ALBERT

All Library Books, journals and Electronic Records Telegrafenberg

Your email was sent successfully. Check your inbox.

An error occurred while sending the email. Please try again.

Proceed reservation?

Export
Filter
  • Public Library of Science  (117,677)
  • Canadian Science Publishing
  • 2015-2019  (120,501)
  • 1980-1984  (2,407)
  • 1925-1929
Collection
Publisher
Years
Year
  • 1
    Publication Date: 2017-04-04
    Description: In recent years, an increasing number of surveys have definitively confirmed the seasonal presence of fin whales (Balaenoptera physalus) in highly productive regions of the Mediterranean Sea. Despite this, very little is yet known about the routes that the species seasonally follows within the Mediterranean basin and, particularly, in the Ionian area. The present study assesses for the first time fin whale acoustic presence offshore Eastern Sicily (Ionian Sea), throughout the processing of about 10 months of continuous acoustic monitoring. The recording of fin whale vocalizations was made possible by the cabled deep-sea multidisciplinary observatory, “NEMO-SN1”, deployed 25 km off the Catania harbor at a depth of about 2,100 meters. NEMO-SN1 is an operational node of the European Multidisciplinary Seafloor and water-column Observatory (EMSO) Research Infrastructure. The observatory was equipped with a low-frequency hydrophone (bandwidth: 0.05 Hz–1 kHz, sampling rate: 2 kHz) which continuously acquired data from July 2012 to May 2013. About 7,200 hours of acoustic data were analyzed by means of spectrogram display. Calls with the typical structure and patterns associated to the Mediterranean fin whale population were identified and monitored in the area for the first time. Furthermore, a background noise analysis within the fin whale communication frequency band (17.9–22.5 Hz) was conducted to investigate possible detection-masking effects. The study confirms the hypothesis that fin whales are present in the Ionian Sea throughout all seasons, with peaks in call detection rate during spring and summer months. The analysis also demonstrates that calls were more frequently detected in low background noise conditions. Further analysis will be performed to understand whether observed levels of noise limit the acoustic detection of the fin whales vocalizations, or whether the animals vocalize less in the presence of high background noise.
    Description: Published
    Description: e0141838
    Description: 3A. Ambiente Marino
    Description: JCR Journal
    Description: open
    Keywords: Whales ; Bioacoustics ; Background noise (acoustics) ; Acoustic signals ; Sperm whales ; Vocalization ; Acoustics ; Data acquisition ; 03. Hydrosphere::03.01. General::03.01.08. Instruments and techniques ; 03. Hydrosphere::03.02. Hydrology::03.02.04. Measurements and monitoring ; 03. Hydrosphere::03.02. Hydrology::03.02.07. Instruments and techniques ; 03. Hydrosphere::03.04. Chemical and biological::03.04.99. General or miscellaneous
    Repository Name: Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia (INGV)
    Type: article
    Location Call Number Expected Availability
    BibTip Others were also interested in ...
  • 2
    Publication Date: 2022-05-25
    Description: © The Author(s), 2014. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in PLoS One 9 (2014): e112134, doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0112134.
    Description: Annual Emiliania huxleyi blooms (along with other coccolithophorid species) play important roles in the global carbon and sulfur cycles. E. huxleyi blooms are routinely terminated by large, host-specific dsDNA viruses, (Emiliania huxleyi Viruses; EhVs), making these host-virus interactions a driving force behind their potential impact on global biogeochemical cycles. Given projected increases in sea surface temperature due to climate change, it is imperative to understand the effects of temperature on E. huxleyi’s susceptibility to viral infection and its production of climatically active dimethylated sulfur species (DSS). Here we demonstrate that a 3°C increase in temperature induces EhV-resistant phenotypes in three E. huxleyi strains and that successful virus infection impacts DSS pool sizes. We also examined cellular polar lipids, given their documented roles in regulating host-virus interactions in this system, and propose that alterations to membrane-bound surface receptors are responsible for the observed temperature-induced resistance. Our findings have potential implications for global biogeochemical cycles in a warming climate and for deciphering the particular mechanism(s) by which some E. huxleyi strains exhibit viral resistance.
    Description: This study was supported by funding from the National Science Foundation (OCE-1061883 to KDB, BVM, and OCE-1061876 to GRD) and in part by grants from The Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation (to BVM and KDB).
    Repository Name: Woods Hole Open Access Server
    Type: Article
    Format: application/pdf
    Format: image/tiff
    Format: application/vnd.ms-excel
    Location Call Number Expected Availability
    BibTip Others were also interested in ...
  • 3
    Publication Date: 2022-05-25
    Description: © The Author(s), 2015. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in PLoS One 10 (2015): e0124505, doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0124505.
    Description: Oceanic protist grazing at mesopelagic and bathypelagic depths, and their subsequent effects on trophic links between eukaryotes and prokaryotes, are not well constrained. Recent studies show evidence of higher than expected grazing activity by protists down to mesopelagic depths. This study provides the first exploration of protist grazing in the bathypelagic North Atlantic Deep Water (NADW). Grazing was measured throughout the water column at three stations in the South Atlantic using fluorescently-labeled prey analogues. Grazing in the deep Antarctic Intermediate water (AAIW) and NADW at all three stations removed 3.79% ± 1.72% to 31.14% ± 8.24% of the standing prokaryote stock. These results imply that protist grazing may be a significant source of labile organic carbon at certain meso- and bathypelagic depths.
    Description: Funding for the cruise was provided by the National Science Foundation (OCE-1154320) to EBK. Funding for the laboratory work was provided by contributions from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Director of Research, Ocean Life Institute, and Deep Ocean Exploration Institute to VE.
    Repository Name: Woods Hole Open Access Server
    Type: Article
    Format: application/pdf
    Location Call Number Expected Availability
    BibTip Others were also interested in ...
  • 4
    Publication Date: 2022-05-25
    Description: This is an open access article, free of all copyright. The definitive version was published in PLoS One 10 (2015): e0139904, doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0139904.
    Description: The continental margin off the northeastern United States (NEUS) contains numerous, topographically complex features that increase habitat heterogeneity across the region. However, the majority of these rugged features have never been surveyed, particularly using direct observations. During summer 2013, 31 Remotely-Operated Vehicle (ROV) dives were conducted from 494 to 3271 m depth across a variety of seafloor features to document communities and to infer geological processes that produced such features. The ROV surveyed six broad-scale habitat features, consisting of shelf-breaching canyons, slope-sourced canyons, inter-canyon areas, open-slope/landslide-scar areas, hydrocarbon seeps, and Mytilus Seamount. Four previously unknown chemosynthetic communities dominated by Bathymodiolus mussels were documented. Seafloor methane hydrate was observed at two seep sites. Multivariate analyses indicated that depth and broad-scale habitat significantly influenced megafaunal coral (58 taxa), demersal fish (69 taxa), and decapod crustacean (34 taxa) assemblages. Species richness of fishes and crustaceans significantly declined with depth, while there was no relationship between coral richness and depth. Turnover in assemblage structure occurred on the middle to lower slope at the approximate boundaries of water masses found previously in the region. Coral species richness was also an important variable explaining variation in fish and crustacean assemblages. Coral diversity may serve as an indicator of habitat suitability and variation in available niche diversity for these taxonomic groups. Our surveys added 24 putative coral species and three fishes to the known regional fauna, including the black coral Telopathes magna, the octocoral Metallogorgia melanotrichos and the fishes Gaidropsarus argentatus, Guttigadus latifrons, and Lepidion guentheri. Marine litter was observed on 81% of the dives, with at least 12 coral colonies entangled in debris. While initial exploration revealed the NEUS region to be both geologically dynamic and biologically diverse, further research into the abiotic conditions and the biotic interactions that influence species abundance and distribution is needed.
    Description: Funding for the ship and ROV time was provided by NOAA’s Office of Ocean Exploration and Research with support from NOAA’s Deep Sea Coral Research and Technology Program, Northeast Initiative.
    Repository Name: Woods Hole Open Access Server
    Type: Article
    Format: application/pdf
    Location Call Number Expected Availability
    BibTip Others were also interested in ...
  • 5
    Publication Date: 2022-05-25
    Description: © The Author(s), 2016. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in PLoS One 11 (2016): e0147808, doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0147808.
    Description: The amyloid precursor protein (APP) is a causal agent in the pathogenesis of Alzheimer’s disease and is a transmembrane protein that associates with membrane-limited organelles. APP has been shown to co-purify through immunoprecipitation with a kinesin light chain suggesting that APP may act as a trailer hitch linking kinesin to its intercellular cargo, however this hypothesis has been challenged. Previously, we identified an mRNA transcript that encodes a squid homolog of human APP770. The human and squid isoforms share 60% sequence identity and 76% sequence similarity within the cytoplasmic domain and share 15 of the final 19 amino acids at the C-terminus establishing this highly conserved domain as a functionally import segment of the APP molecule. Here, we study the distribution of squid APP in extruded axoplasm as well as in a well-characterized reconstituted organelle/microtubule preparation from the squid giant axon in which organelles bind microtubules and move towards the microtubule plus-ends. We find that APP associates with microtubules by confocal microscopy and co-purifies with KI-washed axoplasmic organelles by sucrose density gradient fractionation. By electron microscopy, APP clusters at a single focal point on the surfaces of organelles and localizes to the organelle/microtubule interface. In addition, the association of APP-organelles with microtubules is an ATP dependent process suggesting that the APP-organelles contain a microtubule-based motor protein. Although a direct kinesin/APP association remains controversial, the distribution of APP at the organelle/microtubule interface strongly suggests that APP-organelles have an orientation and that APP like the Alzheimer’s protein tau has a microtubule-based function.
    Description: Research reported in this publication was supported by an Institutional Development Award (IDeA) from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences of the National Institutes of Health under grant number P20GM103430.
    Repository Name: Woods Hole Open Access Server
    Type: Article
    Location Call Number Expected Availability
    BibTip Others were also interested in ...
  • 6
    Publication Date: 2022-05-25
    Description: © The Author(s), 2016. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in PLoS One 11 (2016): e0153197, doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0153197.
    Description: Benthic dinoflagellates in the genus Gambierdiscus produce the ciguatoxin precursors responsible for the occurrence of ciguatera toxicity. The prevalence of ciguatera toxins in fish has been linked to the presence and distribution of toxin-producing species in coral reef ecosystems, which is largely determined by the presence of suitable benthic habitat and environmental conditions favorable for growth. Here using single factor experiments, we examined the effects of salinity, irradiance, and temperature on growth of 17 strains of Gambierdiscus representing eight species/phylotypes (G. belizeanus, G. caribaeus, G. carolinianus, G. carpenteri, G. pacificus, G. silvae, Gambierdiscus sp. type 4–5), most of which were established from either Marakei Island, Republic of Kiribati, or St. Thomas, United States Virgin Island (USVI). Comparable to prior studies, growth rates fell within the range of 0–0.48 divisions day-1. In the salinity and temperature studies, Gambierdiscus responded in a near Gaussian, non-linear manner typical for such studies, with optimal and suboptimal growth occurring in the range of salinities of 25 and 45 and 21.0 and 32.5°C. In the irradiance experiment, no mortality was observed; however, growth rates at 55μmol photons · m-2 · s-1 were lower than those at 110–400μmol photons · m-2 · s-1. At the extremes of the environmental conditions tested, growth rates were highly variable, evidenced by large coefficients of variability. However, significant differences in intraspecific growth rates were typically found only at optimal or near-optimal growth conditions. Polynomial regression analyses showed that maximum growth occurred at salinity and temperature levels of 30.1–38.5 and 23.8–29.2°C, respectively. Gambierdiscus growth patterns varied among species, and within individual species: G. belizeanus, G. caribaeus, G. carpenteri, and G. pacificus generally exhibited a wider range of tolerance to environmental conditions, which may explain their broad geographic distribution. In contrast, G. silvae and Gambierdiscus sp. types 4–5 all displayed a comparatively narrow range of tolerance to temperature, salinity, and irradiance.
    Description: This study was funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (41506137); Guangxi Natural Science Foundation (2015GXNSFCA139003), Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (U01 EH000421); USFDA (F223201000060C); NOAA NOS through the CiguaHAB program (Cooperative Agreement NA11NOS4780060, NA11NOS4780028); the Lana Vento Trust and VI-EPSCoR Program (NSF award # 346483 & 081441); and a System Fund from Key Laboratory of Environment Change and Resources Use in Beibu Gulf, Ministry of Education (2014BGERLXT01). Support was also provided by the Woods Hole Center for Oceans and Human Health through National Science Foundation (NSF) Grant OCE-1314642, National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) Grant 1-P01-ES021923-014, as well as the China Scholarship Council.
    Repository Name: Woods Hole Open Access Server
    Type: Article
    Location Call Number Expected Availability
    BibTip Others were also interested in ...
  • 7
    Publication Date: 2022-05-25
    Description: This is an open access article, free of all copyright, and may be freely reproduced, distributed, transmitted, modified, built upon, or otherwise used by anyone for any lawful purpose.
    Description: Fungal secretomes contain a wide range of hydrolytic and oxidative enzymes, including cellulases, hemicellulases, pectinases, and lignin-degrading accessory enzymes, that synergistically drive litter decomposition in the environment. While secretome studies of model organisms such as Phanerochaete chrysosporium and Aspergillus species have greatly expanded our knowledge of these enzymes, few have extended secretome characterization to environmental isolates or conducted side-by-side comparisons of diverse species. Thus, the mechanisms of carbon degradation by many ubiquitous soil fungi remain poorly understood. Here we use a combination of LC-MS/MS, genomic, and bioinformatic analyses to characterize and compare the protein composition of the secretomes of four recently isolated, cosmopolitan, Mn(II)-oxidizing Ascomycetes (Alternaria alternata SRC1lrK2f, Stagonospora sp. SRC1lsM3a, Pyrenochaeta sp. DS3sAY3a, and Paraconiothyrium sporulosum AP3s5-JAC2a). We demonstrate that the organisms produce a rich yet functionally similar suite of extracellular enzymes, with species-specific differences in secretome composition arising from unique amino acid sequences rather than overall protein function. Furthermore, we identify not only a wide range of carbohydrate-active enzymes that can directly oxidize recalcitrant carbon, but also an impressive suite of redox-active accessory enzymes that suggests a role for Fenton-based hydroxyl radical formation in indirect, non-specific lignocellulose attack. Our findings highlight the diverse oxidative capacity of these environmental isolates and enhance our understanding of the role of filamentous Ascomycetes in carbon turnover in the environment.
    Description: This work was supported by the National Science Foundation (www.nsf.gov), grant numbers EAR-1249489 and CBET-1336496, both awarded to CMH. Personal support for CAZ was also provided by Harvard University (www.harvard.edu) and by a Ford Foundation (www.fordfoundation.org) Predoctoral Fellowship administered by the National Academies.
    Repository Name: Woods Hole Open Access Server
    Type: Article
    Location Call Number Expected Availability
    BibTip Others were also interested in ...
  • 8
    Publication Date: 2022-05-25
    Description: © The Author(s), 2016. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in PLoS One 11 (2016): e0160830, doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0160830 .
    Description: Advances in offshore wind farm (OWF) technology have recently led to their construction in coastal waters that are deep enough to be seasonally stratified. As tidal currents move past the OWF foundation structures they generate a turbulent wake that will contribute to a mixing of the stratified water column. In this study we show that the mixing generated in this way may have a significant impact on the large-scale stratification of the German Bight region of the North Sea. This region is chosen as the focus of this study since the planning of OWFs is particularly widespread. Using a combination of idealised modelling and in situ measurements, we provide order-of-magnitude estimates of two important time scales that are key to understanding the impacts of OWFs: (i) a mixing time scale, describing how long a complete mixing of the stratification takes, and (ii) an advective time scale, quantifying for how long a water parcel is expected to undergo enhanced wind farm mixing. The results are especially sensitive to both the drag coefficient and type of foundation structure, as well as the evolution of the pycnocline under enhanced mixing conditions—both of which are not well known. With these limitations in mind, the results show that OWFs could impact the large-scale stratification, but only when they occupy extensive shelf regions. They are expected to have very little impact on large-scale stratification at the current capacity in the North Sea, but the impact could be significant in future large-scale development scenarios.
    Description: Funding was provided by the Helmholtz Foundation through the Polar Regions and Coasts in the Changing Earth System II (PACES II) program.
    Repository Name: Woods Hole Open Access Server
    Type: Article
    Location Call Number Expected Availability
    BibTip Others were also interested in ...
  • 9
    Publication Date: 2022-05-25
    Description: © The Author(s), 2016. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in PLoS ONE 11 (2016): e0164107, doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0164107.
    Description: Common dolphins (Delphinus delphis) are responsible for the large majority of interactions with the pole-and-line tuna fishery in the Azores but the underlying drivers remain poorly understood. In this study we investigate the influence of various environmental and fisheries-related factors in promoting the interaction of common dolphins with this fishery and estimate the resultant catch losses. We analysed 15 years of fishery and cetacean interaction data (1998–2012) collected by observers placed aboard tuna fishing vessels. Dolphins interacted in less than 3% of the fishing events observed during the study period. The probability of dolphin interaction varied significantly between years with no evident trend over time. Generalized additive modeling results suggest that fishing duration, sea surface temperature and prey abundance in the region were the most important factors explaining common dolphin interaction. Dolphin interaction had no impact on the catches of albacore, skipjack and yellowfin tuna but resulted in significantly lower catches of bigeye tuna, with a predicted median annual loss of 13.5% in the number of fish captured. However, impact on bigeye catches varied considerably both by year and fishing area. Our work shows that rates of common dolphin interaction with the pole-and-line tuna fishery in the Azores are low and showed no signs of increase over the study period. Although overall economic impact was low, the interaction may lead to significant losses in some years. These findings emphasize the need for continued monitoring and for further research into the consequences and economic viability of potential mitigation measures.
    Description: This work was funded by Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT) and DRCT/SRCTE, though FEDER, the Competitiveness Factors Operational (COMPETE), QREN European Social Fund, the Portuguese Ministry for Science and Education, under research projects TRACE (PTDC/MAR/74071/2006), FCT Exploratory Project (IF/00943/2013/CP1199/CT0001), and MAPCET (M2.1.2/F/012/2011). We acknowledge the support of Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia (FCT), through the strategic project UID/MAR/04292/2013 granted to MARE. We thank the Azorean Regional Government for funding POPA, the Ship-owners Association and the Association of the Tuna Canning Industries for their support to the program. MJC was supported by a DRCT doctoral grant (M3.1.2/F/008/2009). MAS was supported by POPH, QREN, European Social Fund and Portuguese Ministry for Science and Education, through an FCT Investigator grant (IF/00943/2013).
    Repository Name: Woods Hole Open Access Server
    Type: Article
    Location Call Number Expected Availability
    BibTip Others were also interested in ...
  • 10
    Publication Date: 2022-05-25
    Description: © The Author(s), 2018. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in PLoS One 13 (2018): e0205015, doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0205015.
    Description: Channelopsins and photo-regulated ion channels make it possible to use light to control electrical activity of cells. This powerful approach has lead to a veritable explosion of applications, though it is limited to changing membrane voltage of the target cells. An enormous potential could be tapped if similar opto-genetic techniques could be extended to the control of chemical signaling pathways. Photopigments from invertebrate photoreceptors are an obvious choice—as they do not bleach upon illumination -however, their functional expression has been problematic. We exploited an unusual opsin, pScop2, recently identified in ciliary photoreceptors of scallop. Phylogenetically, it is closer to vertebrate opsins, and offers the advantage of being a bi-stable photopigment. We inserted its coding sequence and a fluorescent protein reporter into plasmid vectors and demonstrated heterologous expression in various mammalian cell lines. HEK 293 cells were selected as a heterologous system for functional analysis, because wild type cells displayed the largest currents in response to the G-protein activator, GTP-γ-S. A line of HEK cells stably transfected with pScop2 was generated; after reconstitution of the photopigment with retinal, light responses were obtained in some cells, albeit of modest amplitude. In native photoreceptors pScop2 couples to Go; HEK cells express poorly this G-protein, but have a prominent Gq/PLC pathway linked to internal Ca mobilization. To enhance pScop2 competence to tap into this pathway, we swapped its third intracellular loop—important to confer specificity of interaction between 7TMDRs and G-proteins—with that of a Gq-linked opsin which we cloned from microvillar photoreceptors present in the same retina. The chimeric construct was evaluated by a Ca fluorescence assay, and was shown to mediate a robust mobilization of internal calcium in response to illumination. The results project pScop2 as a potentially powerful optogenetic tool to control signaling pathways.
