ALBERT

Description: Studies of laboratory cultures of Chordaria linearis (Hooker et Harvey) Cotton from southernmost South America revealed that this species has an obligate sexual life history in which a macroscopic sporophyte alternates with a monoecious microscopic gametophyte. Sexual reproduction is isogamous and under photoperiodic control. Gametes are produced only in short days, whereas in long days, asexual zoospores are formed that recycle the gametophyte generation. Unfused gametes develop into gametophytes, and sporophytes originate only from zygotes. Unlike other sexual members of the Chordariales, gametes of C. linearis have a reduced stigma and do not show phototaxis. They are released at the beginning of the night, not in the morning. In nature, C. linearis seems to be regularly infected by a dictyosiphonalean epiphyte resembling the rare arctic species Trachynema groenlandicum (Lund) Pedersen. The epiphyte is responsible for previous contradictory results obtained in laboratory cultures of C. linearis. This is the first record of Trachynema in the southern hemisphere.

Description: The constancy of postmoult/premoult ratios of measures of linear size during ontogeny in insect and other arthropods is widely known as Dyar's rule. We tested this rule in nine species of the waterstrider genera Gerris and Aquarius (Heteroptera: Gerridae), using two size variables: head width and a multivariate measure derived from the pattern of multivariate allometry common to the species considered. Allometric patterns were similar in two independent datasets of laboratory-reared and field-caught specimens. Although our data strictly followed Dyar's rule injust a few instances, all growth ratios varied within a limited range only. Growth ratios for head width differed more between moults than those for multivariate size. The relationship between growth ratios for the two size measures conformed to the predictions based on allometry. We discuss hypotheses of the possible adaptive significance of growth ratios, such as their relation to mobility and systematic differences between hemimetabolous and holometabolous insects, and emphasize the importance of allometry. Since Dyar's rule is consistent with available evidence of physiological mechanisms underlying growth and moulting control of insects and crustaceans, it can be used as a general frame of reference to test alternative growth models.

Description: The ultimate cause of the onset of glaciations remains elusive, but in the case of northem hemisphere glaciation it is probable that several factors acted in combination. General global cooling resulted from reduction of atmospheric C02 by weathering of silicate rocks exposed by erosion of late Cenozoic uplifts. Uplifts in south Asia, southwestern North America and Scandinavia occurred at distances appropriate for the generation of quasi-permanent Rossby waves in the atmosphere. The resulting winds, given suitable moisture sources, were favourable for causing large-scale precipitation at mid-latitudes on the northern continents. Moisture sources were provided by the closure of the Central American isthmus. Gulf Stream flow increased, carrying warm subtropical waters to high latitudes. The Denmark Strait deepened permitting greater outflow of deep water from the Norwegian-Greenland Sea. The relative importance of each of these factors should be investigated by additional atmospheric and ocean climate model sensitivity studies.

