Oestrogenic markers and reduced population fertile egg production in a sand goby partial life-cycle test

Understanding the ecological significance of oestrogenic biomarker responses, seen in field surveys of some UK estuarine fish, requires a suitable model to link biochemical and reproductive effects. The sand goby (Pomatoschistus minutus) is a common inshore fish that has been successfully bred in laboratory aquaria. Juvenile sand goby were continuously exposed to 17beta-oestradiol (E2) during gonadal maturation, and their subsequent reproductive success investigated. Exposure endpoints included hepatic vitellogenin (VTG) mRNA expression and maturation (male nuptial colouration, sperm duct gland- and gonado-somatic indices (SDGSI, GSI)). Reproductive endpoints included spawning behaviour, brood size, fertility and population-level fertile egg production. Measured E2 exposure concentrations were <5 (controls), 17, 71 and 530 ngl(-1). Male maturation decreased with increasing E2 concentration. VTG mRNA expression increased with E2 concentration, but not with duration of exposure. Reproductive endpoints showed progressive impairment with increasing E2 concentration. For most endpoints, the lowest observed effect concentration (LOEC) was 71 ngl(-1), and EC50s were in the range 87-165 ngl(-1). Pre-breeding male colouration, VTG expression and SDGSI were good predictors of subsequent population-level fertile egg production, but GSI was not. The sensitivity of oestrogenic markers in sand goby are comparable to those used in other species, and feral fish populations exhibiting such oestrogenic responses at molecular and organ levels are likely to have reduced fertile egg production.     

The contribution of microzooplankton to the diet of mesozooplankton in an upwelling filament off the north west coast of Spain

Incubation experiments were carried out daily during a Lagrangian experiment within an upwelled filament off the Galician coast to determine the importance of microzooplankton in the diet of calanoid copepods. Despite low chlorophyll concentrations the microzooplankton formed the minor component of the diet of the copepod community (7 to 15% of carbon ingested through autotrophic and heterotrophic prey). Ingestion of ciliates was greater than that of heterotrophic dinoflagellates, which reflected a higher abundance of ciliates in the water column. Heterotrophic nanoflagellates appeared also to be consumed by the copepods, although the very small size fraction (2–5μm) was probably not grazed by the larger copepods of Calanus spp. Grazing pressure by the copepods enumerated in the net samples was not sufficient to impact significantly the microzooplankton populations (2 to 51% of daily microzooplankton production was removed). Allometric relationships of grazing on microzooplankton for a range of numerically dominant copepod species are developed from the experimental results. The grazing pressure of the whole copepod community is estimated from these relationships. By considering the total mesozooplankton community we suggest that microzooplankton growth was probably restricted by metazoan grazers.     

Scenarios for Community-based Approaches to Biodiversity Conservation: a case study from the Wet Tropics,Queensland, Australia

Natural resource management approaches that deliver biodiversity conservation remain elusive, with evidence of a persistent implementation gap between biodiversity science and conservation projects. Scenarios have been identified as potentially useful in addressing the complex issues underlying this implementation gap, but have been infrequently applied to biodiversity conservation. Our paper reports on action co-research to develop, apply and assess the efficacy of scenarios within a community-based natural resource management (CBNRM) approach to biodiversity conservation at Mission Beach, a key site within the globally significant Wet Tropics bioregion. We focused on the capacity of scenarios to address the issues of contested interests and uncertainty, aiming specifically to engage the community to build a cohesive vision. The scenarios' headline messages included a projected substantial loss of habitat in coastal vegetation communities that are highly valued by all stakeholders. Our assessment identified that the use of scenarios fulfilled the intended aims, resulting in a vision for biodiversity conservation that has substantial community support. Three factors contributed to this efficacy of the scenarios: (1) the focus on threat; (2) biodiversity science integration; and (3) simplicity in presentation. Further investigation of the potential of scenarios as tools to overcome the implementation gap in biodiversity conservation is recommended.     

Tributary valley impoundment by trunk river floodplain development: a case study from the KwaZulu‐Natal Drakensberg foothills,eastern South Africa

This paper investigates the origin and geomorphic evolution of Stillerust Vlei, a 189 ha wetland located approximately 150 km northwest of Durban in the temperate submontane foothills of the KwaZulu‐Natal Drakensberg Mountains. The investigation confirms the findings of previous research on the arid to semi‐arid South African interior, which established that many floodplain wetlands in eastern South Africa are located upstream of resistant rock barriers (dolerite intrusions) that cross river courses and form stable local base levels. Upstream of these barriers, rivers laterally plane less resistant Karoo sedimentary rocks (sandstones, mudstones), creating broad, low gradient valleys conducive to the formation of floodplain wetlands. In addition, the study examines how local levee and alluvial ridge accretion on the floodplain of Stillerust Vlei has impounded a small tributary valley, and drawing on observations of similar wetlands in the region, the paper explains the origin and geomorphic evolution of wetlands in floodplain‐abutting valleys, and associated streams that commonly become discontinuous toward their confluence with the trunk (floodplain) river. Controls on the origin and geomorphic evolution of Stillerust Vlei are placed within the context of slope‐channel decoupling and (dis)connectivity in sediment delivery, illustrating that wetlands are environments of deposition. As a result of dynamic trunk‐tributary relations, Stillerust Vlei holds a diversity of geomorphic features, and thus provides potential habitat for a diversity of biota. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Lacustrine sediments provide geochemical evidence of environmental change during the last millennium in southeastern Brazil

