Seasonal and spatial variation in the distribution of mangrove macroalgae in the Clyde River, Australia

The objective of this study was to determine whether there was significant spatial and temporal variation in macroalgae epiphytic on pneumatophores of the Grey Mangrove, Avicennia marina (Forsk.) Vierh., in the Clyde River, located 280 km south of Sydney, Australia. Three estuarine sites in the Clyde River were surveyed seasonally on four occasions over a two-year period, and algal distribution and abundance assessed in respect to temporal, inter-site, intertidal (from front to back of mangrove stand) and vertical (from bottom to top of pneumatophores) variation. Sediment and water characteristics, including nutrient levels, were also assessed in order to examine all variables of potential influence on algal distribution and abundance. The results indicated that intertidal position within sites, and vertical height along the length of the pneumatophore, were the greatest influence on algal frequency and biomass. Individual species dominated in different intertidal and vertical zones. These observations, together with the identification of three species of macroalgae that fulfil the criteria for bioindicators/biomonitors of environmental impacts are discussed.     

Variations in annual snowline and area of an ice-covered stratovolcano in the Cordillera Ampato,Peru, using remote sensing data (1986–2014)

This research focuses on the recent variations in the annual snowline and the total glaciated area of the Nevado Coropuna in the Cordillera Ampato, Peru. Maximum snowline altitude towards the end of dry season is taken as a representative of the equilibrium line altitude of the year, which is an indirect measurement of the annual mass balance. We used Landsat and IRS LISS3 images during the last 30 years due to its better temporal coverage of the study site. It is found that there was a decrease of 26.92% of the glaciated area during 1986–2014. We calculated the anomalies in precipitation and temperature in this region and also tried to correlate the changes in glacier parameters with the combined influence of El Niño – Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and pacific decadal oscillation (PDO). It is concluded that the snowline of Nevado Coropuna has been fluctuated during ENSO, and maximum fluctuations were observed when ENSO and PDO were in phase.     

Increasing GNSS RTK availability with a new single-epoch batch partial ambiguity resolution algorithm

GPS Single-epoch Real-Time Kinematic positioning is immune to cycle slips and can be immediately re-initialized after loss-of-lock, providing high availability. This technique requires reliable ambiguity resolution: incorrect ambiguities can cause position errors of several meters, and failed ambiguity resolution reduces availability. However, a bias or inaccuracy in a single phase observation can prevent successful resolution of the whole set of ambiguities. Partial ambiguity resolution allows a subset of ambiguities to be resolved with greater probability of success than the full set. A new algorithm for resolving a subset of ambiguities with validation from previous epochs is described. If normal ambiguity resolution fails, all ambiguity subsets are generated and ordered with the best subsets first. Each subset is then resolved in turn. Fixed subsets are validated against values from previous epochs; this validation procedure greatly reduces the proportion of epochs with incorrect ambiguities. An additional algorithm is described that uses the fixed ambiguities as precise ranges to resolve the remaining unfixed ambiguities. In order to test these new algorithms, GPS data were collected from static and ship-based GPS receivers around Harwich harbor and processed from reference stations at distances up to 111 km. In the static tests the distance over which a 90% ambiguity resolution success rate for dual-frequency data was achieved was increased from 15 to 76 km. However, in some cases, the processing time was too long for this algorithm to be practical without a time-based cut-off. There is also a risk of incorrect ambiguities being propagated, particularly for single-frequency processing. In a ship-based test, the distance over which sufficient availability to support harbor navigation was achieved using single-epoch dual-frequency RTK was increased from 1 to 66 km.     

绿色撒哈拉

占非洲面积将近三分之一的撒哈拉沙漠一度是热带稀树大草原,野生动植物种类丰富,充满鱼类的湖泊星罗棋布,而且有许多古人类生活在那里。“在约5 550~10 500年以前,撒哈拉是理想的生存地带,”斯特凡·克洛普林这样说过。克洛普林是德国科隆大学的地质考古学家,在过去的30年里,他     

Improving the descendant relationship of cluster galaxies at z < 1

In this work, we study how to improve well-known techniques for detecting progenitors/descendants of galaxies, such as the NDpredict program, when applied to galaxies in clusters. The improvement of this particular method is based on the use of the red sequence of galaxies in those environments. Objects close to the red sequence in the color and magnitude diagram are more likely to belong to the cluster. This defines a probability scale which is then combined with the one generated by NDpredict. This procedure is optimized for the study of galaxies in clusters over different epochs. Our main result is that, for a sample composed of $120$ clusters, with masses greater than ${10}^{13.25}{M}_{\odot }$, selected from the IllustrisTNG simulations (namely, the TNG100 runs). In $99\%$ of the cases (i.e., $119$ systems), we obtain better performance with the red sequence method in comparison to the original NDpredict, and the average gain obtained is $28\%$ in the identification of descendants for this sample of cluster galaxies.