    Description: This work was funded by Colciencias grant FP44842-010-2015 and Connecticut Fund for Science.
    Repository Name: Woods Hole Open Access Server
    Type: Article
    Location Call Number Expected Availability
    BibTip Others were also interested in ...
  • 11
    Publication Date: 2022-05-25
    Description: © The Authors, 2019. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in Rogers, K. L., Bosman, S. H., Lardie-Gaylord, M., McNichol, A., Rosenheim, B. E., Montoya, J. P., & Chanton, J. P. (2019). Petrocarbon evolution: Ramped pyrolysis/oxidation and isotopic studies of contaminated oil sediments from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. PLoS One, 14(2), (2019):e0212433, doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0212433.
    Description: Hydrocarbons released during the Deepwater Horizon (DWH) oil spill weathered due to exposure to oxygen, light, and microbes. During weathering, the hydrocarbons’ reactivity and lability was altered, but it remained identifiable as “petrocarbon” due to its retention of the distinctive isotope signatures (14C and 13C) of petroleum. Relative to the initial estimates of the quantity of oil-residue deposited in Gulf sediments based on 2010–2011 data, the overall coverage and quantity of the fossil carbon on the seafloor has been attenuated. To analyze recovery of oil contaminated deep-sea sediments in the northern Gulf of Mexico we tracked the carbon isotopic composition (13C and 14C, radiocarbon) of bulk sedimentary organic carbon through time at 4 sites. Using ramped pyrolysis/oxidation, we determined the thermochemical stability of sediment organic matter at 5 sites, two of these in time series. There were clear differences between crude oil (which decomposed at a lower temperature during ramped oxidation), natural hydrocarbon seep sediment (decomposing at a higher temperature; Δ14C = -912‰) and our control site (decomposing at a moderate temperature; Δ14C = -189‰), in both the stability (ability to withstand ramped temperatures in oxic conditions) and carbon isotope signatures. We observed recovery toward our control site bulk Δ14C composition at sites further from the wellhead in ~4 years, whereas sites in closer proximity had longer recovery times. The thermographs also indicated temporal changes in the composition of contaminated sediment, with shifts towards higher temperature CO2 evolution over time at a site near the wellhead, and loss of higher temperature CO2 peaks at a more distant site.
    Description: This research was made possible by grants from The Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative through its consortiums: Ecosystem Impacts of Oil & Gas Inputs to the Gulf (ECOGIG), The Center for the Integrated Modeling and Analysis of the Gulf Ecosystem (C-Image), and Deep Sea to Coast Connectivity in the Eastern Gulf of Mexico (Deep-C) and the Resuspension, Redistribution and Deposition of DWH Recalcitrant Material (Re-Direct) project. This is ECOGIG Contribution # 521. Funding was also provided by the National Ocean Sciences Accelerator Mass Spectrometry Facility (NOSAMS) Graduate Student Internship Program (NSF OCE-1239667). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.
    Repository Name: Woods Hole Open Access Server
    Type: Article
    Location Call Number Expected Availability
    BibTip Others were also interested in ...
  • 12
    Publication Date: 2022-05-25
    Description: © The Author(s), 2015. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in PLoS One 10 (2015): e0119284, doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0119284 .
    Description: Chemolithoautotrophic iron-oxidizing bacteria play an essential role in the global iron cycle. Thus far, the majority of marine iron-oxidizing bacteria have been identified as Zetaproteobacteria, a novel class within the phylum Proteobacteria. Marine iron-oxidizing microbial communities have been found associated with volcanically active seamounts, crustal spreading centers, and coastal waters. However, little is known about the presence and diversity of iron-oxidizing communities at hydrothermal systems along the slow crustal spreading center of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. From October to November 2012, samples were collected from rust-colored mats at three well-known hydrothermal vent systems on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge (Rainbow, Trans-Atlantic Geotraverse, and Snake Pit) using the ROV Jason II. The goal of these efforts was to determine if iron-oxidizing Zetaproteobacteria were present at sites proximal to black smoker vent fields. Small, diffuse flow venting areas with high iron(II) concentrations and rust-colored microbial mats were observed at all three sites proximal to black smoker chimneys. A novel, syringe-based precision sampler was used to collect discrete microbial iron mat samples at the three sites. The presence of Zetaproteobacteria was confirmed using a combination of 16S rRNA pyrosequencing and single-cell sorting, while light micros-copy revealed a variety of iron-oxyhydroxide structures, indicating that active iron-oxidizing communities exist along the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. Sequencing analysis suggests that these iron mats contain cosmopolitan representatives of Zetaproteobacteria, but also exhibit diversity that may be uncommon at other iron-rich marine sites studied to date. A meta-analysis of publically available data encompassing a variety of aquatic habitats indicates that Zetaproteobacteria are rare if an iron source is not readily available. This work adds to the growing understanding of Zetaproteobacteria ecology and suggests that this organism is likely locally restricted to iron-rich marine environments but may exhibit wide-scale geographic distribution, further underscoring the importance of Zetaproteobacteria in global iron cycling.
    Description: This work was supported by grants from the National Science Foundation [grants OCE-0926805 (DE and JAB), OCE-1155754 (DE), and OCE-1131109 (GWL)] and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration [NNX12AG20G (GWL and DE)].
    Repository Name: Woods Hole Open Access Server
    Type: Article
    Format: application/pdf
    Location Call Number Expected Availability
    BibTip Others were also interested in ...
  • 13
    Publication Date: 2022-05-25
    Description: © The Author(s), 2015. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in PLoS One 10 (2015): e0140578, doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0140578.
    Description: Microbial communities mediate the biogeochemical cycles that drive ecosystems, and it is important to understand how these communities are affected by changing environmental conditions, especially in complex coastal zones. As fresh and marine waters mix in estuaries and river plumes, the salinity, temperature, and nutrient gradients that are generated strongly influence bacterioplankton community structure, yet, a parallel change in functional diversity has not been described. Metagenomic and metatranscriptomic analyses were conducted on five water samples spanning the salinity gradient of the Columbia River coastal margin, including river, estuary, plume, and ocean, in August 2010. Samples were pre-filtered through 3 μm filters and collected on 0.2 μm filters, thus results were focused on changes among free-living microbial communities. Results from metagenomic 16S rRNA sequences showed taxonomically distinct bacterial communities in river, estuary, and coastal ocean. Despite the strong salinity gradient observed over sampling locations (0 to 33), the functional gene profiles in the metagenomes were very similar from river to ocean with an average similarity of 82%. The metatranscriptomes, however, had an average similarity of 31%. Although differences were few among the metagenomes, we observed a change from river to ocean in the abundance of genes encoding for catabolic pathways, osmoregulators, and metal transporters. Additionally, genes specifying both bacterial oxygenic and anoxygenic photosynthesis were abundant and expressed in the estuary and plume. Denitrification genes were found throughout the Columbia River coastal margin, and most highly expressed in the estuary. Across a river to ocean gradient, the free-living microbial community followed three different patterns of diversity: 1) the taxonomy of the community changed strongly with salinity, 2) metabolic potential was highly similar across samples, with few differences in functional gene abundance from river to ocean, and 3) gene expression was highly variable and generally was independent of changes in salinity.
    Description: This study was carried out within the context of the Science and Technology Center for Coastal Margin Observation & Prediction (CMOP) supported by the National Science Foundation, grant number OCE-0424602 to Antonio Baptista (http://www.stccmop.org).
    Repository Name: Woods Hole Open Access Server
    Type: Article
    Format: application/pdf
    Format: text/plain
    Format: application/vnd.ms-excel
    Location Call Number Expected Availability
    BibTip Others were also interested in ...
  • 14
    Publication Date: 2022-05-25
    Description: This is an open access article, free of all copyright, and may be freely reproduced, distributed, transmitted, modified, built upon, or otherwise used by anyone for any lawful purpose. The definitive version was published in PLoS One 11 (2016): e0162401, doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0162401.
    Description: Heavy metals such as mercury (Hg) pose a significant health hazard through bioaccumulation and biomagnification. By penetrating cell membranes, heavy metal ions may lead to pathological conditions. Here we examined the responses of Ammonia parkinsoniana, a benthic foraminiferan, to different concentrations of Hg in the artificial sea water. Confocal images of untreated and treated specimens using fluorescent probes (Nile Red and Acridine Orange) provided an opportunity for visualizing the intracellular lipid accumulation and acidic compartment regulation. With increased Hg over time, we observed an increased number of lipid droplets, which may have acted as a detoxifying organelle where Hg is sequestered and biologically inactivated. Further, Hg seems to promote the proliferation of lysosomes both in terms of number and dimension that, at the highest level of Hg, resulted in cell death. We report, for the first time, the presence of Hg within the foraminiferal cell: at the basal part of pores, in the organic linings of the foramen/septa, and as cytoplasmic accumulations.
    Description: The research for this paper was partially made possible by the financial support from the PRIN 2010-2011 Ministero dell’Istruzione, dell’Università e della Ricerca (MIUR) (protocollo 2010RMTLYR) to RC. JMB acknowledges support from The Investment in Science Fund at WHOI. BG, JRE, AJ, LZ, and EMP were supported in part by the Office of Biological and Environmental Research, US Department of Energy (DOE) as part of the Mercury Science Focus Area at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, which is managed by UT-Battelle LLC for the DOE under contract DE-AC05-00OR22725.
    Repository Name: Woods Hole Open Access Server
    Type: Article
    Location Call Number Expected Availability
    BibTip Others were also interested in ...
  • 15
    Publication Date: 2022-05-25
    Description: © The Author(s), 2018. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in PLos One 13 (2018): e0200386, doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0200386.
    Description: Soft robotics is an emerging technology that has shown considerable promise in deep-sea marine biological applications. It is particularly useful in facilitating delicate interactions with fragile marine organisms. This study describes the shipboard design, 3D printing and integration of custom soft robotic manipulators for investigating and interacting with deep-sea organisms. Soft robotics manipulators were tested down to 2224m via a Remotely-Operated Vehicle (ROV) in the Phoenix Islands Protected Area (PIPA) and facilitated the study of a diverse suite of soft-bodied and fragile marine life. Instantaneous feedback from the ROV pilots and biologists allowed for rapid re-design, such as adding “fingernails”, and re-fabrication of soft manipulators at sea. These were then used to successfully grasp fragile deep-sea animals, such as goniasterids and holothurians, which have historically been difficult to collect undamaged via rigid mechanical arms and suction samplers. As scientific expeditions to remote parts of the world are costly and lengthy to plan, on-the-fly soft robot actuator printing offers a real-time solution to better understand and interact with delicate deep-sea environments, soft-bodied, brittle, and otherwise fragile organisms. This also offers a less invasive means of interacting with slow-growing deep marine organisms, some of which can be up to 18,000 years old.
    Description: This work is supported by NOAA OER Grant # NA17OAR0110083 “Exploration of the Seamounts of the Phoenix Islands Protected Area” to RDR, EEC, TMS and DFG and Schmidt Ocean Institute Grant: “What is the Current State of the Deep-Sea Coral Ecosystem in the Phoenix Island Protected Area?” to EEC, RDR, TMS and DFG; NSF Instrument Development for Biological Research Award # 1556164 to RJW and #1556123 to DFG; the National Academies Keck Futures Initiative of the National Academy of Sciences under award #NAKFI DBS21 to RJW and DFG; and NFS Research Fellowship awarded to KPB (#DGE1144152). It is also supported by the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University. We are grateful for the support from the National Geographic Society Innovation Challenge (Grant No.: SP 12-14) to RJW and DFG.
    Repository Name: Woods Hole Open Access Server
    Type: Article
    Location Call Number Expected Availability
    BibTip Others were also interested in ...
  • 16
    Publication Date: 2022-05-25
    Description: © The Author(s), 2018. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in PLoS One 13 (2018): e0207532, doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0207532.
    Description: Acoustic standing waves can precisely focus flowing particles or cells into tightly positioned streams for interrogation or downstream separations. The efficiency of an acoustic standing wave device is dependent upon operating at a resonance frequency. Small changes in a system’s temperature and sample salinity can shift the device’s resonance condition, leading to poor focusing. Practical implementation of an acoustic standing wave system requires an automated resonance control system to adjust the standing wave frequency in response to environmental changes. Here we have developed a rigorous approach for quantifying the optimal acoustic focusing frequency at any given environmental condition. We have demonstrated our approach across a wide range of temperature and salinity conditions to provide a robust characterization of how the optimal acoustic focusing resonance frequency shifts across these conditions. To generalize these results, two microfluidic bulk acoustic standing wave systems (a steel capillary and an etched silicon wafer) were examined. Models of these temperature and salinity effects suggest that it is the speed of sound within the liquid sample that dominates the resonance frequency shift. Using these results, a simple reference table can be generated to predict the optimal resonance condition as a function of temperature and salinity. Additionally, we show that there is a local impedance minimum associated with the optimal system resonance. The integration of the environmental results for coarse frequency tuning followed by a local impedance characterization for fine frequency adjustments, yields a highly accurate method of resonance control. Such an approach works across a wide range of environmental conditions, is easy to automate, and could have a significant impact across a wide range of microfluidic acoustic standing wave systems.
    Description: This research was supported by grants from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences of the National Institutes of Health under award number R21GM107805 and the NSF under award number (OCE-1130140 and OCE-1131134) to SWG, RJO, and HMS.
    Repository Name: Woods Hole Open Access Server
    Type: Article
    Location Call Number Expected Availability
    BibTip Others were also interested in ...
  • 17
    Publication Date: 2022-05-25
    Description: © The Author(s), 2019. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in PLoS One 14(1), (2019):e0204193, doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0204193.
    Description: The resilience of regeneration in vertebrates is not very well understood. Yet understanding if tissues can regenerate after repeated insults, and identifying limitations, is important for elucidating the underlying mechanisms of tissue plasticity. This is particularly challenging in tissues, such as the nervous system, which possess a large number of terminally differentiated cells and often exhibit limited regeneration in the first place. However, unlike mammals, which exhibit very limited regeneration of spinal cord tissues, many non-mammalian vertebrates, including lampreys, bony fishes, amphibians, and reptiles, regenerate their spinal cords and functionally recover even after a complete spinal cord transection. It is well established that lampreys undergo full functional recovery of swimming behaviors after a single spinal cord transection, which is accompanied by tissue repair at the lesion site, as well as axon and synapse regeneration. Here we begin to explore the resilience of spinal cord regeneration in lampreys after a second spinal transection (re-transection). We report that by all functional and anatomical measures tested, lampreys regenerate after spinal re-transection just as robustly as after single transections. Recovery of swimming, synapse and cytoskeletal distributions, axon regeneration, and neuronal survival were nearly identical after spinal transection or re-transection. Only minor differences in tissue repair at the lesion site were observed in re-transected spinal cords. Thus, regenerative potential in the lamprey spinal cord is largely unaffected by spinal re-transection, indicating a greater persistent regenerative potential than exists in some other highly regenerative models. These findings establish a new path for uncovering pro-regenerative targets that could be deployed in non-regenerative conditions.
    Description: The authors would like to thank Dr. Cristina Roman-Vendrell and Louie Kerr, Director of the Central Microscopy Facility at the MBL, for technical support. We also thank Dr. Juan Diaz-Quiroz for helpful comments on the manuscript. EG was supported in part by an NSF REU Award (#1659604: Biological Discovery in Woods Hole at the Marine Biological Laboratory).
    Repository Name: Woods Hole Open Access Server
    Type: Article
    Location Call Number Expected Availability
    BibTip Others were also interested in ...
  • 18
    Publication Date: 2022-05-25
    Description: © The Author(s), 2015. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in PLoS One 10 (2015): e0133963, doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0133963.
    Description: The Western clawed frog, Xenopus tropicalis, is a highly promising model amphibian, especially in developmental and physiological research, and as a tool for understanding disease. It was originally found in the West African rainforest belt, and was introduced to the research community in the 1990s. The major strains thus far known include the Nigerian and Ivory Coast strains. However, due to its short history as an experimental animal, the genetic relationship among the various strains has not yet been clarified, and establishment of inbred strains has not yet been achieved. Since 2003 the Institute for Amphibian Biology (IAB), Hiroshima University has maintained stocks of multiple X. tropicalis strains and conducted consecutive breeding as part of the National BioResource Project. In the present study we investigated the inbreeding ratio and genetic relationship of four inbred strains at IAB, as well as stocks from other institutions, using highly polymorphic microsatellite markers and mitochondrial haplotypes. Our results show successive reduction of heterozygosity in the genome of the IAB inbred strains. The Ivory Coast strains clearly differed from the Nigerian strains genetically, and three subgroups were identified within both the Nigerian and Ivory Coast strains. It is noteworthy that the Ivory Coast strains have an evolutionary divergent genetic background. Our results serve as a guide for the most effective use of X. tropicalis strains, and the long-term maintenance of multiple strains will contribute to further research efforts.
    Description: This work was supported by grants from the Wellcome Trust (101480/Z/13/Z, http://www.wellcome.ac.uk/stellent/group​s/corporatesite/@msh_publishing_group/do​cuments/web_document/wts058331.pdf) and Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BB/K019988/1, http://www.bbsrc.ac.uk/pa/grants/AwardDe​tails.aspx?FundingReference=BB/K019988/1) to the European Xenopus Resource Centre. This work was also supported by a Grant-in-Aid for Young Scientists (B) (No. 23710282, http://kaken.nii.ac.jp/d/p/23710282.en.h​tml) to TI from the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, Japan and a Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (B) (No. 20510216, http://kaken.nii.ac.jp/d/p/24310173.en.h​tml) to MS from the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, Japan.
    Repository Name: Woods Hole Open Access Server
    Type: Article
    Format: application/pdf
    Location Call Number Expected Availability
    BibTip Others were also interested in ...
  • 19
    Publication Date: 2022-05-25
    Description: © The Author(s), 2015. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in PLoS One (10): e0141842, doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0141842.
    Description: Differences in the bacterial community structure associated with 7 skin sites in 71 healthy people over five days showed significant correlations with age, gender, physical skin parameters, and whether participants lived in urban or rural locations in the same city. While body site explained the majority of the variance in bacterial community structure, the composition of the skin-associated bacterial communities were predominantly influenced by whether the participants were living in an urban or rural environment, with a significantly greater relative abundance of Trabulsiella in urban populations. Adults maintained greater overall microbial diversity than adolescents or the elderly, while the intragroup variation among the elderly and rural populations was significantly greater. Skin-associated bacterial community structure and composition could predict whether a sample came from an urban or a rural resident ~5x greater than random.
    Description: This work was supported by a grant from Johnson & Johnson (China).
    Repository Name: Woods Hole Open Access Server
    Type: Article
    Format: text/plain
    Format: application/pdf
    Format: application/vnd.ms-excel
    Location Call Number Expected Availability
    BibTip Others were also interested in ...
  • 20
    Publication Date: 2022-05-25
    Description: © The Author(s), 2015. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in PLoS One 10 (2015): e0143299, doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0143299.