Description: King Penguins are the second largest of all diving birds and share with their congener, Emperor Penguins, breeding habits strikingly different from other penguins. Our purpose was to determine the feeding behavior, energetics of foraging and the prey species, and compare these to other sympatric species of subantarctic divers. We determined: (1) general features of foraging behavior using time—depth recorders, velocity meters, and radio transmitters, (2) energetics by doubly labeled water, (3) food habits and energy content from stomach lavage samples, and (4) resting and swimming metabolic rate by oxygen consumption measurements. The average foraging cycle was ≈6 d, during which the mass gain of 30 birds was ≈2 kg. When at sea, the birds exhibit a marked pattern of shallow dives during the night, whereas deep dives of 〉100 m only occurred during the day. Maximum depth measured from 34 birds and 18 537 dives was 304 m, and maximum dive duration from 23 birds and 11 874 dives was 7.7 min. The frequency distribution of dive depth was bimodal, with few dives between 40 and 100 m. Overall, swim velocities when a bird was at sea averaged 2.1 m/s (N = 5), while descent and ascent rates of change in depth averaged 0.6 m/s for dives 〈60 m (N = 74) and 1.4 m/s for dives 〉150 m (N = 90). Night feeding dives occurred at a rate of ≈20 dives/h, and deep dives occurred at a rate of ≈5 dives/h. The energy consumption rate while resting ashore was 3.3 W/kg (N = 3) or 1.6 times the predicted standard metabolic rate (SMR). The average energy consumption rate while away from the colony was 10 W/kg (N = 8) or 4.6 x SMR, compared to 4.3 x SMR estimated from a time—energy budget. The latter value is based on an average metabolic rate of 4.2 W/kg for three birds while resting in 5°C water and 9.6 W/kg while swimming at 2 m/s, which was extrapolated from the average of three birds swimming at 1 m/s. The average energy intake based on 9 stomach content samples was nearly 24.6 kJ/g dry mass. The main prey by number are myctophid fish of the species Krefftichthys anderssoni and Electrona carlsbergi. It was concluded that: (1) feeding begins ≈28 km from the colony, (2) prey is pursued night and day through its vertical movements, (3) vertical distribution of the prey is reflected closely by diving habits of the birds, (4) deep—diving, for unknown reasons, is an important component of foraging success, (5) diving capacities of King Penguins are remarkable compared to other birds and many pinnipeds, and (6) calculated foraging energetics can be closely estimated from time—energy budgets.

Description: Routine oxygen consumption of turbot, Scophthalmus maximus, was determined in relation to temperature, salinity, body wet weight, and time of day. The highest routine oxygen consumption rates measured roughly followed a arabolic curve over the temperature range tested (8 to 24°C). The lowest rates showed a more linear refationship over the same temperature range. It is argued that lowest rates correspond to the standard oxygen consumption. Between 16 and 19°C, routine oxygen consumption reached a maximum. It is suggested that these temperatures correspond to the preferred ternerature of the species and are within the range of optimum temperature for growth of specimens weigkng about 100 g. Salinity effect on oxygen consumption rates was studied in five groups acclimated over 4 weeks to 8, 15, 22, 29, and 35%. salinity. Routine oxygen consumption rates were lowest at 8% salinity with no significant differences in higher acclimation salinities. Routine respiration of turbots showed conspicuous daily fluctuations. During spring, summer, and autumn, oxygen Consumption was higher during morning hours and at night. In winter, higher rates were measured only once (during morning and early afternoon). The relationship between routine oxygen consumption and body weight of turbots followed an exponential function with a slope of 0.7, which was lower compared to the slope of 0.8 usually given for roundfish-species.

Description: Haplogloia andersonii (Farlow) Levring is an anti-tropical species that occurs on cold and warm-temperate Pacific coasts of both Americas. In its habit it resembles the subantarctic species Chordaria linearis (Hooker et Harvey) Cotton. Culture studies show that the species differ in morphology and ecophysiology of their microscopic gametophytes and in gamete behavior. Details of sporophyte anatomy are presented that also allow the distinction of field plants. In South America, H. andersonii occurs only on the Pacific coast, from central Perú (14°S) to southern Chile (50°S). Chordaria linearis occurs on the Pacific coast from Chiloé Island (43°S) to Cape Horn (56°S). In the shared area the species may co-occur. On the Atlantic coast, C. linearis was newly collected at a locality in northern Patagonia (41°S). In addition, C. linearis occurs in Antarctica. Haplogloia moniliformis Richer, recently described from Macquarie Island, is probably synonymous with Chordaria linearis.

