The evolution of regional development concepts: some new trends

This paper traces the theoretical development of the regional concept and the use of regionalization techniques in Soviet geography and seeks to compare this history with comparable trends in Western geography. It is severely critical of the major and rapid paradigm shifts noticed in post-war Western geographical science and relates these to shifts in the approach to global development issues.     

The interpretation of body trace metal concentrations in neogastropods from Hong Kong.

Three species of neogastropods, i.e., Thais clavigera, Thais luteostoma and Morula musiva, were collected from 12 sites in the coastal waters of Hong Kong, including clean and known metal-enriched ones. Accordingly, body trace metal concentrations varied greatly. Copper and zinc body concentrations compared poorly with those of accepted biomonitors and presumed metal contamination profiles. Much is known about the feeding ecology of neogastropods on local shores and where direct observational data were not available, their diets could, nevertheless, be estimated reliably. Accumulated metal concentrations can be interpreted with regard to dietary history. T. luteostoma, for example, had body copper concentrations of 51.8 microg g(-1) on an exposed shore and a diet of mainly barnacles. In contrast, on a sheltered shore (but only some 250 m distant) where the diet consisted mainly of oysters, body copper concentrations were approximately 15 times greater at 833 microg g(-1). Similar results were obtained for T. clavigera. The results of this analysis suggest that neogastropods can play a significant role in trace metal trophic transfer studies, especially as their representatives are intertidally and subtidally ubiquitous and can be spatially separated into tropical specialists and temperate generalists.     

Invasions in Marine Communities: Contrasting Species Richness and Community Composition Across Habitats and Salinity

While many studies of non-native species have examined either soft-bottom or hard-bottom marine communities, including artificial structures at docks and marinas, formal comparisons across these habitat types are rare. The number of non-indigenous species (NIS) may differ among habitats, due to differences in species delivery (trade history) and susceptibility to invasions. In this study, we quantitatively compared NIS to native species richness and distribution and examined community similarity across hard-bottom and soft-sediment habitats in San Francisco Bay, California (USA). Benthic invertebrates were sampled using settlement panels (hard-bottom habitats) and sediment grabs (soft-bottom habitats) in 13 paired sites, including eight in higher salinity areas and five in lower salinity areas during 2 years. Mean NIS richness was greatest in hard-bottom habitat at high salinity, being significantly higher than each (a) native species at high salinity and (b) NIS richness at low salinity. In contrast, mean NIS richness in soft-bottom communities was not significantly different from native species richness in either high- or low-salinity waters, nor was there a difference in NIS richness between salinities. For hard-bottom communities, NIS represented an average of 79% of total species richness per sample at high salinity and 78% at low salinity, whereas the comparable values for soft bottom were 46 and 60%, respectively. On average, NIS occurred at a significantly higher frequency (percent of samples) than native species for hard-bottom habitats at both salinities, but this was not the case for soft-bottom habitats. Finally, NIS contributed significantly to the existing community structure (dissimilarity) across habitat types and salinities. Our results show that NIS richness and occurrence frequency is highest in hard-bottom and high-salinity habitat for this Bay but also that NIS contribute strongly to species richness and community structure across each habitat evaluated.     

Biosorption of Rare-Earth Elements and Yttrium by Heterotrophic Bacteria in an Aqueous Environment

This paper reports the results of the experimental determination of the coefficient of sorption of rare-earth elements and yttrium (REY) under conditions of acidic pH using several strains of heterotrophic bacteria (Microbacterium sp., Curtobacterium sp., Bacillus subtilis, Pseudomonas putida, and Bacillus pumilis) that are widespread in natural and technogenic waters of the Far East (Russia). Insignificant fractionation between heavy and light rare-earth elements, negative cerium and dysprosium anomalies, and a positive europium anomaly were revealed. The selectivity of REY biosorption by gram-positive and gram-negative bacteria, as well as inertia of the biosorption process under more acidic conditions of the medium, were shown.     

Determination of the optimum period for ciliated protozoa colonizing of an artificial substrate in a tropical aquatic ecosystem

The optimum period for ciliated protozoa colonizing of an artificial substrate, the polyurethane foams have been assessed in a tropical aquatic ecosystem, the Ekozoa stream of the Mfoundi River Basin in Yaounde (Cameroon). 5?days were calculated as the highest period for the biological indicators of pollution to optimally colonize the artificial substrate. This time interval is the same for all the sampling stations assessed from upstream to downstream and the various microhabitats along the water course. The statistical method applied is that of the completely randomized blocks. The colonization of the substrate increases from the first day to the fifth day, before decreasing to the tenth day. The statistical analysis of variance between the maximum day and the other sampling period was significant at 5?% while the calculation of the value between different points of the same station was not significant. The average number of ciliated protozoan ranges from 20 to 23, from upstream to downstream.     

H 187 - At the Onset of a New Eclipse

CCD photometry data of the T Tauri star H 187 are presented. They show that a new eclipse of this star began at the end of 2004. Since only one eclipse of this star has been observed previously with a duration of 3.5 years, our data indicate that the eclipses of this object are periodic with a period P=4.9 years between eclipses. Thus, in terms of the absolute duration of the eclipses and in terms of their relative length as a fraction of the period, H 187 is one of the most exotic objects in the sky. __________ Translated from Astrofizika, Vol. 48, No. 4, pp. 529–534 (November 2005).