    Description: For phytoplankton and other microbes, nutrient receptors are often the passages through which viruses invade. This presents a bottom-up vs. top-down, co-limitation scenario; how do these would-be-hosts balance minimizing viral susceptibility with maximizing uptake of limiting nutrient(s)? This question has been addressed in the biological literature on evolutionary timescales for populations, but a shorter timescale, mechanistic perspective is lacking, and marine viral literature suggests the strong influence of additional factors, e.g. host size; while the literature on both nutrient uptake and host-virus interactions is expansive, their intersection, of ubiquitous relevance to marine environments, is understudied. I present a simple, mechanistic model from first principles to analyze the effect of this co-limitation scenario on individual growth, which suggests that in environments with high risk of viral invasion or spatial/temporal heterogeneity, an individual host’s growth rate may be optimized with respect to receptor coverage, producing top-down selective pressure on short timescales. The model has general applicability, is suggestive of hypotheses for empirical exploration, and can be extended to theoretical studies of more complex behaviors and systems.
    Description: This work was supported by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Charles Vest Presidential Fellowship.
    Repository Name: Woods Hole Open Access Server
    Type: Article
    Format: application/pdf
    Format: text/csv
    Location Call Number Expected Availability
    BibTip Others were also interested in ...
  • 21
    Publication Date: 2022-05-25
    Description: © The Author(s), 2017. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in PLoS One 12 (2017): e0173350, doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0173350.
    Description: Scleractinian coral are experiencing unprecedented rates of mortality due to increases in sea surface temperatures in response to global climate change. Some coral species however, survive high temperature events due to a reduced susceptibility to bleaching. We investigated the relationship between bleaching susceptibility and expression of five metabolically related genes of Symbiodinium spp. from the coral Porites astreoides originating from an inshore and offshore reef in the Florida Keys. The acclimatization potential of Symbiodinium spp. to changing temperature regimes was also measured via a two-year reciprocal transplant between the sites. Offshore coral fragments displayed significantly higher expression in Symbiodinium spp. genes PCNA, SCP2, G3PDH, PCP and psaE than their inshore counterparts (p〈0.05), a pattern consistent with increased bleaching susceptibility in offshore corals. Additionally, gene expression patterns in Symbiodinium spp. from site of origin were conserved throughout the two-year reciprocal transplant, indicating acclimatization did not occur within this multi-season time frame. Further, laboratory experiments were used to investigate the influence of acute high temperature (32°C for eight hours) and disease (lipopolysaccharide of Serratia marcescens) on the five metabolically related symbiont genes from the same offshore and inshore P. astreoides fragments. Gene expression did not differ between reef fragments, or as a consequence of acute exposure to heat or heat and disease, contrasting to results found in the field. Gene expression reported here indicates functional variation in populations of Symbiodinium spp. associated with P. astreoides in the Florida Keys, and is likely a result of localized adaptation. However, gene expression patterns observed in the lab imply that functional variation in zooxanthellae observed under conditions of chronic moderate stress is lost under the acute extreme conditions studied here.
    Description: Funding for this research was provided by Coastal Preservation network (KBS, BHS).
    Repository Name: Woods Hole Open Access Server
    Type: Article
    Location Call Number Expected Availability
    BibTip Others were also interested in ...
  • 22
    Publication Date: 2022-05-25
    Description: © The Author(s), 2017. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in PLoS One 12 (2017): e0179318, doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0179318.
    Description: Trace metals are essential for health but toxic when present in excess. The maintenance of trace metals at physiologic levels reflects both import and export by cells and absorption and excretion by organs. The mechanism by which this maintenance is achieved in vertebrate organisms is incompletely understood. To explore this, we chose zebrafish as our model organism, as they are amenable to both pharmacologic and genetic manipulation and comprise an ideal system for genetic screens and toxicological studies. To characterize trace metal content in developing zebrafish, we measured levels of three trace elements, copper, zinc, and manganese, from the oocyte stage to 30 days post-fertilization using inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry. Our results indicate that metal levels are stable until zebrafish can acquire metals from the environment and imply that the early embryo relies on maternal contribution of metals to the oocyte. We also measured metal levels in bodies and yolks of embryos reared in presence and absence of the copper chelator neocuproine. All three metals exhibited different relative abundances between yolks and bodies of embryos. While neocuproine treatment led to an expected phenotype of copper deficiency, total copper levels were unaffected, indicating that measurement of total metal levels does not equate with measurement of biologically active metal levels. Overall, our data not only can be used in the design and execution of genetic, physiologic, and toxicologic studies but also has implications for the understanding of vertebrate metal homeostasis.
    Description: This work was supported by the National Institutes of Health, R00 DK84122.
    Repository Name: Woods Hole Open Access Server
    Type: Article
    Location Call Number Expected Availability
    BibTip Others were also interested in ...
  • 23
    Publication Date: 2022-05-25
    Description: © The Author(s), 2015. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in PLoS ONE 10 (2015): e0117193, doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0117193.
    Description: The article reports the radiocarbon investigation results of the Lebombo Eco Trail tree, a representative African baobab from Mozambique. Several wood samples collected from the large inner cavity and from the outer part of the tree were investigated by AMS radiocarbon dating. According to dating results, the age values of all samples increase from the sampling point with the distance into the wood. For samples collected from the cavity walls, the increase of age values with the distance into the wood (up to a point of maximum age) represents a major anomaly. The only realistic explanation for this anomaly is that such inner cavities are, in fact, natural empty spaces between several fused stems disposed in a ring-shaped structure. We named them false cavities. Several important differences between normal cavities and false cavities are presented. Eventually, we dated other African baobabs with false inner cavities. We found that this new architecture enables baobabs to reach large sizes and old ages. The radiocarbon date of the oldest sample was 1425 ± 24 BP, which corresponds to a calibrated age of 1355 ± 15 yr. The dating results also show that the Lebombo baobab consists of five fused stems, with ages between 900 and 1400 years; these five stems build the complete ring. The ring and the false cavity closed 800–900 years ago. The results also indicate that the stems stopped growing toward the false cavity over the past 500 years.
    Description: The research was fully funded by the Romanian Ministry of National Education CNCS-UEFISCDI under grant PN-II-ID-PCE-2013-76.
    Repository Name: Woods Hole Open Access Server
    Type: Article
    Format: application/pdf
    Location Call Number Expected Availability
    BibTip Others were also interested in ...
  • 24
    Publication Date: 2022-05-25
    Description: © The Author(s), 2015. This is an open access article, free of all copyright. The definitive version was published in PLoS One 10 (2015): e0124145, doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0124145.
    Description: Ocean acidification, the progressive change in ocean chemistry caused by uptake of atmospheric CO2, is likely to affect some marine resources negatively, including shellfish. The Atlantic sea scallop (Placopecten magellanicus) supports one of the most economically important single-species commercial fisheries in the United States. Careful management appears to be the most powerful short-term factor affecting scallop populations, but in the coming decades scallops will be increasingly influenced by global environmental changes such as ocean warming and ocean acidification. In this paper, we describe an integrated assessment model (IAM) that numerically simulates oceanographic, population dynamic, and socioeconomic relationships for the U.S. commercial sea scallop fishery. Our primary goal is to enrich resource management deliberations by offering both short- and long-term insight into the system and generating detailed policy-relevant information about the relative effects of ocean acidification, temperature rise, fishing pressure, and socioeconomic factors on the fishery using a simplified model system. Starting with relationships and data used now for sea scallop fishery management, the model adds socioeconomic decision making based on static economic theory and includes ocean biogeochemical change resulting from CO2 emissions. The model skillfully reproduces scallop population dynamics, market dynamics, and seawater carbonate chemistry since 2000. It indicates sea scallop harvests could decline substantially by 2050 under RCP 8.5 CO2 emissions and current harvest rules, assuming that ocean acidification affects P. magellanicus by decreasing recruitment and slowing growth, and that ocean warming increases growth. Future work will explore different economic and management scenarios and test how potential impacts of ocean acidification on other scallop biological parameters may influence the social-ecological system. Future empirical work on the effect of ocean acidification on sea scallops is also needed.
    Description: Cooley, Rheuban, and Doney were supported by NOAA Grant NA12NOS4780145 (www.noaa.gov) and the Center for Climate and Energy Decision Making (CEDM, NSF SES-0949710) (www.nsf.gov). Luu was supported by a WHOI Summer Student Fellowship (www.whoi.edu).
    Repository Name: Woods Hole Open Access Server
    Type: Article
    Format: application/pdf
    Location Call Number Expected Availability
    BibTip Others were also interested in ...
  • 25
    Publication Date: 2022-05-25
    Description: © The Author(s), 2015. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in PLoS One 10 (2015): e0129719, doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0129719.
    Description: We applied a series of selective antibodies for labeling the various cell types in the mammalian retina. These were used to identify the progressive loss of neurons in the FVB/N mouse, a model of early onset retinal degeneration produced by a mutation in the pde6b gene. The immunocytochemical studies, together with electroretinogram (ERG) recordings, enabled us to examine the time course of the degenerative changes that extended from the photoreceptors to the ganglion cells at the proximal end of the retina. Our study indicates that photoreceptors in FVB/N undergo a rapid degeneration within three postnatal weeks, and that there is a concomitant loss of retinal neurons in the inner nuclear layer. Although the loss of rods was detected at an earlier age during which time M- and S-opsin molecules were translocated to the cone nuclei; by 6 months all cones had also degenerated. Neuronal remodeling was also seen in the second-order neurons with horizontal cells sprouting processes proximally and dendritic retraction in rod-driven bipolar cells. Interestingly, the morphology of cone-driven bipolar cells were affected less by the disease process. The cellular structure of inner retinal neurons, i.e., ChAT amacrine cells, ganglion cells, and melanopsin-positive ganglion cells did not exhibit any gross changes of cell densities and appeared to be relatively unaffected by the massive photoreceptor degeneration in the distal retina. However, Muller cell processes began to express GFAP at their endfeet at p14, and it climbed progressively to the cell’s distal ends by 6 months. Our study indicates that FVB/N mouse provides a useful model with which to assess possible intervention strategies to arrest photoreceptor death in related diseases.
    Description: This study was supported by grants from the National Science Foundation (NSF, IOS-1021646, WS) and the National Eye Institute (NEI, EY 14161, WS).
    Repository Name: Woods Hole Open Access Server
    Type: Article
    Format: application/pdf
    Location Call Number Expected Availability
    BibTip Others were also interested in ...
  • 26
    Publication Date: 2022-05-25
    Description: © The Author(s), 2016. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in PLoS One 11 (2016): e0146977, doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0146977 .
    Description: The article reports the radiocarbon investigation of Anzapalivoro, the largest za baobab (Adansonia za) specimen of Madagascar and of another za, namely the Big cistern baobab. Several wood samples collected from the large inner cavity and from the outer part/exterior of the tree were investigated by AMS (accelerator mass spectrometry) radiocarbon dating. For samples collected from the cavity walls, the age values increase with the distance into the wood up to a point of maximum age, after which the values decrease toward the outer part. This anomaly of age sequences indicates that the inner cavity of Anzapalivoro is a false cavity, practically an empty space between several fused stems disposed in a ring-shaped structure. The radiocarbon date of the oldest sample was 780 ± 30 bp, which corresponds to a calibrated age of around 735 yr. Dating results indicate that Anzapalivoro has a closed ring-shaped structure, which consists of 5 fused stems that close a false cavity. The oldest part of the biggest za baobab has a calculated age of 900 years. We also disclose results of the investigation of a second za baobab, the Big cistern baobab, which was hollowed out for water storage. This specimen, which consists of 4 fused stems, was found to be around 260 years old.
    Repository Name: Woods Hole Open Access Server
    Type: Article
    Location Call Number Expected Availability
    BibTip Others were also interested in ...
  • 27
    Publication Date: 2022-05-25
    Description: This is an open access article, free of all copyright, and may be freely reproduced, distributed, transmitted, modified, built upon, or otherwise used by anyone for any lawful purpose. The definitive version was published in PLoS One 11 (2016): e0154208, doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0154208
    Description: Some species of butterflyfish have had preyed upon corals for millions of years, yet the mechanism of butterflyfish specialized coral feeding strategy remains poorly understood. Certain butterflyfish have the ability to feed on allelochemically rich soft corals, e.g. Sinularia maxima. Cytochrome P450 (CYP) is the predominant enzyme system responsible for the detoxification of dietary allelochemicals. CYP2-like and CYP3A-like content have been associated with butterflyfish that preferentially consumes allelochemically rich soft corals. To investigate the role of butterflyfish CYP2 and CYP3A enzymes in dietary preference, we conducted oral feeding experiments using homogenates of S. maxima and a toxin isolated from the coral in four species of butterflyfish with different feeding strategies. After oral exposure to the S. maxima toxin 5-episinulaptolide (5ESL), which is not normally encountered in the Hawaiian butterflyfish diet, an endemic specialist, Chaetodon multicinctus experienced 100% mortality compared to a generalist, Chaetodon auriga, which had significantly more (3–6 fold higher) CYP3A-like basal content and catalytic activity. The specialist, Chaetodon unimaculatus, which preferentially feed on S. maxima in Guam, but not in Hawaii, had 100% survival, a significant induction of 8–12 fold CYP3A-like content, and an increased ability (2-fold) to metabolize 5ESL over other species. Computer modeling data of CYP3A4 with 5ESL were consistent with microsomal transformation of 5ESL to a C15-16 epoxide from livers of C. unimaculatus. Epoxide formation correlated with CYP3A-like content, catalytic activity, induction, and NADPH-dependent metabolism of 5ESL. These results suggest a potentially important role for the CYP3A family in butterflyfish-coral diet selection through allelochemical detoxification.
    Description: This work received support from the following sources: Resource Allocation Program of the Agricultural Research Station for UCR to DS; Summer funding by Hilda and George Liebig Environmental Sciences Summer Fellowship and travel grant Albert March Environmental Sciences Scholarship from the University of California, Riverside; and the Chemistry and DMPK CORE of COBRE, P20GM104932 from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS), a component of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) supported the chemistry studies.
    Repository Name: Woods Hole Open Access Server
    Type: Article
    Location Call Number Expected Availability
    BibTip Others were also interested in ...
  • 28
    Publication Date: 2022-05-25
    Description: This is an open access article, free of all copyright. The definitive version was published in PLoS ONE 11 (2016): e0164979, doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0164979.
    Description: Understanding and managing dynamic coastal landscapes for beach-dependent species requires biological and geological data across the range of relevant environments and habitats. It is difficult to acquire such information; data often have limited focus due to resource constraints, are collected by non-specialists, or lack observational uniformity. We developed an open-source smartphone application called iPlover that addresses these difficulties in collecting biogeomorphic information at piping plover (Charadrius melodus) nest sites on coastal beaches. This paper describes iPlover development and evaluates data quality and utility following two years of collection (n = 1799 data points over 1500 km of coast between Maine and North Carolina, USA). We found strong agreement between field user and expert assessments and high model skill when data were used for habitat suitability prediction. Methods used here to develop and deploy a distributed data collection system have broad applicability to interdisciplinary environmental monitoring and modeling.
    Description: This work was supported by the North Atlantic Landscape Conservation Cooperative through the U.S. Department of the Interior Hurricane Sandy recovery program under the Disaster Relief Appropriations Act of 2013, and the U.S. Geological Survey Coastal and Marine Geology Program.
    Repository Name: Woods Hole Open Access Server
    Type: Article
    Location Call Number Expected Availability
    BibTip Others were also interested in ...
  • 29
    Publication Date: 2022-05-25
    Description: The work is made available under the Creative Commons CCO public domain dedication.. The definitive version was published in PLoS Biology 16 (2018): e2006333, doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.2006333.
    Description: Our current understanding of biology is heavily based on a small number of genetically tractable model organisms. Most eukaryotic phyla lack such experimental models, and this limits our ability to explore the molecular mechanisms that ultimately define their biology, ecology, and diversity. In particular, marine protists suffer from a paucity of model organisms despite playing critical roles in global nutrient cycles, food webs, and climate. To address this deficit, an initiative was launched in 2015 to foster the development of ecologically and taxonomically diverse marine protist genetic models. The development of new models faces many barriers, some technical and others institutional, and this often discourages the risky, long-term effort that may be required. To lower these barriers and tackle the complexity of this effort, a highly collaborative community-based approach was taken. Herein, we describe this approach, the advances achieved, and the lessons learned by participants in this novel community-based model for research.
    Description: The research efforts, connections, and collaborations described in this paper and protocols.io (https://www.protocols.io/) were supported by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation’s Marine Microbiology Initiative.
    Repository Name: Woods Hole Open Access Server
    Type: Article
    Location Call Number Expected Availability
    BibTip Others were also interested in ...
  • 30
    Publication Date: 2020-02-27
    Description: The concept of multi-use of the sea has gained popularity in recent years as a result of ocean space (coastal areas and regions with relatively small sea space in particular) becoming increasingly crowded due to the development of the maritime economy. Competing claims for space can be a source of conflict, however this may also lead to mutual benefits for different users when sustainable combinations are sought. Despite increasing European-wide efforts, on-the-ground knowledge and practice of multi-use are still limited. Therefore, with the aim of investigating opportunities for multi-use development in the European seas, 10 case studies were selected, involving different site-specific contexts. This study analyses the characteristics and development potential for ocean multi-use, integrating results from desk analysis and stakeholder perceptions from different sectors in each of the case study locations. Similarities and differences between various combinations of sea uses are also identified. The results show a high heterogeneity of multi-use opportunities between case studies, with a range of combinations identified. The investigated combinations of maritime uses share an overall balance between factors promoting (drivers) and hindering (barriers) multi-use development. Based on stakeholder opinions, expected benefits (added values) of multi-use implementation outweigh potential negative impacts. Management actions are also proposed to further exploit multi-use potential at a local, regional (sub-national) and national levels.
    Repository Name: EPIC Alfred Wegener Institut
    Type: Article , isiRev , info:eu-repo/semantics/article
    Location Call Number Expected Availability
    BibTip Others were also interested in ...
  • 31
    Publication Date: 2022-05-26
    Description: © The Author(s), 2014. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in PLoS One 9 (2014): e83249, doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0083249.
    Description: Knowledge of the habitat use and migration patterns of large sharks is important for assessing the effectiveness of large predator Marine Protected Areas (MPAs), vulnerability to fisheries and environmental influences, and management of shark–human interactions. Here we compare movement, reef-fidelity, and ocean migration for tiger sharks, Galeocerdo cuvier, across the Coral Sea, with an emphasis on New Caledonia. Thirty-three tiger sharks (1.54 to 3.9 m total length) were tagged with passive acoustic transmitters and their localised movements monitored on receiver arrays in New Caledonia, the Chesterfield and Lord Howe Islands in the Coral Sea, and the east coast of Queensland, Australia. Satellite tags were also used to determine habitat use and movements among habitats across the Coral Sea. Sub-adults and one male adult tiger shark displayed year-round residency in the Chesterfields with two females tagged in the Chesterfields and detected on the Great Barrier Reef, Australia, after 591 and 842 days respectively. In coastal barrier reefs, tiger sharks were transient at acoustic arrays and each individual demonstrated a unique pattern of occurrence. From 2009 to 2013, fourteen sharks with satellite and acoustic tags undertook wide-ranging movements up to 1114 km across the Coral Sea with eight detected back on acoustic arrays up to 405 days after being tagged. Tiger sharks dove 1136 m and utilised three-dimensional activity spaces averaged at 2360 km3. The Chesterfield Islands appear to be important habitat for sub-adults and adult male tiger sharks. Management strategies need to consider the wide-ranging movements of large (sub-adult and adult) male and female tiger sharks at the individual level, whereas fidelity to specific coastal reefs may be consistent across groups of individuals. Coastal barrier reef MPAs, however, only afford brief protection for large tiger sharks, therefore determining the importance of other oceanic Coral Sea reefs should be a priority for future research.