Description: We examined the temperature tolerance of microscopic phases from geographically disjunct isolates of eight species or closely related, putatively conspecific taxa of temperate brown algae with disjunct distributions. Maximum within-taxon differences were small and ranged from 1.6° to 4.3° C. Desmarestia aculeata and Sphaerotrichia divaricata, both with northern hemisphere amphioceanic distributions, showed little or no significant intraspecific variation between the mean upper survival limits (USL) of Atlantic and Pacific strains (δUSL ≤ 1.4°C), which would agree with a relatively recent separation of the respective populations. Among the plants with bipolar distributions, there was likewise very little difference (δUSL 0–1.1°C) between northern and southern hemisphere strains in Striaria attenuata and in the species pair Desmarestia viridis/D. willii. In Desmarestia ligulata, and in the species pairs Desmarestia firma/D. munda, Dictyosiphon foeniculaceus/D. hirsutus, and Scytothamnus australis/Scytothamnus sp., significant differences occurred, which indicate longer divergence times. δUSL in these cases ranged from 1.7° to 2.7°C, without overlap between strains from the northern and southern hemispheres. All species that passed the equator during cooler epochs had a USL of 26–27°C, at least in some geographical isolates. The NE Asian kelp Undaria pinnatifida, which passed the equator in recent times, had a USL of 29.6°C. We hypothesize that the mechanism of spreading in the amphipolar species studied was migration of vegetative microthalli. The more unlikely alternative hypothesis of continuous populations through the tropics during a cooler epoch would imply a drop in seawater temperatures to approximately 20° C in summer and 15° C in winter, which is not supported by paleoclimatic evidence.

Description: The survival of cod Gadus morhua, plaice Pleuronectes platessa, and dab Limanda limanda was determined in relation to ambient oxygen saturation at 8° C and 35% m salinity. Mortalit rates were observed in fish exposed to constant oxygen levels for 24h. First mortality occurred around 60 % oxygen saturation in cod and around 30% oxygen saturation in dab and plaice. Below these thresholds mortality increased linearly with decreasing oxygen levels. If cod were infested with 1 or 2 individuals of Lernaeocera branchialis (Copepoda), their tolerance was significantly lower; under such circumstances the incipient lethal oxygen saturation was 66 %.

Description: High‐frequency bottom acoustic and geoacoustic data from three well‐characterized sites of different bottom composition are compared with scattering models in order to clarify the roles played by interface roughness and sediment volume inhomogeneities. Model fits to backscattering data from two silty sites lead to the conclusion that scattering from volume inhomogeneities was primarily responsible for the observed backscattering. In contrast, measured bottom roughness was sufficient to explain the backscattering seen at a sandy site. Although the sandy site had directional ripples, the model and data agree in their lack of anisotropy.

Description: The responses of sea ice microalgae to variation in ambient irradiance (0 to 150 μE · m−2· s−1), temperature (–6° to + 6° C), and salinity (0 to 100 ppt) were tested to determine whether these variables act independently or in concert to influence rates of microalgal photosynthesis. The photosynthetic efficiency and maximum photosynthetic rate for sea ice microalgae increased as a function of incubation temperature between -6° and + 6° C. Furthermore, photosynthetic efficiency, maximum photosynthetic rate, and quantum yield were greatest at salinities between SO and 50 ppt. In contrast, the mean specific absorption coefficients were lowest near seawater salinities, and the saturating irradiance, Is, appeared to be inversely proportional to salinity. Results also suggest that the effects of salinity on the growth of sea ice microalgae are independent of those elicited by temperature or light, and that the functional relationship between salinity and light or temperature is multiplicative. This information is essential to the proper formulation of algorithms used to describe algal growth in environments where light, temperature, and salinity are changing simultaneously, such as within sea ice or within the water column at the marginal ice edge zone.

Description: Eight species of marine phytoplankton showed significant variation in the relative amount of some fatty acids (FAs) in response to variation in temperature. Large changes in relative amounts of certain FAs occurred as a result of a 15° C change in growth temperature. For example, 14:0 increased from ≃4% of total FAs at 10° C to 〉 20% at 25° C for Chaetoceros simplex and Isochrysis aff. galbana but decreased for Phaeodactylum tricornutum. The percentage of the polyunsaturated fatty acid (PUFA) 16:ω1 was consistently greater at 10° C than at 25° C, and the converse was usually true for 16: 4ω3. Calculated over all eight species, there was a modest but significant inverse relationship between the percentage of PUFAs and temperature. Only for Thalassiosira pseudonana was the percentage of either of the PUFAs and nutritionally essential fatty acids (EFAs) also an inverse function of temperature. For T. pseudonana, the percentage of the EFA 22:6ω3 decreased linearly with increasing temperature over the range from 10 to 25° C. For three species, the ratio of unsaturated/saturated FAs was correlated with growth rate when growth rate was controlled by variation in irradiance and temperature. Only for Thalassiosira pseudonana was the ratio of unsaturated/saturated FAs also an inverse function of temperature alone.

