and the presence-absence data were reduced to one record per cell, with a presence taking precedence over an absence if both occurred in the same cell. This gave a total of 215 presences (102 from the DFO trawl surveys, 47 from DFO benthic science surveys, and 66 from the FOP) and 2867 absences for the model.

Description: Concerns about the regional impact of global climate change in a warming scenario have highlighted the gaps in our understanding of the Indian Summer Monsoon (ISM, also referred to as the Indian Ocean summer monsoon) and the absence of long term palaeoclimate data from the central Indian core monsoon zone (CMZ). Here we present the first high resolution, well-dated, multiproxy reconstruction of Holocene palaeoclimate from a 10 m long sediment core raised from the Lonar Lake in central India. We show that while the early Holocene onset of intensified monsoon in the CMZ is similar to that reported from other ISM records, the Lonar data shows two prolonged droughts (PD, multidecadal to centennial periods of weaker monsoon) between 4.6–3.9 and 2–0.6 cal ka. A comparison of our record with available data from other ISM influenced sites shows that the impact of these PD was observed in varying degrees throughout the ISM realm and coincides with intervals of higher solar irradiance. We demonstrate that (i) the regional warming in the Indo-Pacific Warm Pool (IPWP) plays an important role in causing ISM PD through changes in meridional overturning circulation and position of the anomalous Walker cell; (ii) the long term influence of conditions like El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) on the ISM began only ca. 2 cal ka BP and is coincident with the warming of the southern IPWP; (iii) the first settlements in central India coincided with the onset of the first PD and agricultural populations flourished between the two PD, highlighting the significance of natural climate variability and PD as major environmental factors affecting human settlements.

Description: Shorebirds have declined severely across the East Asian-Australasian Flyway. Many species rely on intertidal habitats for foraging, yet the distribution and conservation status of these habitats across Australia remain poorly understood. Here, we utilised freely available satellite imagery to produce the first map of intertidal habitats across Australia. We estimated a minimum intertidal area of 9856 km**2, with Queensland and Western Australia supporting the largest areas. Thirty-nine percent of intertidal habitats were protected in Australia, with some primarily within marine protected areas (e.g. Queensland) and others within terrestrial protected areas (e.g. Victoria). In fact, three percent of all intertidal habitats were protected both by both marine and terrestrial protected areas. To achieve conservation targets, protected area boundaries must align more accurately with intertidal habitats. Shorebirds use intertidal areas to forage and supratidal areas to roost, so a coordinated management approach is required to account for movement of birds between terrestrial and marine habitats. Ultimately, shorebird declines are occurring despite high levels of habitat protection in Australia. There is a need for a concerted effort both nationally and internationally to map and understand how intertidal habitats are changing, and how habitat conservation can be implemented more effectively.

Description: Site 76 was selected in order to core a thick sequence of sediments north of the Tuamotu ridge that had been crossed by Glomar Challenger justprior to the termination of Leg 8 in Tahiti. Two holes at this site continuously cored 27 meters of lower Pliocene to Recent phillipsitic clay and calcareous nannofossil ooze interbedded with calcareous turbidites. The drill bit was stopped by a silicified calcareous turbidite of Early Pliocene age.

Description: Site 79 is located on the crest of the equatorial Pacific sediment belt (Ewing and others, 1968) and is the westernmost of a series of sites (79, 81, 82 and 83) that follow the crest of this belt eastward to and across the crest of the oceanic ridge, locally known as the East Pacific Rise. The purpose of these sites is two-fold: 1) to study variations in biostratigraphy and sediment type from west to east across the Pacific and 2) to paleontologically date basement and determine the rate of spreading of the Pacific plate since the time of deposition of the oldest sediments at Site 77.

Description: While systematic biodiversity surveys are common in the Global North, much of the tropics remains vastly under-surveyed. With the rise in popularity of social media and camera phones, millions of people are now sharing their photographs online, which can be an effective source of biodiversity occurrence data. Here, we report on just such an exercise for the animals of Bangladesh, a megadiverse South Asian nation. This dataset was compiled by searching for species distribution records in seven large Facebook groups, following the method described by Chowdhury et al. (2021). The Facebook groups comprised: Birds Bangladesh (https://www.facebook.com/groups/2403154788); Deep Ecology And Snake Rescue Foundation (https://www.facebook.com/groups/959896627527624); Biodiversity of Bangladesh; (https://www.facebook.com/groups/249240636186853); Butterfly Bangladesh; (https://www.facebook.com/groups/488719627817749); Mammals of Bangladesh; (https://www.facebook.com/groups/647662968655338); Amphibians and Reptiles of Bangladesh; (https://www.facebook.com/groups/560709511527645); Biodiversity of Greater Kushtia (https://www.facebook.com/groups/244807066739477). In each group, we searched by species common name, obtained from IUCN Bangladesh (2015), double-checked the identification in each photograph, and georeferenced the observations using Google Maps (https://maps.google.com/). We excluded photographs if the identification was incomplete (coarser than species level), or incorrect; if the photograph did not allow clear taxonomic identification; or if the location was unspecified or could not be accurately determined.