    Description: Funding was provided by the the Agence Francaise de Développement (http://www.afd.fr), French Pacific Fund, the CRISP program (www.crisponline.info) and QLD Fisheries.
    Repository Name: Woods Hole Open Access Server
    Type: Article
    Format: application/pdf
    Format: video/mp4
    Format: text/plain
    Location Call Number Expected Availability
    BibTip Others were also interested in ...
  • 32
    Publication Date: 2022-05-26
    Description: © The Author(s), 2015. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in PLoS One 10 (2015): e0136376, doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0136376.
    Description: Polar petroleum components enter marine environments through oil spills and natural seepages each year. Lately, they are receiving increased attention due to their potential toxicity to marine organisms and persistence in the environment. We conducted a laboratory experiment and employed state-of-the-art Fourier-transform ion cyclotron resonance mass spectrometry (FT-ICR-MS) to characterize the polar petroleum components within two operationally-defined seawater fractions: the water-soluble fraction (WSF), which includes only water-soluble molecules, and the water-accommodated fraction (WAF), which includes WSF and microscopic oil droplets. Our results show that compounds with higher heteroatom (N, S, O) to carbon ratios (NSO:C) than the parent oil were selectively partitioned into seawater in both fractions, reflecting the influence of polarity on aqueous solubility. WAF and WSF were compositionally distinct, with unique distributions of compounds across a range of hydrophobicity. These compositional differences will likely result in disparate impacts on environmental health and organismal toxicity, and thus highlight the need to distinguish between these often-interchangeable terminologies in toxicology studies. We use an empirical model to estimate hydrophobicity character for individual molecules within these complex mixtures and provide an estimate of the potential environmental impacts of different crude oil components.
    Description: This study is funded by the Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative (GOMRI) Project # 161684 to Dr. Elizabeth B. Kujawinski.
    Repository Name: Woods Hole Open Access Server
    Type: Article
    Format: text/plain
    Format: application/pdf
    Location Call Number Expected Availability
    BibTip Others were also interested in ...
  • 33
    Publication Date: 2022-05-26
    Description: © The Author(s), 2015. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in PLoS One 10 (2015): e0135381, doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0135381.
    Description: Cephalopods are famous for their ability to change color and pattern rapidly for signaling and camouflage. They have keen eyes and remarkable vision, made possible by photoreceptors in their retinas. External to the eyes, photoreceptors also exist in parolfactory vesicles and some light organs, where they function using a rhodopsin protein that is identical to that expressed in the retina. Furthermore, dermal chromatophore organs contain rhodopsin and other components of phototransduction (including retinochrome, a photoisomerase first found in the retina), suggesting that they are photoreceptive. In this study, we used a modified whole-mount immunohistochemical technique to explore rhodopsin and retinochrome expression in a number of tissues and organs in the longfin squid, Doryteuthis pealeii. We found that fin central muscles, hair cells (epithelial primary sensory neurons), arm axial ganglia, and sucker peduncle nerves all express rhodopsin and retinochrome proteins. Our findings indicate that these animals possess an unexpected diversity of extraocular photoreceptors and suggest that extraocular photoreception using visual opsins and visual phototransduction machinery is far more widespread throughout cephalopod tissues than previously recognized.
    Description: This research was supported by the Office of Naval Research Basic Research Challenge grant number N00014-10-0989 to TWC and RTH and a Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) David Phillips Fellowship BB/L024667/1 to TJW. The authors gratefully acknowledge support from the Air Force Office of Scientific Research via grants numbered FA9550-09-0346 to RTH. and FA9550-12-1-0321 to TWC.
    Repository Name: Woods Hole Open Access Server
    Type: Article
    Format: application/pdf
    Format: text/plain
    Format: image/tiff
    Location Call Number Expected Availability
    BibTip Others were also interested in ...
  • 34
    Publication Date: 2022-05-26
    Description: © The Author(s), 2016. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in PLoS 11 (2016): e0149998, doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0149998.
    Description: Individuals with cystic fibrosis (CF) often acquire chronic lung infections that lead to irreversible damage. We sought to examine regional variation in the microbial communities in the lungs of individuals with mild-to-moderate CF lung disease, to examine the relationship between the local microbiota and local damage, and to determine the relationships between microbiota in samples taken directly from the lung and the microbiota in spontaneously expectorated sputum. In this initial study, nine stable, adult CF patients with an FEV1〉50% underwent regional sampling of different lobes of the right lung by bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL) and protected brush (PB) sampling of mucus plugs. Sputum samples were obtained from six of the nine subjects immediately prior to the procedure. Microbial community analysis was performed on DNA extracted from these samples and the extent of damage in each lobe was quantified from a recent CT scan. The extent of damage observed in regions of the right lung did not correlate with specific microbial genera, levels of community diversity or composition, or bacterial genome copies per ml of BAL fluid. In all subjects, BAL fluid from different regions of the lung contained similar microbial communities. In eight out of nine subjects, PB samples from different regions of the lung were also similar in microbial community composition, and were similar to microbial communities in BAL fluid from the same lobe. Microbial communities in PB samples were more diverse than those in BAL samples, suggesting enrichment of some taxa in mucus plugs. To our knowledge, this study is the first to examine the microbiota in different regions of the CF lung in clinically stable individuals with mild-to-moderate CF-related lung disease.
    Description: Support from the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation Research Development Program (STANTO07R0) as a pilot grant to DAH and AA. Research reported in this publication was also supported by grants from the National Institutes of Health to DAH (R01 AI091702 to DAH) and the American Asthma Foundation Scholars Award and CFFT-ASHARE15A0 and R01HL122372 to AA and R01 HL074175 (BAS). The Dartmouth Lung Biology Center and CF Translational Research Core was supported by an Institutional Development Award (IDeA) from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences of the National Institutes of Health under grant number P30GM106394 and by the CFF RDP (CFRDP STANTO11R0).
    Repository Name: Woods Hole Open Access Server
    Type: Article
    Location Call Number Expected Availability
    BibTip Others were also interested in ...
  • 35
    Publication Date: 2022-05-26
    Description: © The Author(s), 2016. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in PLoS 11 (2016): e0150660, doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0150660.
    Description: Sperm whales are present in the Canary Islands year-round, suggesting that the archipelago is an important area for this species in the North Atlantic. However, the area experiences one of the highest reported rates of sperm whale ship-strike in the world. Here we investigate if the number of sperm whales found in the archipelago can sustain the current rate of ship-strike mortality. The results of this study may also have implications for offshore areas where concentrations of sperm whales may coincide with high densities of ship traffic, but where ship-strikes may be undocumented. The absolute abundance of sperm whales in an area of 52933 km2, covering the territorial waters of the Canary Islands, was estimated from 2668 km of acoustic line-transect survey using Distance sampling analysis. Data on sperm whale diving and acoustic behaviour, obtained from bio-logging, were used to calculate g(0) = 0.92, this is less than one because of occasional extended periods when whales do not echolocate. This resulted in an absolute abundance estimate of 224 sperm whales (95% log-normal CI 120–418) within the survey area. The recruitment capability of this number of whales, some 2.5 whales per year, is likely to be exceeded by the current ship-strike mortality rate. Furthermore, we found areas of higher whale density within the archipelago, many coincident with those previously described, suggesting that these are important habitats for females and immature animals inhabiting the archipelago. Some of these areas are crossed by active shipping lanes increasing the risk of ship-strikes. Given the philopatry in female sperm whales, replacement of impacted whales might be limited. Therefore, the application of mitigation measures to reduce the ship-strike mortality rate seems essential for the conservation of sperm whales in the Canary Islands.
    Repository Name: Woods Hole Open Access Server
    Type: Article
    Location Call Number Expected Availability
    BibTip Others were also interested in ...
  • 36
    Publication Date: 2022-05-26
    Description: © The Author(s), 2016. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in PLoS 11 (2016): e0151089, doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0151089 .
    Description: The majority of ovarian tumors eventually recur in a drug resistant form. Using cisplatin sensitive and resistant cell lines assembled into 3D spheroids we profiled gene expression and identified candidate mechanisms and biological pathways associated with cisplatin resistance. OVCAR-8 human ovarian carcinoma cells were exposed to sub-lethal concentrations of cisplatin to create a matched cisplatin-resistant cell line, OVCAR-8R. Genome-wide gene expression profiling of sensitive and resistant ovarian cancer spheroids identified 3,331 significantly differentially expressed probesets coding for 3,139 distinct protein-coding genes (Fc 〉2, FDR 〈 0.05) (S2 Table). Despite significant expression changes in some transporters including MDR1, cisplatin resistance was not associated with differences in intracellular cisplatin concentration. Cisplatin resistant cells were significantly enriched for a mesenchymal gene expression signature. OVCAR-8R resistance derived gene sets were significantly more biased to patients with shorter survival. From the most differentially expressed genes, we derived a 17-gene expression signature that identifies ovarian cancer patients with shorter overall survival in three independent datasets. We propose that the use of cisplatin resistant cell lines in 3D spheroid models is a viable approach to gain insight into resistance mechanisms relevant to ovarian tumors in patients. Our data support the emerging concept that ovarian cancers can acquire drug resistance through an epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition.
    Description: This work was funded by the NIH NCRR supplement grant P41 RR001395-27S1 (J.W.H.), NSF DBI-1005378 “REU Site: Biological Discovery in Woods Hole”, faculty startup funds from the Office of Research at Oklahoma State University (W.C.), and the Mary Kay Foundation (A.S.B.).
    Repository Name: Woods Hole Open Access Server
    Type: Article
    Location Call Number Expected Availability
    BibTip Others were also interested in ...
  • 37
    Publication Date: 2022-05-26
    Description: © The Author(s), 2019. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in Cochran, J. E. M., Braun, C. D., Cagua, E. F., Campbell, M. F., Hardenstine, R. S., Kattan, A., Priest, M. A., Sinclair-Taylor, T. H., Skomal, G. B., Sultan, S., Sun, L., Thorrold, S. R., & Berumen, M. L. Multi-method assessment of whale shark (Rhincodon typus) residency, distribution, and dispersal behavior at an aggregation site in the Red Sea. Plos One, 14(9), (2019): e0222285, doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0222285.
    Description: Whale sharks (Rhincodon typus) are typically dispersed throughout their circumtropical range, but the species is also known to aggregate in specific coastal areas. Accurate site descriptions associated with these aggregations are essential for the conservation of R. typus, an Endangered species. Although aggregations have become valuable hubs for research, most site descriptions rely heavily on sightings data. In the present study, visual census, passive acoustic monitoring, and long range satellite telemetry were combined to track the movements of R. typus from Shib Habil, a reef-associated aggregation site in the Red Sea. An array of 63 receiver stations was used to record the presence of 84 acoustically tagged sharks (35 females, 37 males, 12 undetermined) from April 2010 to May 2016. Over the same period, identification photos were taken for 76 of these tagged individuals and 38 were fitted with satellite transmitters. In total of 37,461 acoustic detections, 210 visual encounters, and 33 satellite tracks were analyzed to describe the sharks’ movement ecology. The results demonstrate that the aggregation is seasonal, mostly concentrated on the exposed side of Shib Habil, and seems to attract sharks of both sexes in roughly equal numbers. The combined methodologies also tracked 15 interannual homing-migrations, demonstrating that many sharks leave the area before returning in later years. When compared to acoustic studies from other aggregations, these results demonstrate that R. typus exhibits diverse, site-specific ecologies across its range. Sightings-independent data from acoustic telemetry and other sources are an effective means of validating more common visual surveys.
    Description: Financial support was provided in part by KAUST baseline research funds (to MLB), KAUST award nos. USA00002 and KSA 00011 (to SRT), and the U.S. National Science Foundation (OCE 0825148 to SRT and GBS).
    Repository Name: Woods Hole Open Access Server
    Type: Article
    Location Call Number Expected Availability
    BibTip Others were also interested in ...
  • 38
    facet.materialart.
    Unknown
    Canadian Science Publishing
    In:  EPIC3Arctic Science, Canadian Science Publishing, 2(2), pp. 33-49, ISSN: 2368-7460
    Publication Date: 2022-08-12
    Description: Manual collection of accurate phenology data is time-consuming and expensive. In this study, we investigate whether repeat colour digital photography can be used (1) to identify phenological patterns, (2) to identify differences in vegetation due to experimental warming and site moisture conditions, and (3) as a proxy for biomass. Pixel values (RGB) were extracted from images taken of permanent plots in long-term warming experiments in three tundra communities at a high Arctic site during one growing season. The Greenness Excess Index (GEI) was calculated from image data at the plot scale (1 × 1 m) as well as for two species, Dryas integrifolia and Salix arctica. GEI values were then compared to corresponding field-based phenology observations. GEI and Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) values from a paired set of true colour and infrared images were compared with biomass data. The GEI values followed seasonal phenology at the plot and species scale and correlated well with standardized observations. GEI correlated well with biomass and was able to detect quantitative differences between warmed and control plots and the differences between communities due to site-specific moisture conditions. We conclude that true colour images can be used effectively to monitor phenology and biomass in high Arctic tundra. The simplicity and affordability of the photographic method represents an opportunity to expand observations in tundra ecosystems.
    Repository Name: EPIC Alfred Wegener Institut
    Type: Article , NonPeerReviewed
    Location Call Number Expected Availability
    BibTip Others were also interested in ...
  • 39
    Publication Date: 2022-05-26
    Description: This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons public domain dedication. The definitive version was published in PLoS One 11 (2016): e0158495, doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0158495.
    Description: The number of fluorescent labels that can unambiguously be distinguished in a single image when acquired through band pass filters is severely limited by the spectral overlap of available fluorophores. The recent development of spectral microscopy and the application of linear unmixing algorithms to spectrally recorded image data have allowed simultaneous imaging of fluorophores with highly overlapping spectra. However, the number of distinguishable fluorophores is still limited by the unavoidable decrease in signal to noise ratio when fluorescence signals are fractionated over multiple wavelength bins. Here we present a spectral image analysis algorithm to greatly expand the number of distinguishable objects labeled with binary combinations of fluorophores. Our algorithm utilizes a priori knowledge about labeled specimens and imposes a binary label constraint on the unmixing solution. We have applied our labeling and analysis strategy to identify microbes labeled by fluorescence in situ hybridization and here demonstrate the ability to distinguish 120 differently labeled microbes in a single image.
    Description: This work was supported by Grant 2007-3- 13 from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation (to GGB), National Institutes of Health Grant 1RC1-DE020630 from the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research (NIDCR) (to GGB) and by National Institutes of Health Fellowship 1F31-DE019576 from NIDCR (to AMV).
    Repository Name: Woods Hole Open Access Server
    Type: Article
    Location Call Number Expected Availability
    BibTip Others were also interested in ...
  • 40
    Publication Date: 2022-05-26
    Description: © The Author(s), 2014. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in PLoS One 9 (2014): e109935, doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0109935.
    Description: Production of hydrogen and organic compounds by an electrosynthetic microbiome using electrodes and carbon dioxide as sole electron donor and carbon source, respectively, was examined after exposure to acidic pH (~5). Hydrogen production by biocathodes poised at −600 mV vs. SHE increased〉100-fold and acetate production ceased at acidic pH, but ~5–15 mM (catholyte volume)/day acetate and〉1,000 mM/day hydrogen were attained at pH ~6.5 following repeated exposure to acidic pH. Cyclic voltammetry revealed a 250 mV decrease in hydrogen overpotential and a maximum current density of 12.2 mA/cm2 at −765 mV (0.065 mA/cm2 sterile control at −800 mV) by the Acetobacterium-dominated community. Supplying −800 mV to the microbiome after repeated exposure to acidic pH resulted in up to 2.6 kg/m3/day hydrogen (≈2.6 gallons gasoline equivalent), 0.7 kg/m3/day formate, and 3.1 kg/m3/day acetate ( = 4.7 kg CO2 captured).
    Description: This research was supported by a grant from the Department of Energy, Advanced Projects Research Agency – Energy (DE-AR0000089). CWM was supported with a Director's Postdoctoral Fellowship from Argonne National Laboratory.
    Repository Name: Woods Hole Open Access Server
    Type: Article
    Format: video/quicktime
    Format: application/pdf
    Location Call Number Expected Availability
    BibTip Others were also interested in ...
  • 41
    Publication Date: 2022-05-26
    Description: © The Author(s), 2015. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in PLoS One 10 (2015): e0121170, doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0121170.
    Description: We extended our research on the architecture, growth and age of trees belonging to the genus Adansonia, by starting to investigate large individuals of the most widespread Malagasy species. Our research also intends to identify the oldest baobabs of Madagascar. Here we present results of the radiocarbon investigation of the two most representative Adansonia rubrostipa (fony baobab) specimens, which are located in south-western Madagascar, in the Tsimanampetsotse National Park. We found that the fony baobab called “Grandmother” consists of 3 perfectly fused stems of different ages. The radiocarbon date of the oldest sample was found to be 1136 ± 16 BP. We estimated that the oldest part of this tree, which is mainly hollow, has an age close to 1,600 yr. This value is comparable to the age of the oldest Adansonia digitata (African baobab) specimens. By its age, the Grandmother is a major candidate for the oldest baobab of Madagascar. The second investigated specimen, called the “polygamous baobab”, consists of 6 partially fused stems of different ages. According to dating results, this fony baobab is 1,000 yr old. This research is the first investigation of the structure and age of Malagasy baobabs.
    Description: The research was fully funded by the Romanian Ministry of National Education CNCS-UEFISCDI under grant PN-II-ID-PCE-2013-76 (URL: http://uefiscdi.gov.ro/).
    Repository Name: Woods Hole Open Access Server
    Type: Article
    Format: application/pdf
    Location Call Number Expected Availability
    BibTip Others were also interested in ...
  • 42
    Publication Date: 2022-05-26
    Description: © The Author(s), 2016. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in PLoS 11 (2016): e0150820, doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0150820.
    Description: Methanol is a major volatile organic compound on Earth and serves as an important carbon and energy substrate for abundant methylotrophic microbes. Previous geochemical surveys coupled with predictive models suggest that the marine contributions are exceedingly large, rivaling terrestrial sources. Although well studied in terrestrial ecosystems, methanol sources are poorly understood in the marine environment and warrant further investigation. To this end, we adapted a Purge and Trap Gas Chromatography/Mass Spectrometry (P&T-GC/MS) method which allowed reliable measurements of methanol in seawater and marine phytoplankton cultures with a method detection limit of 120 nanomolar. All phytoplankton tested (cyanobacteria: Synechococcus spp. 8102 and 8103, Trichodesmium erythraeum, and Prochlorococcus marinus), and Eukarya (heterokont diatom: Phaeodactylum tricornutum, coccolithophore: Emiliania huxleyi, cryptophyte: Rhodomonas salina, and non-diatom heterokont: Nannochloropsis oculata) produced methanol, ranging from 0.8–13.7 micromolar in culture and methanol per total cellular carbon were measured in the ranges of 0.09–0.3%. Phytoplankton culture time-course measurements displayed a punctuated production pattern with maxima near early stationary phase. Stabile isotope labeled bicarbonate incorporation experiments confirmed that methanol was produced from phytoplankton biomass. Overall, our findings suggest that phytoplankton are a major source of methanol in the upper water column of the world’s oceans.
    Description: This project was solely supported by a grant to TJM from the National Science Foundation (Award# CHE-OCE 1131415).
    Repository Name: Woods Hole Open Access Server
    Type: Article
    Location Call Number Expected Availability
    BibTip Others were also interested in ...
  • 43
    Publication Date: 2022-05-26
    Description: © The Author(s), 2016. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in PLoS One 11 (2016): e0160080, doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0160080 .