Description: The Hindak strain of a Cryptomonas species (Cryptophyceae) produces extracellular polysaccharides. Because there is no information on the structure of these compounds in the Cryptophyceae we conducted structural studies. Gas–liquid chromatographic analyses showed that the polysaccharide is composed of fucose, rhamnose, xylose, mannose, glucose, galactose, galacturonic acid, glucuronic acid, and traces of 3-O-methyl galactose. The polysaccharide was separated into two subtractions by ion-exchange chromatography. Fraction A consisted mainly of 1,3-linked galactose units and 1,4-linked galacturonic acid. Unlike fraction B, fraction A did not have xylose, 3-O-methyl galactose, or glucuronic acid. Also, its degree of branching was low compared to that of fraction B. Only traces of sulfate were present infraction A, but fraction B was 10–15% sulfated. Protein was approximately 1% in both fractions. These polysaccharides appear to be a novel type of polymer in algae.

Description: Preexisting developmental plasticity in feeding larvae may contribute to the evolutionary transition from development with a feeding larva to nonfeeding larval development. Differences in timing of development of larval and juvenile structures (heterochronic shifts) and differences in the size of the larval body (shifts in allocation) were produced in sea urchin larvae exposed to different amounts of food in the laboratory and in the field. The changes in larval form in response to food appear to be adaptive, with increased allocation of growth to the larval apparatus for catching food when food is scarce and earlier allocation to juvenile structures when food is abundant. This phenotypic plasticity among full siblings is similar in direction to the heterochronic evolutionary changes in species that have greater nutrient reserves within the ova and do not depend on particulate planktonic food. This similarity suggests that developmental plasticity that is adaptive for feeding larvae also contributes to correlated and adaptive evolutionary changes in the transition to nonfeeding larval development. If endogenous food supplies have the same effect on morphogenesis as exogenous food supplies, then changes in genes that act during oogenesis to affect nutrient stores may be sufficient to produce correlated adaptive changes in larval development.

Description: ALTHOUGH anthropogenic emissions of carbon dioxide have today created a greater atmospheric CO2concentration in the Northern than in the Southern Hemisphere, a comparison of interhemispheric CO2 profiles from 1980 and 1962 led Keeling and Heimann1,2 to conclude that, before the Industrial Revolution, natural CO2 sources and sinks acted to set up a reverse (south to north) gradient which drove about one gigatonne of carbon each year through the atmosphere from the Southern to the Northern Hemisphere. At steady state, this flux must have been balanced by a counter flow of carbon from north to south through the ocean. Here we present a means to estimate this natural flux by a separation of oceanic carbon anomalies into those created by biogenic processes and those created by CO2 exchange between the ocean and atmosphere. We find that before the Industrial Revolution, deep water formed in the northern Atlantic Ocean carried about 0.6 gigatonnes of carbon annually to the Southern Hemisphere, providing support for Keeling and Heimann's proposal. The existence of this oceanic carbon pump also raises questions about the need for a large terrestrial carbon sink in the Northern Hemisphere, as postulated by Tans et al.3, to balance the present global carbon budget.

Description: Sampling inadequacies and an inability to distinguish age classes have limited our knowledge of octopus biology in nature. Using an artificial shelter sampling technique (Voight, 1988a), and defining mature males by the presence of enlarged suckers (Voight, In press), an intertidal population of Octopus digueti was monitored for one year. In total, 803 octopuses were narcotized; the mass, sex, arm injuries and reproductive condition of each octopus were recorded. Captures were more frequent in lower intertidal areas offering higher shelter availability and a more moderate environment. Capture rates, assumed to indicate octopus movement, correlated with sea temperature except during full moon periods when they were reduced. Over 26%, of the octopuses handled had damaged arms or arm tips, with dorsal arm pairs more often injured. The overall sex ratio was significantly male biased, probably due to maturity‐linked mobility differences between the sexes. Reproduction occurred throughout the year; reproductively competent adults, brooding females and juveniles were present every month. However, annual temperature oscillations synchronize spring hatching of eggs spawned from winter to early spring, creating a clear spring cohort. Growth and age at maturity of males in the spring and autumn cohorts were estimated. Variance was too high for these parameters to be estimated in the winter cohort. Growth rates of males over 12 weeks of age did not differ from those reported in laboratory rearing studies. Estimated average age at maturity ranged from 20 to 32 weeks, depending on temperature.