A 172 cm-long sediment core was collected from a small pristine lake situated within a centripetal drainage basin in a tropical karst environment (Ribeira River valley, southeastern Brazil) in order to investigate the paleoenvironmental record provided by the lacustrine geochemistry. Sediments derived from erosion of the surrounding cambisoils contain quartz, kaolinite, mica, chlorite and goethite. Accelerator mass spectroscopy (AMS) ¹⁴C dating provided the geochronological framework. Three major sedimentary units were identified based on the structure and color of the sediments: Unit III from 170 to140 cm (1030±60–730±60 yr BP), Unit II from 140 to 90 cm (730±60–360±60 yr BP) and Unit I from 90 to 0 cm (360±60–0 yr BP). Results of major and trace element concentrations were analysed through multivariate statistical techniques. Factor analysis provided three factors accounting for 72.4% of the total variance. F1 and F2 have high positive loadings from K, Ba, Cs, Rb, Sr, Sc, Th, light rare earth element (LREE), Fe, Cr, Ti, Zr, Hf and Ta, and high negative loadings from Mg, Co, Cu, Zn, Br and loss on ignition (LOI). F3, with positive loadings from V and non-metals As and Sb, accounts for a low percentage (9.7%) of the total variance, being therefore of little interpretative use. The profile distribution of F1 scores reveals negative values in Units I and III, and positive values in Unit II, meaning that K, Ba, Cs, Rb, Sr, Sc, Th, LREE, Fe, Cr, Ti, Zr, Hf and Ta are relatively more concentrated in Unit II, and Mg, Co, Cu, Zn and Br are relatively more abundant in Units I and III. The observed fluctuations in the geochemical composition of the sediments are consistent with slight variations of the erosion intensity in the catchment area as a possible response to variations of climatic conditions during the last millennium.     

Plankton community diversity from bacteria to copepods in bloom and non-bloom conditions in the Celtic Sea in spring

The plankton community composition comprising heterotrophic bacteria, pro-/eukaryotes, heterotrophic nanoflagellates, microzooplankton and mesozooplankton was assessed during the spring bloom and at non-bloom stations in the English Channel and Celtic Sea between 6 and 12 April 2002. Non-bloom sites were characterised by a dominance of pro-/eukaryotic phytoplankton <20 μm, higher abundance of heterotrophic nanoflagellates, microzooplankton standing stocks ranging between 60 and 380 mg C m⁻², lower mesozooplankton diversity and copepod abundance of between 760 and 2600 ind m⁻³. Within the bloom, the phytoplankton community was typically dominated by larger cells with low abundance of pro-/eukaryotes. Heterotrophic nanoflagellate cell bio-volume decreased leading to a reduction in biomass whereas microzooplankton biomass increased (360–1500 mg C m⁻²) due to an increase in cell bio-volume and copepod abundance ranged between 1400 and 3800 ind m⁻³. Mesozooplankton diversity increased with an increase in productivity. Relationships between the plankton community and environmental data were examined using multivariate statistics and these highlighted significant differences in the abiotic variables, the pro-/eukaryotic phytoplankton communities, heterotrophic nanoflagellate, microzooplankton and total zooplankton communities between the bloom and non-bloom sites. The variables which best described variation in the microzooplankton community were temperature and silicate. The spatial variation in zooplankton diversity was best explained by temperature. This study provides an insight into the changes that occur between trophic levels within the plankton in response to the spring bloom in this area.     

Improvements in storm surge surrogate modeling for synthetic storm parameterization,node condition classification and implementation to small size databases

Surrogate models are becoming increasingly popular for storm surge predictions. Using existing databases of storm simulations, developed typically during regional flood studies, these models provide fast-to-compute, data-driven approximations quantifying the expected storm surge for any new storm (not included in the training database). This paper considers the development of such a surrogate model for Delaware Bay, using a database of 156 simulations driven by synthetic tropical cyclones and offering predictions for a grid that includes close to 300,000 computational nodes within the geographical domain of interest. Kriging (Gaussian Process regression) is adopted as the surrogate modeling technique, and various relevant advancements are established. The appropriate parameterization of the synthetic storm database is examined. For this, instead of the storm features at landfall, the features when the storm is at closest distance to some representative point of the domain of interest are investigated as an alternative parametrization, and are found to produce a better surrogate. For nodes that remained dry for some of the database storms, imputation of the surge using a weighted k nearest neighbor (kNN) interpolation is considered to fill in the missing data. The use of a secondary, classification surrogate model, combining logistic principal component analysis and Kriging, is examined to address instances for which the imputed surge leads to misclassification of the node condition. Finally, concerns related to overfitting for the surrogate model are discussed, stemming from the small size of the available database. These concerns extend to both the calibration of the surrogate model hyper-parameters, as well as to the validation approaches adopted. During this process, the benefits from the use of principal component analysis as a dimensionality reduction technique, and the appropriate transformation and scaling of the surge output are examined in detail.

     

A record of Lateglacial and early Holocene environmental and ecological change from southwestern Connecticut,USA

Analyses of a sediment core from Highstead Swamp in southwestern Connecticut, USA, reveal Lateglacial and early Holocene ecological and hydrological changes. Lateglacial pollen assemblages are dominated by Picea and Pinus subg. Pinus, and the onset of the Younger Dryas (YD) cold interval is evidenced by higher abundance of Abies and Alnus viridis subsp. crispa. As climate warmed at the end of the YD, Picea and Abies declined and Pinus strobus became the dominant upland tree species. A shift from lacustrine sediment to organic peat at the YD–Holocene boundary suggests that the lake that existed in the basin during the Lateglacial interval developed into a swamp in response to reduced effective moisture. A change in wetland vegetation from Myrica gale to Alnus incana subsp. rugosa and Sphagnum is consistent with this interpretation of environmental changes at the beginning of the Holocene. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.