    Description: Pilot whales are two cetacean species (Globicephala melas and G. macrorhynchus) whose distributions are correlated with water temperature and partially overlap in some areas like the North Atlantic Ocean. In the context of global warming, distribution range shifts are expected to occur in species affected by temperature. Consequently, a northward displacement of the tropical pilot whale G. macrorynchus is expected, eventually leading to increased secondary contact areas and opportunities for interspecific hybridization. Here, we describe genetic evidences of recurrent hybridization between pilot whales in northeast Atlantic Ocean. Based on mitochondrial DNA sequences and microsatellite loci, asymmetric introgression of G. macrorhynchus genes into G. melas was observed. For the latter species, a significant correlation was found between historical population growth rate estimates and paleotemperature oscillations. Introgressive hybridization, current temperature increases and lower genetic variation in G. melas suggest that this species could be at risk in its northern range. Under increasing environmental and human-mediated stressors in the North Atlantic Ocean, it seems recommendable to develop a conservation program for G. melas.
    Description: LM had a PCTI Grant from the Asturias Regional Government, referenced BP 10-004. MAS was supported by a 2013 FCT Investigator contract through POPH, QREN European Social Fund and the Portuguese Ministry for Science and Education. This study was also supported by a grant from the Principality of Asturias (reference: GRUPIN-2014-093).
    Repository Name: Woods Hole Open Access Server
    Type: Article
    Location Call Number Expected Availability
    BibTip Others were also interested in ...
  • 44
    Publication Date: 2022-05-26
    Description: © The Author(s), 2019. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in Zeigler, S. L., Gutierrez, B. T., Sturdivant, E. J., Catlin, D. H., Fraser, J. D., Hecht, A., Karpanty, S. M., Plant, N. G., & Thieler, E. R. Using a Bayesian network to understand the importance of coastal storms and undeveloped landscapes for the creation and maintenance of early successional habitat. Plos One, 14(7), (2019): e0209986, doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0209986.
    Description: Coastal storms have consequences for human lives and infrastructure but also create important early successional habitats for myriad species. For example, storm-induced overwash creates nesting habitat for shorebirds like piping plovers (Charadrius melodus). We examined how piping plover habitat extent and location changed on barrier islands in New York, New Jersey, and Virginia after Hurricane Sandy made landfall following the 2012 breeding season. We modeled nesting habitat using a nest presence/absence dataset that included characterizations of coastal morphology and vegetation. Using a Bayesian network, we predicted nesting habitat for each study site for the years 2010/2011, 2012, and 2014/2015 based on remotely sensed spatial datasets (e.g., lidar, orthophotos). We found that Hurricane Sandy increased piping plover habitat by 9 to 300% at 4 of 5 study sites but that one site saw a decrease in habitat by 27%. The amount, location, and longevity of new habitat appeared to be influenced by the level of human development at each site. At three of the five sites, the amount of habitat created and the time new habitat persisted were inversely related to the amount of development. Furthermore, the proportion of new habitat created in high-quality overwash was inversely related to the level of development on study areas, from 17% of all new habitat in overwash at one of the most densely developed sites to 80% of all new habitat at an undeveloped site. We also show that piping plovers exploited new habitat after the storm, with 14–57% of all nests located in newly created habitat in the 2013 breeding season. Our results quantify the importance of storms in creating and maintaining coastal habitats for beach-nesting species like piping plovers, and these results suggest a negative correlation between human development and beneficial ecological impacts of these natural disturbances.
    Description: Funding for this work was provided through a U.S. Geological Survey Mendenhall Post-Doctoral Fellowship awarded to S. Zeigler, with funding for this fellowship made through a grant to E.R. Thieler from the North Atlantic Landscape Conservation Cooperative. Funders did not play a role in study design, data collection or analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.
    Repository Name: Woods Hole Open Access Server
    Type: Article
    Location Call Number Expected Availability
    BibTip Others were also interested in ...
  • 45
    Publication Date: 2022-05-26
    Description: © The Author(s), 2017. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in PLoS ONE 12 (2017): e0184849, doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0184849.
    Description: Diatoms are important components of marine ecosystems and contribute greatly to the world's primary production. Despite their important roles in ecosystems, the molecular basis of how diatoms cope with oxidative stress caused by nutrient fluctuations remains largely unknown. Here, an isobaric tags for relative and absolute quantitation (iTRAQ) proteomic method was coupled with a series of physiological and biochemical techniques to explore oxidative stress- and cell fate decision-related cellular and metabolic responses of the diatom Thalassiosira pseudonana to nitrate (N) and inorganic phosphate (P) stresses. A total of 1151 proteins were detected; 122 and 56 were significantly differentially expressed from control under N- and P-limited conditions, respectively. In N-limited cells, responsive proteins were related to reactive oxygen species (ROS) accumulation, oxidative stress responses and cell death, corresponding to a significant decrease in photosynthetic efficiency, marked intracellular ROS accumulation, and caspase-mediated programmed cell death activation. None of these responses were identified in P-limited cells; however, a significant up-regulation of alkaline phosphatase proteins was observed, which could be the major contributor for P-limited cells to cope with ambient P deficiency. These findings demonstrate that fundamentally different metabolic responses and cellular regulations are employed by the diatom in response to different nutrient stresses and to keep the cells viable.
    Description: This study was funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (41576138, 41076080, 41576138) to Dr. Jun-Rong Liang; the Woods Hole Center for Oceans and Human Health, National Science Foundation (OCE-1314642) to Dr. DonaldM Anderson; the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (1-P01-ES021923- 01) to Dr. DonaldM Anderson; and the ERC Advanced Award Diatomite and ANR project DiaDomOil to Dr. Chris Bowler.
    Repository Name: Woods Hole Open Access Server
    Type: Article
    Location Call Number Expected Availability
    BibTip Others were also interested in ...
  • 46
    Publication Date: 2022-05-26
    Description: © The Author(s), 2016. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in PLoS ONE 11 (2016): e0155049, doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0155049.
    Description: Many reefs have shifted from coral and fish dominated habitats to less productive macroalgal dominated habitats, and current research is investigating means of reversing this phase shift. In the tropical Pacific, overfished reefs with inadequate herbivory can become dominated by the brown alga Sargassum polycystum. This alga suppresses recruitment and survival of corals and fishes, thus limiting the potential for reef recovery. Here we investigate the mechanisms that reinforce S. polycystum dominance and show that in addition to negatively affecting other species, this species acts in a self-reinforcing manner, positively promoting survival and growth of conspecifics. We found that survival and growth of both recruit-sized and mature S. polycystum fronds were higher within Sargassum beds than outside the beds and these results were found in both protected and fished reefs. Much of this benefit resulted from reduced herbivory within the Sargassum beds, but adult fronds also grew ~50% more within the beds even when herbivory did not appear to be occurring, suggesting some physiological advantage despite the intraspecific crowding. Thus via positive feedbacks, S. polycystum enhances its own growth and resistance to herbivores, facilitating its dominance (perhaps also expansion) and thus its resilience on degraded reefs. This may be a key feedback mechanism suppressing the recovery of coral communities in reefs dominated by macroalgal beds.
    Description: Financial support came to MEH from the National Science Foundation (OCE 0929119), the National Institutes of Health (2 U19 TW007401-10), and the Teasley Endowment to the Georgia Institute of Technology.
    Repository Name: Woods Hole Open Access Server
    Type: Article
    Location Call Number Expected Availability
    BibTip Others were also interested in ...
  • 47
    Publication Date: 2022-05-26
    Description: © The Author(s), 2017. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in PLoS One 12 (2017): e0188257, doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0188257.
    Description: Preservation of three-dimensional structure in the gut is necessary in order to analyze the spatial organization of the gut microbiota and gut luminal contents. In this study, we evaluated preparation methods for mouse gut with the goal of preserving micron-scale spatial structure while performing fluorescence imaging assays. Our evaluation of embedding methods showed that commonly used media such as Tissue-Tek Optimal Cutting Temperature (OCT) compound, paraffin, and polyester waxes resulted in redistribution of luminal contents. By contrast, a hydrophilic methacrylate resin, Technovit H8100, preserved three-dimensional organization. Our mouse intestinal preparation protocol optimized using the Technovit H8100 embedding method was compatible with microbial fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) and other labeling techniques, including immunostaining and staining with both wheat germ agglutinin (WGA) and 4', 6-diamidino-2-phenylindole (DAPI). Mucus could be visualized whether the sample was fixed with paraformaldehyde (PFA) or with Carnoy’s fixative. The protocol optimized in this study enabled simultaneous visualization of micron-scale spatial patterns formed by microbial cells in the mouse intestines along with biogeographical landmarks such as host-derived mucus and food particles.
    Description: Funding provided by National Science Foundation (www.nsf.gov) grant 1650141 to J.L.M.W. and National Institutes of Health National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research (www.nidcr.nih.gov) grant DE022586 to G.G.B.
    Repository Name: Woods Hole Open Access Server
    Type: Article
    Location Call Number Expected Availability
    BibTip Others were also interested in ...
  • 48
    Publication Date: 2022-05-26
    Description: © The Author(s), 2017. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in PLoS One 12 (2017): e0188601, doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0188601.
    Description: Many animals go through one or more metamorphoses during their lives, however, the molecular underpinnings of metamorphosis across diverse species are not well understood. Medusozoa (Cnidaria) is a clade of animals with complex life cycles, these life cycles can include a polyp stage that metamorphoses into a medusa (jellyfish). Medusae are produced through a variety of different developmental mechanisms—in some species polyps bud medusae (Hydrozoa), in others medusae are formed through polyp fission (Scyphozoa), while in others medusae are formed through direct transformation of the polyp (Cubozoa). To better understand the molecular mechanisms that may coordinate these different forms of metamorphosis, we tested two compounds first identified to induce metamorphosis in the moon jellyfish Aurelia aurita (indomethacin and 5-methoxy-2-methylindole) on a broad diversity of medusozoan polyps. We discovered that indole-containing compounds trigger metamorphosis across a broad diversity of species. All tested discomedusan polyps metamorphosed in the presence of both compounds, including species representatives of several major lineages within the clade (Pelagiidae, Cyaneidae, both clades of Rhizostomeae). In a cubozoan, low levels of 5-methoxy-2-methylindole reliably induced complete and healthy metamorphosis. In contrast, neither compound induced medusa metamorphosis in a coronate scyphozoan, or medusa production in either hydrozoan tested. Our results support the hypothesis that metamorphosis is mediated by a conserved induction pathway within discomedusan scyphozoans, and possibly cubozoans. However, failure of these compounds to induce metamorphosis in a coronate suggests this induction mechanism may have been lost in this clade, or is convergent between Scyphozoa and Cubozoa.
    Description: National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship (DGE - 1058262; https://www.nsfgrfp.org/general_resources/about) to RRH. Evo-Devo-Eco Network (IOS # 0955517; http://edenrcn.com/) Research Exchange Funds, awarded to RRH. National Science Foundation Rhode Island Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Graduate Research Fellowship to RRH (DEB-1256695; http://web.uri.edu/rinsfepscor/grad-fellowships/). Brown University Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Dissertation Development Grant from the Bushnell Research and Education Fund awarded to RRH.
    Repository Name: Woods Hole Open Access Server
    Type: Article
    Location Call Number Expected Availability
    BibTip Others were also interested in ...
  • 49
    Publication Date: 2022-05-26
    Description: © The Author(s), 2018. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in PLoS One 13 (2018): e0191509, doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0191509.
    Description: Wintertime convective mixing plays a pivotal role in the sub-polar North Atlantic spring phytoplankton blooms by favoring phytoplankton survival in the competition between light-dependent production and losses due to grazing and gravitational settling. We use satellite and ocean reanalyses to show that the area-averaged maximum winter mixed layer depth is positively correlated with April chlorophyll concentration in the northern Labrador Sea. A simple theoretical framework is developed to understand the relative roles of winter/spring convection and gravitational sedimentation in spring blooms in this region. Combining climate model simulations that project a weakening of wintertime Labrador Sea convection from Arctic sea ice melt with our framework suggests a potentially significant reduction in the initial fall phytoplankton population that survive the winter to seed the region’s spring bloom by the end of the 21st century.
    Description: KB, LB, PJR and LRL were supported by the Office of Science (BER), U. S. Department of Energy as part of the Regional and Global Climate Modelling (RGCM) Program. SCD acknowledges support from NASA Award NNX15AE65G North Atlantic Aerosol and Marine Ecosystem Study (NAAMES).
    Repository Name: Woods Hole Open Access Server
    Type: Article
    Location Call Number Expected Availability
    BibTip Others were also interested in ...
  • 50
    Publication Date: 2022-05-26
    Description: © The Author(s), 2017. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in PLoS One 12 (2017): e0188340, doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0188340.
    Description: Prion diseases include a number of progressive neuropathies involving conformational changes in cellular prion protein (PrPc) that may be fatal sporadic, familial or infectious. Pathological evidence indicated that neurons affected in prion diseases follow a dying-back pattern of degeneration. However, specific cellular processes affected by PrPc that explain such a pattern have not yet been identified. Results from cell biological and pharmacological experiments in isolated squid axoplasm and primary cultured neurons reveal inhibition of fast axonal transport (FAT) as a novel toxic effect elicited by PrPc. Pharmacological, biochemical and cell biological experiments further indicate this toxic effect involves casein kinase 2 (CK2) activation, providing a molecular basis for the toxic effect of PrPc on FAT. CK2 was found to phosphorylate and inhibit light chain subunits of the major motor protein conventional kinesin. Collectively, these findings suggest CK2 as a novel therapeutic target to prevent the gradual loss of neuronal connectivity that characterizes prion diseases.
    Description: This work was supported by Alzheimer Association New Investigator Research Grant to Promote Diversity NIRGD-11-206379 and Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas PIP 112 20150100954 CO (to GP), National Institutes of Health NS066942A and NS096642 (to GM), R01-NS023868 and R01-NS041170 (to STB).
    Repository Name: Woods Hole Open Access Server
    Type: Article
    Location Call Number Expected Availability
    BibTip Others were also interested in ...
  • 51
    Publication Date: 2022-05-26
    Description: © The Author(s), 2018. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in PLoS One 13 (2018): e0190905, doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0190905.
    Description: Trichoplax adhaerens has only six cell types. The function as well as the structure of crystal cells, the least numerous cell type, presented an enigma. Crystal cells are arrayed around the perimeter of the animal and each contains a birefringent crystal. Crystal cells resemble lithocytes in other animals so we looked for evidence they are gravity sensors. Confocal microscopy showed that their cup-shaped nuclei are oriented toward the edge of the animal, and that the crystal shifts downward under the influence of gravity. Some animals spontaneously lack crystal cells and these animals behaved differently upon being tilted vertically than animals with a typical number of crystal cells. EM revealed crystal cell contacts with fiber cells and epithelial cells but these contacts lacked features of synapses. EM spectroscopic analyses showed that crystals consist of the aragonite form of calcium carbonate. We thus provide behavioral evidence that Trichoplax are able to sense gravity, and that crystal cells are likely to be their gravity receptors. Moreover, because placozoans are thought to have evolved during Ediacaran or Cryogenian eras associated with aragonite seas, and their crystals are made of aragonite, they may have acquired gravity sensors during this early era.
    Description: This research was supported by the intramural research program of the NIH, NINDS.
    Repository Name: Woods Hole Open Access Server
    Type: Article
    Location Call Number Expected Availability
    BibTip Others were also interested in ...
  • 52
    Publication Date: 2022-05-26
    Description: This is an open access article, free of all copyright. The definitive version was published in PLoS ONE 12 (2017): e0172839, doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0172839.
    Description: Marine animals, such as turtles, seabirds and pelagic fishes, are observed to travel and congregate around eddies in the open ocean. Mesoscale eddies, large swirling ocean vortices with radius scales of approximately 50–100 km, provide environmental variability that can structure these populations. In this study, we investigate the use of mesoscale eddies by 24 individual juvenile loggerhead sea turtles (Caretta caretta) in the Brazil-Malvinas Confluence region. The influence of eddies on turtles is assessed by collocating the turtle trajectories to the tracks of mesoscale eddies identified in maps of sea level anomaly. Juvenile loggerhead sea turtles are significantly more likely to be located in the interiors of anticyclones in this region. The distribution of surface drifters in eddy interiors reveals no significant association with the interiors of cyclones or anticyclones, suggesting higher prevalence of turtles in anticyclones is a result of their behavior. In the southern portion of the Brazil-Malvinas Confluence region, turtle swimming speed is significantly slower in the interiors of anticyclones, when compared to the periphery, suggesting that these turtles are possibly feeding on prey items associated with anomalously low near-surface chlorophyll concentrations observed in those features.
    Description: A Woods Hole Postdoctoral Fellowship awarded to PG and NASA grant NNX13AE47G funded this work. CB is grateful for support from NOAA and the NSF-GRFP (Grant No. 1314109). DJM gratefully acknowledges support from NASA and NSF.
    Repository Name: Woods Hole Open Access Server
    Type: Article
    Location Call Number Expected Availability
    BibTip Others were also interested in ...
  • 53
    Publication Date: 2022-05-26
    Description: © The Author(s), 2019. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in Lemkau, K. L., Reddy, C. M., Carmichael, C. A., Aeppli, C., Swarthout, R. F., & White, H. K. Hurricane Isaac brings more than oil ashore: Characteristics of beach deposits following the Deepwater Horizon spill. Plos One, 14(3), (2019):e0213464, doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0213464.
    Description: Prior to Hurricane Isaac making landfall along the Gulf of Mexico coast in August 2012, local and state officials were concerned that the hurricane would mobilize submerged oiled-materials from the Deepwater Horizon (DWH) spill. In this study, we investigated materials washed ashore following the hurricane to determine if it affected the chemical composition or density of oil-containing sand patties regularly found on Gulf Coast beaches. While small changes in sand patty density were observed in samples collected before and after the hurricane, these variations appear to have been driven by differences in sampling location and not linked to the passing of Hurricane Isaac. Visual and chemical analysis of sand patties confirmed that the contents was consistent with oil from the Macondo well. Petroleum hydrocarbon signatures of samples collected before and after the hurricane showed no notable changes. In the days following Hurricane Isaac, dark-colored mats were also found on the beach in Fort Morgan, AL, and community reports speculated that these mats contained oil from the DWH spill. Chemical analysis of these mat samples identified n-alkanes but no other petroleum hydrocarbons. Bulk and δ13C organic carbon analyses indicated mat samples were comprised of marshland peat and not related to the DWH spill. This research indicates that Hurricane Isaac did not result in a notable change the composition of oil delivered to beaches at the investigated field sites. This study underscores the need for improved communications with interested stakeholders regarding how to differentiate oiled from non-oiled materials. This is especially important given the high cost of removing oiled debris and the increasing likelihood of false positives as oiled-materials washing ashore from a spill become less abundant over time.
    Description: The authors wish to acknowledge support for this project from the Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative (RFP-V), the Deep-C Consortium (SA 16-30), NSF (OCE-1333148) awarded to CMR, and a Gulf Research Program Early-Career Research Fellowship to HKW. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.
    Repository Name: Woods Hole Open Access Server
    Type: Article
    Location Call Number Expected Availability
    BibTip Others were also interested in ...
  • 54
    Publication Date: 2022-05-26
    Description: This is an open access article, free of all copyright. The definitive version was published in PLoS ONE 12 (2017): e0170962, doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0170962.
    Description: Bio-logging tags are an important tool for the study of cetaceans, but superficial tags inevitably increase hydrodynamic loading. Substantial forces can be generated by tags on fast-swimming animals, potentially affecting behavior and energetics or promoting early tag removal. Streamlined forms have been used to reduce loading, but these designs can accelerate flow over the top of the tag. This non-axisymmetric flow results in large lift forces (normal to the animal) that become the dominant force component at high speeds. In order to reduce lift and minimize total hydrodynamic loading this work presents a new tag design (Model A) that incorporates a hydrodynamic body, a channel to reduce fluid speed differences above and below the housing and wing to redirect flow to counter lift. Additionally, three derivatives of the Model A design were used to examine the contribution of individual flow control features to overall performance. Hydrodynamic loadings of four models were compared using computational fluid dynamics (CFD). The Model A design eliminated all lift force and generated up to ~30 N of downward force in simulated 6 m/s aligned flow. The simulations were validated using particle image velocimetry (PIV) to experimentally characterize the flow around the tag design. The results of these experiments confirm the trends predicted by the simulations and demonstrate the potential benefit of flow control elements for the reduction of tag induced forces on the animal.