Description: Among King Penguins Aptenodytes patagonica at Possession Island, one of the Crozet Islands, the length of the moult period, pre‐laying period, incubating and brooding shifts were highly variable according to the year and to the stage of the breeding season. The moulting period was shorter in late breeders than in early breeders. Only half of the birds which successfully reared a chick bred the following cycle, but late in the season. Almost all these late breeders were unsuccessful. The reasons for the high variability in the breeding pattern observed in this species between years, as well as between colonies and between individuals are discussed. Breeding success was on average 30.6% and survival during the first year at sea could reach 50%. The survival of adult birds has increased during the past 10 years from 90.7% to 95.2% per annum. Despite an almost biennial breeding frequency and a very high rate of chick loss during the winter fast, the King Penguin population of Possession Island has doubled between 1966 and 1985 due to a high survival rate of adult and immature birds. The increase during the last decade in adult survival and in adult and chick condition suggests that the population increase could be the result of an improvement in food availability.

Description: The Ivrea‐Verbano Zone in northern Italy represents a section through the lower continental crust which has been tilted and emplaced into its present position during the Alpine orogeny. Recent and on‐going structurally‐oriented geological mapping in this region is providing new information about the geometry of the complex. The central part of the zone is dominated by a large basic complex (the ‘mafic formation') which is intrusive into the surrounding gneisses. The foliation within the envelope of gneisses is deflected around the intrusive complex as if by ballooning, but in the region south‐west of Monte Capio both units are folded together into a tight to isoclinal steeply plunging fold with an amplitude of c. 10 km. This fold locally inverts the stratigraphy of the layered basic group of the complex, and is thought to be the result of gravitational collapse following intrusion and inflation of a large magma body into the lower crust. Several high‐temperature shear zones have now been traced within the country rock for distances up to 20 km. The geometry of these, and their relationship to the basic complex suggests that at least some of the extensional collapse of the mafic body is related to uplift caused by intrusion of this body. Close parallels can be drawn between the observed structure in the Ivrea‐Verbano Zone (after removing the effects of late, low‐temperature faulting and folding related to emplacement of the rocks into their present position), and those inferred from deep seismic reflection profiling in areas of current extension such as parts of the US Basin and Range province.

Description: The development of egg/follicular cell complexes is described in maturing females of the octopus Eledone cirrhosa. Follicle cells proliferate to enclose the oocyte in a single epithelial layer which becomes deeply infolded. Active cell division of the follicle cells and recruitment of cells from an outer (thecal) layer generate this expansion of follicle cell epithelium. The onset of the main phase of vitellogenesis, secretion of protein yolk, occurs when eggs reach about 2mm in length and is marked by the columnar appearance of the follicle cells and an increased number of larger and more complex nuclei. A significant proportion of the egg population fails to develop beyond 2-3mm in length and these eggs subsequently degenerate.

Description: Shipboard bathymetry and gravity data from 30 crossings of 6 great Pacific fracture zones (FZs), the Mendocino, Murray, Molokai, Clarion, Clipperton, and Udintsev, are compared with the predictions of a model in which FZs are locked beyond the ridge-transform intersection, such that no vertical motion occurs on the fault in response to differential thermal subsidence. At least some sections of all of these FZs, except the Molokai, are consistent with this model and sustain shear stresses as high as 20 MPa. However, none of the FZs is locked along its entire length, as inferred from observed shear stresses dropping below 75% of the value necessary to maintain a locked fault. There is some suggestion that the unlocking may be related to excess volcanism.