    Description: This project was funded by the National Oceanographic Partnership Program [National Science Foundation via the Office of Naval Research N00014-11-1-0113]. C. Spencer Garborg was supported by a Grove City College Swezey Student Fellowship to Erik Anderson. Mark Johnson was funded by a Marie Curie-Sklodowska grant from the European Union.
    Repository Name: Woods Hole Open Access Server
    Type: Article
    Location Call Number Expected Availability
    BibTip Others were also interested in ...
  • 55
    Publication Date: 2022-05-26
    Description: © The Author(s), 2017. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in PLoS ONE 12 (2017): e0186156, doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0186156.
    Description: Bowhead whales (Balaena mysticetus) have a nearly circumpolar distribution, and occasionally occupy warmer shallow coastal areas during summertime that may facilitate molting. However, relatively little is known about the occurrence of molting and associated behaviors in bowhead whales. We opportunistically observed whales in Cumberland Sound, Nunavut, Canada with skin irregularities consistent with molting during August 2014, and collected a skin sample from a biopsied whale that revealed loose epidermis and sloughing. During August 2016, we flew a small unmanned aerial system (sUAS) over whales to take video and still images to: 1) determine unique individuals; 2) estimate the proportion of the body of unique individuals that exhibited sloughing skin; 3) determine the presence or absence of superficial lines representative of rock-rubbing behavior; and 4) measure body lengths to infer age-class. The still images revealed that all individuals (n = 81 whales) were sloughing skin, and that nearly 40% of them had mottled skin over more than two-thirds of their bodies. The video images captured bowhead whales rubbing on large rocks in shallow, coastal areas—likely to facilitate molting. Molting and rock rubbing appears to be pervasive during late summer for whales in the eastern Canadian Arctic.
    Description: Fieldwork was funded by: Fisheries and Oceans Canada (Emerging Fisheries 41436-810-120-4D875), Nunavut Wildlife Research Trust Fund (project 3-13-29 Bowhead Whale Movement's and Ecology), Molson Foundation (318366), Ocean Tracking Network (NSERC NETGP 375118-08), and ArcticNet Centre of Excellence (317588) awarded to S.H. Ferguson and World Wildlife Fund Canada (Arctic Species Conservation Fund) awarded to W.R. Koski and S.M.E. Fortune. Additional field work support was provided by: U.S. Department of the Interior, Minerals Management Service (MMS; now Bureau of Ocean Energy Management), through Inter-agency Agreement No. M08PG20021 with the U.S. Department of Commerce, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, as part of the MMS Alaska Environmental Studies Program awarded to M.F. Baumgartner. Personnel support was provided by: Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council Canadian Graduate Scholarship, the W. Garfield Weston Award for Northern Research, University of British Columbia Affiliated Fellowship and Northern Scientific Training Program (Canadian Polar Commission) awarded to S.M.E. Fortune
    Repository Name: Woods Hole Open Access Server
    Type: Article
    Location Call Number Expected Availability
    BibTip Others were also interested in ...
  • 56
    Publication Date: 2022-05-26
    Description: © The Author(s), 2019. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in Thomas, F., Morris, J. T., Wigand, C., & Sievert, S. M. Short-term effect of simulated salt marsh restoration by sand-amendment on sediment bacterial communities. Plos One, 14(4), (2019):e0215767, doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0215767.
    Description: Coastal climate adaptation strategies are needed to build salt marsh resiliency and maintain critical ecosystem services in response to impacts caused by climate change. Although resident microbial communities perform crucial biogeochemical cycles for salt marsh functioning, their response to restoration practices is still understudied. One promising restoration strategy is the placement of sand or sediment onto the marsh platform to increase marsh resiliency. A previous study examined the above- and below-ground structure, soil carbon dioxide emissions, and pore water constituents in Spartina alterniflora-vegetated natural marsh sediments and sand-amended sediments at varying inundation regimes. Here, we analyzed samples from the same experiment to test the effect of sand-amendments on the microbial communities after 5 months. Along with the previously observed changes in biogeochemistry, sand amendments drastically modified the bacterial communities, decreasing richness and diversity. The dominant sulfur-cycling bacterial community found in natural sediments was replaced by one dominated by iron oxidizers and aerobic heterotrophs, the abundance of which correlated with higher CO2-flux. In particular, the relative abundance of iron-oxidizing Zetaproteobacteria increased in the sand-amended sediments, possibly contributing to acidification by the formation of iron oxyhydroxides. Our data suggest that the bacterial community structure can equilibrate if the inundation regime is maintained within the optimal range for S. alterniflora. While long-term effects of changes in bacterial community on the growth of S. alterniflora are not clear, our results suggest that analyzing the microbial community composition could be a useful tool to monitor climate adaptation and restoration efforts.
    Description: This work was supported by NSF grants DEB-1050557 (SMS) and OCE-1637630 (JM), and WHOI Investment in Science Funds (SMS). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.
    Repository Name: Woods Hole Open Access Server
    Type: Article
    Location Call Number Expected Availability
    BibTip Others were also interested in ...
  • 57
    Publication Date: 2022-05-26
    Description: © The Author(s), 2019. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in Radice, V. Z., Brett, M. T., Fry, B., Fox, M. D., Hoegh-Guldberg, O., & Dove, S. G. Evaluating coral trophic strategies using fatty acid composition and indices. Plos One, 14(9), (2019): e0222327, doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0222327.
    Description: The ecological success of shallow water reef-building corals has been linked to the symbiosis between the coral host and its dinoflagellate symbionts (herein ‘symbionts’). As mixotrophs, symbiotic corals depend on nutrients 1) transferred from their photosynthetic symbionts (autotrophy) and 2) acquired by host feeding on particulate organic resources (heterotrophy). However, coral species differ in the extent to which they depend on heterotrophy for nutrition and these differences are typically poorly defined. Here, a multi-tracer fatty acid approach was used to evaluate the trophic strategies of three species of common reef-building coral (Galaxea fascicularis, Pachyseris speciosa, and Pocillopora verrucosa) whose trophic strategies had previously been identified using carbon stable isotopes. The composition and various indices of fatty acids were compared to examine the relative contribution of symbiont autotrophy and host heterotrophy in coral energy acquisition. A linear discriminant analysis (LDA) was used to estimate the contribution of polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA) derived from various potential sources to the coral hosts. The total fatty acid composition and fatty acid indices revealed differences between the more heterotrophic (P. verrucosa) and more autotrophic (P. speciosa) coral hosts, with the coral host G. fascicularis showing overlap with the other two species and greater variability overall. For the more heterotrophic P. verrucosa, the fatty acid indices and LDA results both indicated a greater proportion of copepod-derived fatty acids compared to the other coral species. Overall, the LDA estimated that PUFA derived from particulate resources (e.g., copepods and diatoms) comprised a greater proportion of coral host PUFA in contrast to the lower proportion of symbiont-derived PUFA. These estimates provide insight into the importance of heterotrophy in coral nutrition, especially in productive reef systems. The study supports carbon stable isotope results and demonstrates the utility of fatty acid analyses for exploring the trophic strategies of reef-building corals.
    Description: This study was made possible by funding from the XL Catlin Seaview Survey (OHG and VZR; http://catlinseaviewsurvey.com/), Australian Research Council (ARC) Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies (CE140100020; SD and OHG; https://www.coralcoe.org.au/), an ARC Laureate Fellowship (FL120100066; OHG; https://www.arc.gov.au), the University of Queensland Research Training Scholarship (VZR; https://www.uq.edu.au/), and the University of Washington Dale A. Carlson Endowed Faculty Support Fund (MTB and VZR; https://www.washington.edu/). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.
    Repository Name: Woods Hole Open Access Server
    Type: Article
    Location Call Number Expected Availability
    BibTip Others were also interested in ...
  • 58
    Publication Date: 2015-07-01
    Description: Because of their rapid maneuverability, extended operational range, and improved personnel safety, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) with vision-based systems have great potential for monitoring, detecting, and fighting forest fires. Over the last decade, UAV-based forest fire fighting technology has shown increasing promise. This paper presents a systematic overview of current progress in this field. First, a brief review of the development and system architecture of UAV systems for forest fire monitoring, detection, and fighting is provided. Next, technologies related to UAV forest fire monitoring, detection, and fighting are briefly reviewed, including those associated with fire detection, diagnosis, and prognosis, image vibration elimination, and cooperative control of UAVs. The final section outlines existing challenges and potential solutions in the application of UAVs to forest firefighting.
    Print ISSN: 0045-5067
    Electronic ISSN: 1208-6037
    Topics: Agriculture, Forestry, Horticulture, Fishery, Domestic Science, Nutrition
    Location Call Number Expected Availability
    BibTip Others were also interested in ...
  • 59
    Publication Date: 2018-09-01
    Description: Net CO2 assimilation (AN) is an important physiological indicator that reflects the photosynthetic capacity. The seasonal and spatial variations of AN play an important role in carbon uptake simulations, especially for trees. To gain a clearer understanding of the state of the branch carbon balance, it is necessary to more carefully evaluate the dynamic variation of AN over different gradients in the crown during the growing season. Gas exchange, leaf temperature (Tleaf), vapor pressure deficit (VPD), leaf mass per area (LMA), and relative depth into crown (RDINC) were measured throughout the growing season of planted Larix olgensis A. Henry trees. A semi-empirical model for predicting multilayered crown AN was established by incorporating Tleaf, VPD, LMA, RDINC, and their combinations into a photosynthetic light response (PLR) curve model using re-parameterization. The model was assessed based on goodness of fit (adjusted coefficient of determination ([Formula: see text]), root mean square error (RMSE), and Akaike’s information criterion (AIC)) and on the validation results (mean error (ME), mean absolute error (MAE), precision estimation (P)) and performed well. The multilayered predicted model of crown AN lays the foundation for calculating the multilayered photosynthetic production within the crown and determining the range of the functional crown for individual trees.
    Print ISSN: 0045-5067
    Electronic ISSN: 1208-6037
    Topics: Agriculture, Forestry, Horticulture, Fishery, Domestic Science, Nutrition
    Location Call Number Expected Availability
    BibTip Others were also interested in ...
  • 60
    Publication Date: 2015-07-01
    Description: Boreal peatlands in Canada comprise a substantial store of soil organic carbon (peat), and this peat is vulnerable to extensive burning during periods of extended drying. Increased frequency of extreme weather events in boreal regions is expected with future climate change, and the conditions that would support sustained smouldering peat combustion within peatlands may be more common. Organic soils tend to burn by smouldering combustion, a very slow-moving process in fuels such as those found in peatlands. Thus the most extreme conditions for carbon loss to the atmosphere due to the burning of peat likely occur when widespread propagation of flaming combustion leads to widespread initiation of smouldering. To investigate the potential for large-scale, high-intensity fire spread across forested bogs, we examined the fuel conditions in forested bogs necessary to support active crown fire. We measured surface and canopy fine fuels (those available to contribute to the propagating energy flux of the main flaming front) across a postfire chronosequence of forested boreal bog from central Alberta, Canada. We found that fuel load of fine surface material remained relatively constant across the chronosequence and at levels large enough to support crown fire initiation. Black spruce (Picea mariana (Mill.) B.S.P.) regeneration begins to fill in the crown space with increasing time since disturbance and achieves crown bulk densities similar to black spruce upland forests. We estimated that after about 80 years, the black spruce canopy has developed enough available fuel to support active crown fire on between 10% to 40% of days in a typical fire season in central Alberta, Canada. Broad-scale propagation of high-intensity fire across a peatland when coincident with drought-induced lower moisture in deep peatland layers has the potential to lead to a substantial release of stored terrestrial carbon.
    Print ISSN: 0045-5067
    Electronic ISSN: 1208-6037
    Topics: Agriculture, Forestry, Horticulture, Fishery, Domestic Science, Nutrition
    Location Call Number Expected Availability
    BibTip Others were also interested in ...
  • 61
    Publication Date: 2018-09-01
    Description: Understanding patterns of aboveground carbon storage across forest types is increasingly important as managers adapt to threats of global change. We combined field measures of aboveground biomass with lidar to model fine-scale biomass in deciduous forests located in two watersheds; one watershed was underlain by sandstone and the other by shale. We measured tree and shrub biomass across three topographic positions for both watersheds and analyzed biomass using mixed models. The watershed underlain by shale had 60% more aboveground biomass than the sandstone watershed. Although spatial patterns of biomass were different across watersheds, both had higher (between about 40% and 55%) biomass values at the toe-slope position than at the ridge-top position. To model fine-scale spatial patterns of biomass, we tested the effectiveness of leaf-on and leaf-off lidar combined with topographic metrics to develop a spatially explicit random forest model of tree and shrub biomass across both watersheds. Leaf-on variables were more important for modeling shrub biomass, while leaf-off variables were more effective at modeling tree biomass. Our model of tree and shrub biomass reflects the distribution of biomass across both watersheds at a fine scale and highlights the potential of abiotic factors such as topography and bedrock to affect carbon storage.
    Print ISSN: 0045-5067
    Electronic ISSN: 1208-6037
    Topics: Agriculture, Forestry, Horticulture, Fishery, Domestic Science, Nutrition
    Location Call Number Expected Availability
    BibTip Others were also interested in ...
  • 62
    Publication Date: 1983-12-01
    Description: The pine-wood nematode, Bursaphelenchusxylophilus (Steiner and Buhrer), was most commonly extracted from Cerambycidae emerging from nematode-infested pines in Minnesota and Wisconsin during 1981 and 1982. The greatest number of nematodes were extracted from Monochamusscutellatus (Say) and Monochamuscarolinensis (Olivier). Low numbers of B. xylophilus were found in some buprestids but no nematodes were found in the curulionid and scolytid beetles examined. Two species of Cerambycidae, Monochamusmannorator (Kiby.) and M. scutellatus were associated with B. xylophilus from balsam fir in Minnesota. Bursaphelenchusxylophilus from insects associated with balsam fir were morphologically different from insects associated with pine. Dauer larvae of B. xylophilus were concentrated in the thoracic segments of M. scutellatus and Monochamusmutator (Lec.) examined. Bursaphelenchusxylophilus was transmitted to twigs during maturation feeding and to logs during oviposition by M. carolinensis, M. mutator, and M. scutellatus.
    Print ISSN: 0045-5067
    Electronic ISSN: 1208-6037
    Topics: Agriculture, Forestry, Horticulture, Fishery, Domestic Science, Nutrition
    Location Call Number Expected Availability
    BibTip Others were also interested in ...
  • 63
    Publication Date: 2016-11-01
    Print ISSN: 0045-5067
    Electronic ISSN: 1208-6037
    Topics: Agriculture, Forestry, Horticulture, Fishery, Domestic Science, Nutrition
    Location Call Number Expected Availability
    BibTip Others were also interested in ...
  • 64
    Publication Date: 2015-06-01
    Description: Resource development can have significant consequences for the distribution of vegetation cover and for species persistence. Modelling changes to anthropogenic disturbance regimes over time can provide profound insights into the mechanisms that drive land cover change. We analyzed the spatial patterns of anthropogenic disturbance before and after a period of significant oil and gas extraction in two boreal forest subregions in Alberta, Canada. A spatially explicit model was used to map levels of anthropogenic forest crown mortality across 700 000 ha of managed forest over a 60-year period. The anthropogenic disturbance regime varied both spatially and temporally and was outside the historical range of variability characterized by regional fire regimes. Levels of live forest crown within anthropogenic disturbances declined and edge density increased following oil and gas development, whereas patch size varied regionally. In some places, anthropogenic disturbance generated profoundly novel landscapes with spatial patterns that had no historical analogue in the boreal system. The results illustrate that a shift in one sector of the economy can have dramatic outcomes on landscape structure. The results also suggest that any efforts to better align cumulative anthropogenic disturbance patterns with the historic baseline will almost certainly require a concerted and collaborative effort from all of the major stakeholders.
    Print ISSN: 0045-5067
    Electronic ISSN: 1208-6037
    Topics: Agriculture, Forestry, Horticulture, Fishery, Domestic Science, Nutrition
    Location Call Number Expected Availability
    BibTip Others were also interested in ...
  • 65
    Publication Date: 1983-12-01
    Description: Alnusrubra Bong, dominates the first 65 – 80 years of a sere that is initiated naturally on the terraces of the Hoh River. Stands of 14, 24, and 65 years were studied to determine to what extent the Alnus stage enriched the nitrogen inventory of the site. Bare sandbars deposited by the river had a mean of 783 kg/ha nitrogen. Alnus communities caused an increase in the nitrogen inventory so that, by 65 years, total community nitrogen was 4659 kg/ha, soils held 3594 kg/ha N in the upper 45 cm, and Alnus trees held 942 kg/ha N. The nitrogen contents of the soil, Alnus wood, bark, and branches, grasses, total aboveground biomass, total belowground biomass, and sticks less than 1 cm diameter all showed significant increases from 14 to 65 years. The A. rubra stage is an important link in the nutrient inventory between unvegetated, recently deposited sandbars and the climax coniferous forests dominated by Tsugaheterophylla (Raf.) Sarg. and Piceasitchensis (Bong.) Carr.
    Print ISSN: 0045-5067
    Electronic ISSN: 1208-6037
    Topics: Agriculture, Forestry, Horticulture, Fishery, Domestic Science, Nutrition
    Location Call Number Expected Availability
    BibTip Others were also interested in ...
  • 66
    Publication Date: 2015-08-01
    Description: In many recent studies, the value of forest inventory information in harvest scheduling has been examined. In a previous paper, we demonstrated that making measurement decisions for stands for which the harvest decision is uncertain simultaneously with the harvest decisions may be highly profitable. In that study, the quality of additional measurements was not a decision variable, and the only options were between making no measurements or measuring perfect information. In this study, we introduce data quality into the decision problem, i.e., the decisionmaker can select between making imperfect or perfect measurements. The imperfect information is obtained with a specific scenario tree formulation. Our decision problem includes three types of decisions: harvest decisions, measurement decisions, and decisions about measurement quality. In addition, the timing of the harvests and measurements must be decided. These decisions are evaluated based on two objectives: discounted aggregate income for the planning periods and the end value of the forest at the end of the planning horizon. Solving the bi-objective optimization problem formed using the ε-constraint method showed that imperfect information was mostly sufficient for the harvest timing decisions during the planning horizon but perfect information was required to meet the end-value constraint. The relative importance of the two objectives affects the measurements indirectly by increasing or decreasing the number of certain decisions (i.e., situations in which the optimal decision is identical in all scenarios).
    Print ISSN: 0045-5067
    Electronic ISSN: 1208-6037
    Topics: Agriculture, Forestry, Horticulture, Fishery, Domestic Science, Nutrition
    Location Call Number Expected Availability
    BibTip Others were also interested in ...
  • 67
    Publication Date: 2018-04-01
    Description: The contribution of forest biomass to Canada’s energy production is small but growing. As the forest bioenergy industry in Canada expands, there is growing interest in more sustainably managing the wood ash that is generated as a by-product. Despite being rich in nutrients, wood ash is usually landfilled in Canada. Soil applications of ash in Canadian forests could be used to mimic some of the effects of wildfire, to replace nutrients removed during harvesting, to counteract the negative effects of acid deposition, and to improve tree growth. At present, the provincial and territorial processes for obtaining regulatory approval to use wood ash as a forest soil amendment can be challenging to navigate. Furthermore, the costs for obtaining approval and transporting and applying wood ash to the soil can render landfilling a more cost-effective method of ash management. To ensure that wood ash applications in Canadian forests are conducted safely, effectively, and efficiently, experience from European countries could provide a useful starting point for developing best practices. The results of Canadian research trials will assist policy makers and forest managers in refining management guidelines that encourage soil applications of wood ash as a forest management tool while protecting the ecology, water quality, biodiversity, and productivity of Canadian forests.
    Print ISSN: 0045-5067
    Electronic ISSN: 1208-6037
    Topics: Agriculture, Forestry, Horticulture, Fishery, Domestic Science, Nutrition
    Location Call Number Expected Availability
    BibTip Others were also interested in ...
  • 68
    Publication Date: 2017-01-01
    Description: Genetic variation and population structure in biomass yield and coppice growth traits were assessed in seven native North American willow species (Salix amygdaloides (AMY), Salix bebbiana (BEB), Salix discolor (DIS), Salix eriocephala (ERI), Salix humilis (HUM), Salix interior (INT), and Salix nigra (NIG)) established together in common-garden field tests on two sites. Differences in biomass yield, coppice stem number, and average single-stem mass were significant at the site, species, population, and genotype (clonal) levels. There were also species × site interactions. Analyses of variance components for these traits showed that only 3%–5% of the total variation in these traits was due to site differences, whereas genetic variation at the species, population, and genotype levels accounted for approximately 10%–39%, 5%–13%, and 12%–23%, respectively. Populations were a significant source of variation in some willow species (e.g., AMY, DIS, ERI, and INT) but not in other species. Tree willows were less prolific in stem sprout production than shrub willows, and ERI coppices produced by far the highest number of stem sprouts per coppice. This multispecies investigation demonstrated strong species and clonal differences, but variation among populations within a species, although significant, was relatively small, indicating that major growth and yield gains can be made through proper species selection and clonal selection within local populations.
    Print ISSN: 0045-5067
    Electronic ISSN: 1208-6037
    Topics: Agriculture, Forestry, Horticulture, Fishery, Domestic Science, Nutrition
    Location Call Number Expected Availability
    BibTip Others were also interested in ...
  • 69
    Publication Date: 2018-01-01
    Description: Bud burst is one of the most observable phenological stages in tree species, and its responses to environmental factors are found to be species-specific. Nevertheless, for dioecious plants, whether the bud burst responses are sex specific remains an open question, as do the underlying physiological mechanisms. Here, we investigated the effect of elevated temperature (+2 °C) and drought (30% field capacity) during December–March on bud development, gas exchange, water and nitrogen status, and carbohydrate metabolism in female and male Populus cathayana to understand how nongrowing season warming and drought modifies physiological and phenological traits. Our results showed that at ambient temperature, males experienced earlier bud burst than females. Winter warming significantly delayed bud burst and even synchronized it for both sexes because of the greater responsiveness of males. Although drought exerted little effect on the timing of bud burst, it significantly reduced bud fresh mass and limited bud growth by decreasing gas exchange capacity and nonstructural carbohydrate (NSC) accumulation; moreover, females were more affected by drought stress. The significant sex × watering × temperature interactions for δ13C and NSC indicate that sexual dimorphism in these condition-specific traits would increase along the environmental gradients, implying contrasting life history strategies in different ecological scenarios. The convergence in the time for bud burst caused by elevated temperature might exaggerate the competition among males, thus influencing the sex ratio, structure, and functioning of P. cathayana populations.
    Print ISSN: 0045-5067
    Electronic ISSN: 1208-6037
    Topics: Agriculture, Forestry, Horticulture, Fishery, Domestic Science, Nutrition
    Location Call Number Expected Availability
    BibTip Others were also interested in ...
  • 70
    Publication Date: 2016-09-01
    Description: This study considered airborne laser scanning (ALS) based aboveground biomass (AGB) prediction in mountain forests. The study area consisted of a long transect from southern Norway to northern parts of the country with wide ranges of elevation along a long latitudinal gradient (58°N–69°N). This transect was covered by ALS data and field data from 238 plots. AGB was modeled using different types of predictor variables, namely ALS metrics, variables related to growing conditions (elevation, latitude, and climatic variables), and tree species information. Modelling of AGB in the long transect covering diverse mountainous forest conditions was challenging: the RMSE values were rather large (37%–70%). The effects of growing conditions on model predictions were minor. However, species information was essential to improve accuracy. The analysis revealed that when doing inventories of spruce-dominated areas, all plots should be pooled together when the models are developed, whereas if pine or deciduous species dominate the area in question, separate dominant species-wise models should be constructed.
    Print ISSN: 0045-5067
    Electronic ISSN: 1208-6037
    Topics: Agriculture, Forestry, Horticulture, Fishery, Domestic Science, Nutrition
    Location Call Number Expected Availability
    BibTip Others were also interested in ...
  • 71
    Publication Date: 2015-08-01
    Description: The impact of root water uptake on duff (both fibric and humic horizons) moisture was investigated at deciduous, mixedwood, and conifer stands in Ontario, Canada. Roots were actively excluded from the duff layer using geotextiles inserted at the duff–mineral soil interface and along the plot edges; liquid and vapour water flow was otherwise not affected by the geotextiles. Root exclusion caused little difference in duff moisture content prior to early June, after which the root exclusion plots remained at 15%–20% volumetric water content, whereas root-intact plots declined to as low as 5% volumetric water content during rain-free periods. Only in the root-intact plots did the duff water content reach sufficiently low levels that duff evaporation was limited by low water content. The net effect of root exclusion was to reduce the cumulative growing season water loss in the duff by 19%–31%, depending on the stand type. Root exclusion also decreased the number of days with a high probability of duff smouldering from as many as 72 days·year−1 to as few as 0 days·year−1. This root exclusion experiment provides a model for short-term duff moisture transitions under thinned forests such as those forests under community wildfire protection.
    Print ISSN: 0045-5067
    Electronic ISSN: 1208-6037
    Topics: Agriculture, Forestry, Horticulture, Fishery, Domestic Science, Nutrition
    Location Call Number Expected Availability
    BibTip Others were also interested in ...
  • 72
    Publication Date: 1982-06-01
    Description: Flooding for 30 days induced several changes in Quercusmacrocarpa Michx. seedlings, with stomatal closure among the earliest responses. Stomata remained more closed in flooded than in unflooded plants during the entire experimental period. Leaf water potential was consistently higher in flooded than in unflooded plants. Other responses to flooding included acceleration of ethylene production by stems; formation of hypertrophied lenticels on submerged portions of stems; growth inhibition, with greatest reduction in roots; and formation of a few adventitious roots on submerged portions of the stem above the soil line. Some of the morphological responses to flooding, especially formation of hypertrophied lenticels, appeared to be associated with increased ethylene production. Quercusmacrocarpa seedlings adapted poorly to flooding as shown by failure of stomata to reopen after an early period of flooding and low capacity for production of adventitious roots. The much greater inhibition of root growth than shoot growth by flooding will reduce drought tolerance after floodwaters recede.
    Print ISSN: 0045-5067
    Electronic ISSN: 1208-6037
    Topics: Agriculture, Forestry, Horticulture, Fishery, Domestic Science, Nutrition
    Location Call Number Expected Availability
    BibTip Others were also interested in ...
  • 73
    Publication Date: 2018-05-01
    Print ISSN: 0045-5067
    Electronic ISSN: 1208-6037
    Topics: Agriculture, Forestry, Horticulture, Fishery, Domestic Science, Nutrition
    Location Call Number Expected Availability
    BibTip Others were also interested in ...
  • 74
    Publication Date: 2016-03-01
    Description: As part of the development of the 2011 National Land Cover Database (NLCD) tree canopy cover layer, a pilot project was launched to test the use of high-resolution photography coupled with extensive ancillary data to map the distribution of tree canopy cover over four study regions in the conterminous US. Two stochastic modeling techniques, random forests (RF) and stochastic gradient boosting (SGB), are compared. The objectives of this study were first to explore the sensitivity of RF and SGB to choices in tuning parameters and, second, to compare the performance of the two final models by assessing the importance of, and interaction between, predictor variables, the global accuracy metrics derived from an independent test set, as well as the visual quality of the resultant maps of tree canopy cover. The predictive accuracy of RF and SGB was remarkably similar on all four of our pilot regions. In all four study regions, the independent test set mean squared error (MSE) was identical to three decimal places, with the largest difference in Kansas where RF gave an MSE of 0.0113 and SGB gave an MSE of 0.0117. With correlated predictor variables, SGB had a tendency to concentrate variable importance in fewer variables, whereas RF tended to spread importance among more variables. RF is simpler to implement than SGB, as RF has fewer parameters needing tuning and also was less sensitive to these parameters. As stochastic techniques, both RF and SGB introduce a new component of uncertainty: repeated model runs will potentially result in different final predictions. We demonstrate how RF allows the production of a spatially explicit map of this stochastic uncertainty of the final model.
    Print ISSN: 0045-5067
    Electronic ISSN: 1208-6037
    Topics: Agriculture, Forestry, Horticulture, Fishery, Domestic Science, Nutrition
    Location Call Number Expected Availability
    BibTip Others were also interested in ...
  • 75
    Publication Date: 2015-03-01
    Description: Trees form the terrestrial interface with the atmosphere in forested regions. The electrical properties of trees may influence their response to atmospheric conditions and potentially lethal phenomena (e.g., lightning). We review the literature describing electrical properties of trees and provide a tabular summary of the methods and goals of each study. We hypothesized that electrical resistivity varies consistently among species and between growth forms. We surveyed resistivity of eight tree and three vine species in Michigan and Kentucky, and we quantified resistivity over a moisture gradient for wood blocks of four tree species. Resistivity varied predictably with stem diameter and differed among species and growth forms. Specifically, resistivity of trees was approximately 200% higher than resistivity of vines, and resistivity of conifers was 135% higher than that of hardwoods. The regional comparison showed no difference in resistivity of red maple (Acer rubrum L.) and sugar maple (Acer saccharum Marsh.) between Michigan and Kentucky. These results, in combination with interspecific differences observed among wood blocks, suggest that there is a phylogenetic basis for variation in resistivity that reflects differences in anatomy and physiology. Our review and empirical survey provide a framework for studying the ecological effects of lightning in the context of the electrical properties of trees.
    Print ISSN: 0045-5067
    Electronic ISSN: 1208-6037
    Topics: Agriculture, Forestry, Horticulture, Fishery, Domestic Science, Nutrition
    Location Call Number Expected Availability
    BibTip Others were also interested in ...
  • 76
    Publication Date: 2018-12-01
    Print ISSN: 0045-5067
    Electronic ISSN: 1208-6037
    Topics: Agriculture, Forestry, Horticulture, Fishery, Domestic Science, Nutrition
    Location Call Number Expected Availability
    BibTip Others were also interested in ...
  • 77
    Publication Date: 2015-11-01
    Description: The influence of forest ecology and strategic planning has increased in importance to support the management of mixed-species forests to enhance biodiversity. However, little is known about competitive and facilitative interactions between trees and species in mixed fir–beech–spruce forests, mostly because of a lack of long-term experimental research. In the 1960s, long-term sample plots were established in the Western Carpathians to develop region-specific yield models. Trees in the plots were measured at 5- to 16-year intervals from 1967(69). In 2010, the positions of standing trees in all plots were identified spatially. Stump positions were also identified to record the coordinates of trees that had been removed or had died. The objectives of this study were to evaluate the applicability of widely used competition indices for mature fir–beech–spruce mixed forests and to test whether the tree competition zone changes among species and forest stands of different stocking densities. Results showed that the best competition index was based on the comparison of the basal area of competitors and the subject tree in the radius, which was defined as a function of stand density and species. In addition, beech was found to be a strong self-competitor, which was not the case for silver fir (Abies alba Mill.). Results suggest that simpler competition indices are better suited for such diverse forests, as more complex indices do not describe the competition interactions sufficiently well.
    Print ISSN: 0045-5067
    Electronic ISSN: 1208-6037
    Topics: Agriculture, Forestry, Horticulture, Fishery, Domestic Science, Nutrition
    Location Call Number Expected Availability
    BibTip Others were also interested in ...
  • 78
    Publication Date: 2018-09-01
    Description: Wildfires, insect outbreaks, and windstorms are increasingly common forest disturbances. Post-disturbance management often involves salvage logging, i.e., the felling and removal of the affected trees; however, this practice may represent an additional disturbance with effects on ecosystem processes and services. We developed a systematic map to provide an overview of the primary studies on this topic and created a database with information on the characteristics of the retrieved publications, including information on stands, disturbance, intervention, measured outcomes, and study design. Of 4341 retrieved publications, 90 were retained in the systematic map. These publications represented 49 studies, predominantly from North America and Europe. Salvage logging after wildfire was addressed more frequently than after insect outbreaks or windstorms. Most studies addressed logging after a single disturbance event, and replication of salvaged stands rarely exceeded 10. The most frequent response variables were tree regeneration, ground cover, and deadwood characteristics. This document aims to help managers find the most relevant primary studies on the ecological effects of salvage logging. It also aims to identify and discuss clusters and gaps in the body of evidence, relevant for scientists who aim to synthesize previous work or identify questions for future studies.
    Print ISSN: 0045-5067
    Electronic ISSN: 1208-6037
    Topics: Agriculture, Forestry, Horticulture, Fishery, Domestic Science, Nutrition
    Location Call Number Expected Availability
    BibTip Others were also interested in ...
  • 79
    Publication Date: 2015-06-01
    Description: The parsimonious taper function proposed by Riemer et al. (1995. Allg. Forst.- Jagdztg. 166(7): 144–147) was fitted for radiata pine (Pinus radiata D. Don) stems in Spain by using a nonlinear mixed modelling approach. Eight candidate models (all possible expansion combinations of the three fixed parameters with random effects) were assessed, and the mixed model with three random effects performed the best according to the goodness-of-fit statistics. An evaluation data set was used to assess the performance of these models in predicting stem diameter along the bole, as well as total stem volume. Four prediction approaches were compared: one subject (tree) specific (SS) and three population specific (ordinary least squares (OLS), mean (M), and population averaged (PA)). The SS responses for a tree were estimated from a prior stem diameter measurement available for that tree, whereas OLS, M, and PA were obtained from the fixed-effects model, from the fixed parameters of mixed-effects models, and by computing mean predictions from the mixed-effects models over the distribution of random effects, respectively. Prediction errors were greater for the M and PA responses than for the OLS response, and therefore, from the prediction point of view, the use of the mixed-effects models is not recommended when an additional stem diameter measurement is not available. The mixed model with three random effects was also selected as the best model for SS estimations. Measurement of an additional stem diameter at a relative tree height of approximately 0.5 provided the best calibrations for stem diameters along the bole and total stem volume predictions. The SS approach increased the flexibility and efficiency of the selected mixed-effects model for localized predictions and thus improved the overall predictive capacity of the base model.
    Print ISSN: 0045-5067
    Electronic ISSN: 1208-6037
    Topics: Agriculture, Forestry, Horticulture, Fishery, Domestic Science, Nutrition
    Location Call Number Expected Availability
    BibTip Others were also interested in ...
  • 80
    Publication Date: 2016-05-01
    Description: To better understand climatic origins of annual tree-growth anomalies in boreal forests, we analysed 895 black spruce (Picea mariana (Mill.) B.S.P.) tree-growth series from 46 xeric sites situated along three latitudinal transects in Eastern Canada. We identified interannual (based on comparison with previous year growth) and multidecadal (based on the entire tree-ring width distribution) growth anomalies between 1901 and 2001 at site and transect levels. Growth anomalies occurred mainly at site level and seldom at larger spatial scales. Both positive interannual and multidecadal growth anomalies were strongly associated with below-average temperatures and above-average precipitation during the previous growing season (Junet–1 – Augustt–1). The climatic signature of negative interannual and multidecadal growth anomalies was more complex and mainly associated with current-year climatic anomalies. Between the early and late 20th century, only negative multidecadal anomalies became more frequent. Our results highlight the role of previous growing season climate in controlling tree growth processes and suggest a positive association between climate warming and increases in the frequency of negative multidecadal growth anomalies. Projected climate change may further favour the occurrence of tree-growth anomalies and enhance the role of site conditions as modifiers of tree response to regional climate change.
    Print ISSN: 0045-5067
    Electronic ISSN: 1208-6037
    Topics: Agriculture, Forestry, Horticulture, Fishery, Domestic Science, Nutrition
    Location Call Number Expected Availability
    BibTip Others were also interested in ...
  • 81
    Publication Date: 2019-03-01
    Description: A two-year field study was carried out to determine whether inoculating white spruce, Picea glauca (Moench) Voss, with a native endophytic fungus, Phialocephala scopiformis DAOM 229536 Kowalski & Kehr (Helotiales, Ascomycota), decreased the performance of eastern spruce budworm, Choristoneura fumiferana Clemens, developing on these trees. Second instars were reared at three densities in the mid crown and at one density in the lower, mid, and upper crown. Larval survival (i.e., survival of larvae to pupation) was lower on endophyte-inoculated trees than on control trees in the mid crown and especially the upper crown but was similar in the lower crown, resulting in a significant interaction between endophyte and crown level. A similar but marginally insignificant interaction was observed for overall survival up to adult emergence (i.e., total survival). Larval survival and total survival were approximately 22% and 19% lower, respectively, when developing in the upper crown of endophyte-inoculated trees than in control trees. Larval survival remained relatively constant, with increased density on control trees but decreased with density on endophyte-inoculated trees, resulting in a significant interaction between endophyte and larval density. Sex ratios of emerged adults and wing lengths of emerged females were not influenced by the endophyte. Our results suggest that endophytic fungi could be useful additions to integrated pest management programs.
    Print ISSN: 0045-5067
    Electronic ISSN: 1208-6037
    Topics: Agriculture, Forestry, Horticulture, Fishery, Domestic Science, Nutrition
    Location Call Number Expected Availability
    BibTip Others were also interested in ...
  • 82
    Publication Date: 2019-05-01
    Description: Quantitative genetic variation of fiber-dimension traits and their relationship with diameter at breast height (DBH) and solid-wood traits (i.e., density and modulus of elasticity (MOE)) was investigated in lodgepole pine (Pinus contorta Dougl. ex Loud. var. latifolia Engelm.). A total of 823 increment cores were sampled from 207 half-sib families at two independent progeny trials, aged 34–35 years, located in northern Sweden. High-resolution pith-to-bark profiles were obtained for radial fiber width (RFW), tangential fiber width (TFW), fiber wall thickness (FWT), and fiber coarseness (FC) using SilviScan. Heritabilities ranged from 0.29 to 0.74, and inheritance increased with cambial maturity. Estimated age–age genetic correlations indicate that early selection between ages 5 and 8 years is highly efficient. Our results indicate that selection for a 1% increase in DBH or MOE incurs a negligible effect on fiber-dimension traits and maximum genetic gains are reached when DBH and MOE are considered jointly. Moreover, simultaneous improvement of growth and stiffness is achievable when a selection index with 7 to 10 economical weights for MOE relative to 1 for DBH is incorporated. However, the unfavorable relationship between solid-wood traits and pulp and paper related traits suggests that breeding strategies must be implemented to improve wood quality of lodgepole pine for multiple uses.
    Print ISSN: 0045-5067
    Electronic ISSN: 1208-6037
    Topics: Agriculture, Forestry, Horticulture, Fishery, Domestic Science, Nutrition
    Location Call Number Expected Availability
    BibTip Others were also interested in ...
  • 83
    Publication Date: 2019-05-01
    Description: Lack of generalized equations has prevailed in Brazil, because it is assumed that localized or climate-specific equations are needed. This study aimed to develop generalized stem taper and volume equations applicable to 11 eucalyptus clones and evaluate if climate variation impacts the accuracy of the estimates. A total of 693 trees evenly distributed across 11 clones at 21 sites were used for model fittings and predictive validation. The penalized mixed spline (PMS) approach was developed for predicting stem taper and volume along the stem profile. The Schumacher and Hall (1933) equation was used to predict total tree volume, while volume ratio equations were applied to predict merchantable volume. For every fitted equation, an annual climatic variable was included to assess the improvement in model performance. The overall results highlighted that climatic variation does not need to be accounted for in stem taper and volume modeling. All of the equations displayed desirable accuracy, but the generalized PMS equation may be preferred when the forestry enterprise looks to furnish a range of multiple forest products. The generalized total tree volume equation, combined with the ratio equations, is highly recommended when the forestry enterprise produces a single product.
    Print ISSN: 0045-5067
    Electronic ISSN: 1208-6037
    Topics: Agriculture, Forestry, Horticulture, Fishery, Domestic Science, Nutrition
    Location Call Number Expected Availability
    BibTip Others were also interested in ...
  • 84
    Publication Date: 2016-03-01
    Description: Wood ash may be an effective soil amendment in North America to restore acidified and low-nutrient forest soils, but little research exists beyond its effects on soil and plants. Eastern Red-backed Salamander (Plethodon cinereus (Green, 1818)) abundance was assessed in a northern hardwood forest 1 year following an ash-addition field trial. Plots were established with fly ash and bottom ash treatments of 0, 1, 4, and 8 Mg·ha−1 (n = 4), and cover boards were positioned both with and without ash beneath. One year following ash additions, salamander abundance had increased under boards with fly ash beneath, and bottom ash had no effect. Soil pH and electrical conductivity increased under cover boards with ash beneath them and for uncovered soil, and the effects were strongest under cover boards with ash beneath. The effects of ash were generally stronger at higher dosages, and fly ash was stronger than bottom ash. The moisture holding capacity of fly ash was 60% higher than the soil and was 63% lower than the soil for bottom ash, but they had little effect on moisture of the forest floor. These results suggest that ash altered salamander abundance via soil pH and moisture and would not inhibit salamander movement over the forest floor.
    Print ISSN: 0045-5067
    Electronic ISSN: 1208-6037
    Topics: Agriculture, Forestry, Horticulture, Fishery, Domestic Science, Nutrition
    Location Call Number Expected Availability
    BibTip Others were also interested in ...
  • 85
    Publication Date: 2016-05-01
    Description: Forest health deteriorated in eastern North America as a result of depletion of available soil base cations by elevated inputs of acid deposition. We experimentally restored available calcium (Ca) to soils of a forested watershed at Hubbard Brook, New Hampshire, and measured the response of fine root biomass 14 years after treatment. In this northern hardwood forest, fine root (
    Print ISSN: 0045-5067
    Electronic ISSN: 1208-6037
    Topics: Agriculture, Forestry, Horticulture, Fishery, Domestic Science, Nutrition
    Location Call Number Expected Availability
    BibTip Others were also interested in ...
  • 86
    Publication Date: 1983-10-01
    Description: Root elongation of greenhouse-grown Alaskan taiga tree seedlings increased with increasing root temperature in all six species examined and was most temperature sensitive in warm-adapted aspen (Populustremuloides Michx.). Root elongation was slower in fine than large roots and in black spruce (Piceamariana (Mill.) B.S.P.) was less temperature sensitive in fine than in large roots. Root elongation in the laboratory was slowest in black spruce, which has an inherently slow growth rate, and most rapid in poplar (Populusbalsamifera L.) and aspen, which grow more rapidly. In contrast, field root elongation rates tended to be highest in black spruce from cold wet sites, suggesting that site factors other than soil temperature (e.g., moisture) predominated over genetic differences among species in determining field root elongation rates. The seasonal pattern of root elongation was closely correlated with soil temperature and reached maximum rates in July for all tree species (except aspen medium-sized roots). Most roots of each species were in the top 20 cm of soil. However, root growth penetrated to greater depth in warm compared with cold sites. Root biomass in a 130-year black spruce forest (1230 g/m2) comprised only 15% of total tree biomass. Root biomass of 25-year aspen and 60-year poplar sites (517 and 5385 g/m2, respectively) comprised a greater proportion (57% in poplar) of total tree biomass than in spruce.
    Print ISSN: 0045-5067
    Electronic ISSN: 1208-6037
    Topics: Agriculture, Forestry, Horticulture, Fishery, Domestic Science, Nutrition
    Location Call Number Expected Availability
    BibTip Others were also interested in ...
  • 87
    Publication Date: 2019-03-01
    Description: Vegetation–soil systems differentially influence the ecosystem processes related to the carbon cycle, particularly when one tree species is dominant over wide geographic regions that are undergoing climate change. The objective of this study was to quantify the stocks of ecosystem carbon in three vegetation–soil systems along a highland elevational gradient in central Mexico. The vegetation–soil systems, from lower to higher elevation, were dominated by Alnus jorullensis Kunth, Abies religiosa (Kunth) Schltdl. & Cham., and Pinus hartwegii Lindl., respectively. Above- and below-ground tree biomass was determined in each system, along with the litter, coarse woody material, roots, and litterfall. The A. religiosa system had the greatest stock of aboveground biomass carbon (216 ± 31 Mg C·ha−1). The A. jorullensis system had the greatest production of litterfall (3.1 ± 0.08 Mg·ha−1·year−1); however, the carbon content of this litter layer (1.2 ± 0.32 Mg C·ha−1) was lower than that of P. hartwegii (10.1 ± 0.28 Mg C·ha−1). Thus, the litter layer in the A. jorullensis system had markedly the shortest residence time (8 years), suggesting high rates of litter decomposition. The soil carbon stock (at soil depth of 1 m) was greater in A. jorullensis (189 Mg C·ha−1) and P. hartwegii (137 Mg C·ha−1) than in A. religiosa (68 Mg C·ha−1). The A. religiosa and A. jorullensis systems had the highest and lowest total ecosystem C content (301 and 228 Mg C·ha−1, respectively). Upward migration of the A. religiosa system in response to global climate change, however, could cause losses by 2030 of 187 Mg C·ha−1 associated with aboveground biomass.
    Print ISSN: 0045-5067
    Electronic ISSN: 1208-6037
    Topics: Agriculture, Forestry, Horticulture, Fishery, Domestic Science, Nutrition
    Location Call Number Expected Availability
    BibTip Others were also interested in ...
  • 88
    Publication Date: 2018-05-01
    Print ISSN: 0045-5067
    Electronic ISSN: 1208-6037
    Topics: Agriculture, Forestry, Horticulture, Fishery, Domestic Science, Nutrition
    Location Call Number Expected Availability
    BibTip Others were also interested in ...
  • 89
    Publication Date: 2017-08-01
    Description: Conifer winter damage results primarily from loss of cold hardiness during unseasonably warm days in late winter and early spring, and such damage may increase in frequency and severity under a warming climate. In this study, the dehardening dynamics of lodgepole pine (Pinus contorta Dougl. ex. Loud), jack pine (Pinus banksiana Lamb.), white spruce (Picea glauca (Moench) Voss), and black spruce (Picea mariana (Mill.) B.S.P.) were examined in relation to thermal accumulation during artificial dehardening in winter (December) and spring (March) using relative electrolyte leakage and visual assessment of pine needles and spruce shoots. Results indicated that all four species dehardened at a similar rate and to a similar extent, despite considerably different thermal accumulation requirements. Spring dehardening was comparatively faster, with black spruce slightly hardier than the other conifers at the late stage of spring dehardening. The difference, however, was relatively small and did not afford black spruce significant protection during seedling freezing tests prior to budbreak in late March and early May. The dehardening curves and models developed in this study may serve as a tool to predict cold hardiness by temperature and to understand the potential risks of conifer cold injury during warming–freezing events prior to budbreak.
    Print ISSN: 0045-5067
    Electronic ISSN: 1208-6037
    Topics: Agriculture, Forestry, Horticulture, Fishery, Domestic Science, Nutrition
    Location Call Number Expected Availability
    BibTip Others were also interested in ...
  • 90
    Publication Date: 2018-06-01
    Description: Model-based inference is an alternative to probability-based inference for small areas or remote areas for which probability sampling is difficult. Model-based mean square error estimators incorporate three components: prediction covariance, residual variance, and residual covariance. The latter two components are often considered negligible, particularly for large areas, but no thresholds that justify ignoring them have been reported. The objectives of the study were threefold: (i) to compare analytical and bootstrap estimators of model parameter covariances as the primary factors affecting prediction covariance; (ii) to estimate the contribution of residual variance to overall variance; and (iii) to estimate thresholds for residual spatial correlation that justify ignoring this component. Five datasets were used, three from Europe, one from Africa, and one from North America. The dependent variable was either forest volume or biomass and the independent variables were either Landsat satellite image bands or airborne laser scanning metrics. Three conclusions were noteworthy: (i) analytical estimators of the model parameter covariances tended to be biased; (ii) the effects of residual variance were mostly negligible; and (iii) the effects of spatial correlation on residual covariance vary by multiple factors but decrease with increasing study area size. For study areas greater than 75 km2 in size, residual covariance could generally be ignored.
    Print ISSN: 0045-5067
    Electronic ISSN: 1208-6037
    Topics: Agriculture, Forestry, Horticulture, Fishery, Domestic Science, Nutrition
    Location Call Number Expected Availability
    BibTip Others were also interested in ...
  • 91
    Publication Date: 1983-10-01
    Description: The patterns of translocation of carbon in different-age tissues of four common moss species in a black spruce (Piceamariana (Mill.) B.S.P.) dominated forest near Fairbanks, Alaska, were studied by 14C labelling and carbohydrate analysis. A simple, in-vial combustion technique was developed for combustion of small (
    Print ISSN: 0045-5067
    Electronic ISSN: 1208-6037
    Topics: Agriculture, Forestry, Horticulture, Fishery, Domestic Science, Nutrition
    Location Call Number Expected Availability
    BibTip Others were also interested in ...
  • 92
    Publication Date: 1982-12-01
    Description: Water stress of subalpine conifer species may be measured with the pressure chamber after several hours of tissue storage. Tissue samples stored in cool, humid vials exhibited very little change in xylem pressure potential over a 4-h period. However, xylem pressure potential declined steadily when a source of water vapor was not available. Xylem pressure potentials of current-year and 1-year-old needles of lodgepole pine (Pinuscontorta var. latifolia Engelm.) were slightly lower than those of older needles.
    Print ISSN: 0045-5067
    Electronic ISSN: 1208-6037
    Topics: Agriculture, Forestry, Horticulture, Fishery, Domestic Science, Nutrition
    Location Call Number Expected Availability
    BibTip Others were also interested in ...
  • 93
    Publication Date: 2017-05-01
    Description: The ability to rapidly estimate wind speed beneath a forest canopy or near the ground surface in any vegetation is critical to practical wildland fire behavior models. The common metric of this wind speed is the “mid-flame” wind speed, UMF. However, the existing approach for estimating UMF has some significant shortcomings. These include the assumptions that both the within-canopy wind speed and the canopy structure are uniform with depth (z) throughout the canopy and that the canopy roughness length (z0) and displacement height (d) are the same regardless of canopy structure and foliage density. The purpose of this study is to develop and assess a model of canopy wind and Reynolds stress that eliminates these shortcomings and thereby provide a more physically realistic method for calculating UMF. The present model can be used for canopies of arbitrary plant surface distribution and leaf area, and the single function that describes the within-canopy wind speed is shown to reproduce observed canopy wind speed profiles across a wide variety of canopies. An equally simple analytical expression for the within-canopy Reynolds stress, [Formula: see text], also provides a reasonable description of the observed vertical profiles of Reynolds stress. In turn, [Formula: see text] is used to calculate z0 and d. Tests of operational performance are also discussed.
    Print ISSN: 0045-5067
    Electronic ISSN: 1208-6037
    Topics: Agriculture, Forestry, Horticulture, Fishery, Domestic Science, Nutrition
    Location Call Number Expected Availability
    BibTip Others were also interested in ...
  • 94
    Publication Date: 2019-01-01
    Description: Wildland fire dynamics are a complex three-dimensional turbulent process. Cellular automata (CA) is an efficient tool to predict fire dynamics, but the main parameters of the method are challenging to estimate. To overcome this challenge, we compute statistical distributions of the key parameters of a CA model using infrared images from controlled burns. Moreover, we apply this analysis to different spatial scales and compare the experimental results with a simple statistical model. By performing this analysis and making this comparison, several capabilities and limitations of CA are revealed.
    Print ISSN: 0045-5067
    Electronic ISSN: 1208-6037
    Topics: Agriculture, Forestry, Horticulture, Fishery, Domestic Science, Nutrition
    Location Call Number Expected Availability
    BibTip Others were also interested in ...
  • 95
    Publication Date: 2019-02-01
    Description: It has recently become clear that the regeneration density of serotinous species within a burned area declines with local fire intensity. It is assumed that this occurs because variation in local fire intensity leads to variation in incident heat fluxes and, ultimately, seed necrosis. We argue here that this same relationship between incident heat flux and seed necrosis is important at the scale of individual plant crowns. Using Picea mariana (Mill.) B.S.P. (black spruce), we show that postfire seed viability increases with crown height, depth into the crown, and angle from wind direction (with the windward side enjoying greater viability). All three effects are what one would expect given the physics of buoyant plumes, interactions of moving fire lines with wake flow around cylinders, and heat transfer in porous bodies such as a tree crown. We conclude by discussing the broader consequences of cone cluster size and global change on regeneration in serotinous species.
    Print ISSN: 0045-5067
    Electronic ISSN: 1208-6037
    Topics: Agriculture, Forestry, Horticulture, Fishery, Domestic Science, Nutrition
    Location Call Number Expected Availability
    BibTip Others were also interested in ...
  • 96
    Publication Date: 2019-02-01
    Description: Forest attributes such as volume or basal area are concentrated at tree locations and are absent elsewhere. It is, therefore, more meaningful to consider the amount of forest attributes at a prefixed spatial grain, within regular plots of prefixed size centered at the points of the study area. In this way, the diversity of attributes within plots also can be considered and quantified by suitable indexes, giving rise to a diversity surface defined on the continuum of points constituting the area. We analyze the estimation of diversity surfaces when a sample of plots is selected by a probabilistic sampling scheme and diversity within nonsampled plots is estimated using an inverse distance weighting interpolator. We discuss the design-based asymptotic properties of the resulting maps when the survey area remains fixed and the number of sampled points increases. Because diversity surfaces share suitable mathematical properties, if the schemes adopted to select sample points ensure an even coverage of the study areas avoiding large portions of non-sampled zones, it can be proven that the estimated maps approach the true maps.
    Print ISSN: 0045-5067
    Electronic ISSN: 1208-6037
    Topics: Agriculture, Forestry, Horticulture, Fishery, Domestic Science, Nutrition
    Location Call Number Expected Availability
    BibTip Others were also interested in ...
  • 97
    Publication Date: 2015-10-01
    Description: Lightning strikes millions of trees worldwide each year, yet structured lightning damage surveys are relatively rare. Estimates drawn from the literature suggest that lightning directly or indirectly kills up to 4% of large canopy trees in a stand annually. Lightning is a major cause of death for pines in southeastern US forests and for large cacti in some deserts, but its landscape-level effects exclusive of fire at higher latitudes are poorly known. We quantified damage to trees from lightning and other sources in hemlock–hardwood forests of the Huron Mountain Region of Michigan, USA. This region receives ca. 100 cloud-to-ground lightning flashes per year, with most occurring in May to August. We recorded abiotic and biotic damage on 309 trees distributed among nine transects, each 〉2 km long. None of the transect trees had lightning scars, and we observed only 14 clear cases of lightning damage among thousands of trees examined during associated meander surveys (each ca. 0.5 ha). This damage was more commonly associated with emergent stature (50% of struck trees) and higher rates of biotic damage (50%) than we observed in the 309 transect trees (22% emergent status and 16% incidence of biotic damage). Nearly all (93%) of the lightning damaged trees were conifers, suggesting that either susceptibility to, or response to, lightning strikes has a phylogenetic basis. These preliminary results provide a foundation for comparative studies in other forests. Accurate quantification of lightning-induced tree mortality will improve forest turnover models and facilitate predictions of future forest structure under conditions of increased lightning frequency.
    Print ISSN: 0045-5067
    Electronic ISSN: 1208-6037
    Topics: Agriculture, Forestry, Horticulture, Fishery, Domestic Science, Nutrition
    Location Call Number Expected Availability
    BibTip Others were also interested in ...
  • 98
    Publication Date: 2017-08-01
    Description: Canada’s National Forest Carbon Monitoring Accounting and Reporting System (NFCMARS) quantifies the carbon (C) dynamics and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and removals of Canada’s managed forest to fulfill reporting obligations under international climate conventions. Countries are also requested to assess the uncertainty associated with these estimates, which we report here. We used Monte Carlo simulation to quantify uncertainty of carbon stock and flux estimates from the Carbon Budget Model of the Canadian Forest Sector (CBM-CFS3), the core ecosystem model of the NFCMARS. We evaluated the impacts of model algorithms, parameters, and the input data used to describe forest characteristics and disturbance rates. Under our assumptions, 95% confidence interval widths averaged 16.2 Pg C (+8.3 and –7.9 Pg C, or ±15%) for total ecosystem C stock and 32.2 Tg C·year−1 (+16.6 and –15.6 Tg C·year−1) for net biome production relative to an overall simulation median of –0.8 Tg C·year−1 from 1990 to 2014. The largest sources of uncertainty were related to factors determining biomass increment and the parameters used to model soil and dead organic matter C dynamics. Opportunities to reduce uncertainty and associated research challenges were identified.
    Print ISSN: 0045-5067
    Electronic ISSN: 1208-6037
    Topics: Agriculture, Forestry, Horticulture, Fishery, Domestic Science, Nutrition
    Location Call Number Expected Availability
    BibTip Others were also interested in ...
  • 99
    Publication Date: 2015-05-01
    Description: Constraints of the physical environment affect forest growth and forest operations. At a local scale, these constraints are generally considered during forest operations. At regional or continental scales, they are often integrated to larger assessments of the potential for a given land unit to be managed. In this study, we propose an approach to analyze the integration of physical-environment constraints in forest management activities at the regional scale (482 000 km2). The land features that pose constraints to forest management (i.e., hydromorphic organic deposits, dead-ice moraines, washed till, glacial block fields, talus, and active aeolian deposits, slopes 〉 40%) were evaluated within 1114 land districts. To distinguish land districts that can be suitably managed from those where constraints are too important for sustainable timber production, we carried out a sensitivity analysis of physical constraints for the 1114 land districts. After analysis of two portions of the study area under management, a land district was considered suitable for management when more than 20% of its land area consists of features imposing few constraints or, for mountain-type relief districts, when more than 40% of the land area consists of features imposing few constraints. These cutoff values were defined by expert opinion, based on sensitivity analyses performed on the entire study area, on analyses of two different sectors with different types of constraints and on a strong understanding of the study area. Our results show that land districts where the physical environment posed significant constraints covered 7.5% of the study area (36 000 km2). This study shows that doing an a priori classification of land units based on permanent environmental features could facilitate the identification of areas that are not suitable for forest management activities.
    Print ISSN: 0045-5067
    Electronic ISSN: 1208-6037
    Topics: Agriculture, Forestry, Horticulture, Fishery, Domestic Science, Nutrition
    Location Call Number Expected Availability
    BibTip Others were also interested in ...
  • 100
    Publication Date: 2016-11-01
    Print ISSN: 0045-5067
    Electronic ISSN: 1208-6037
    Topics: Agriculture, Forestry, Horticulture, Fishery, Domestic Science, Nutrition
    Location Call Number Expected Availability
    BibTip Others were also interested in ...
Close ⊗
This website uses cookies and the analysis tool Matomo. More information can be found here...