The action of heavy metals on the gametes of the marine mussel, Mytilus edulis (L.)—III. The effect of applied copper and zinc on sperm motilityin relation to ultrastructural damage and intracellular metal localisation

Treatment of Mytilus edulis sperm with external concentrations of copper or zinc (0-1-3-3mM) causes a decrease in motility in which zinc is more inhibitory than copper. Zinc also appeared to cause more extensive mitochondrial damage, as revealed by transmission electron microscopy, than did treatment with copper. The relationship between sperm motility and respiration in the presence of the various heavy metal concentrations used indicates that the depression of sperm motility can be explained largely on the basis of respiratory inhibition. However, zinc produces a less pronounced effect on sperm motility than on r respiration.X-ray microanalysis of thick sections of fixed treated sperm showed that copper accumulation occurs in the acrosomes, mitochondria and nuclei, whereas zinc is found in the acrosomes and in mitochondrial granules in association with calcium and phosphorus. No evidence was obtained for zinc accumulation in the nuclei. Treatment with either copper or zinc resulted in considerable reductions of bound calcium and phosphorus in both the acrosomes and mitochondria. It is suggested that the heavy metal ions cause an increase in the permeability of the organelle membranes to calcium and phosphorus.It is concluded that the less marked effect of zinc on sperm motility as compared to respiration may be due to an increase in the cytosolic free calcium concentration which, in turn, may stimulate the flagellar contractile apparatus.     

Ichthyoplankton abundance, distribution, and assemblage structure in the Gulf of Alaska during September 2000 and 2001

Autumn ichthyoplankton assemblage structure in the Gulf of Alaska (GOA) region has not previously been characterized. Ichthyoplankton data from September 2000 and 2001 survey collections were analyzed to describe assemblages in the western GOA, to examine interannual variation in assemblages, and to relate observations to oceanographic conditions. Taxa with the highest frequency of occurrence (2000/2001) included Osmeridae (94/87%), Hexagrammos lagocephalus (57/45%), Sebastes spp. (35/47%) and Bathymaster spp. (27/57%). Through the use of clustering techniques and ordination, three identifiable larval assemblages common to both years were identified. Slope assemblages appeared well defined in both years, while nearshore and mid-shelf assemblages tended to be more loosely associated and variable between years. Analyses of environmental variables (temperature, salinity, water depth, distance from shore, and water transport) suggest ichthyoplankton assemblage structure is affected primarily by bathymetry and circulation. We demonstrate that early autumn ichthyoplankton assemblage structure in the GOA is fundamentally linked to variations in macro- (slope vs. shelf) and meso-scale topography (on-shelf proximity to land masses), and suggest that these intrinsic associations may be modified by spatial and temporal variations in local hydrographic conditions.     

Spatial and temporal patterns in the distribution and abundance of macrozooplankton on the southern North West Shelf, Western Australia

We describe the spatial and temporal dynamics of macrozooplankton on the southern North West Shelf (NWS) of Australia over two consecutive summers (1997/1998 and 1998/1999). Sampling was conducted using submersible light traps, deployed at the surface and at depth, along one cross-shelf transect in 1997/1998, and along two cross-shelf transects and one long-shore transect in 1998/1999. Our results revealed large inter-annual changes in macrozooplankton assemblages during the two summers. An upwelling regime associated with El Niño conditions prevailed during the first summer, resulting in high chlorophyll concentrations and an abundance of both meso- and macrozooplankton. During this time, there were distinct inshore and offshore macrozooplankton assemblages that reflected an abrupt transition from upwelling-enriched shelf waters to oligotrophic oceanic waters. In contrast, the second summer was characterised by a downwelling regime associated with La Niña conditions that resulted in low chlorophyll concentrations and decreased abundances of meso- and macrozooplankton. The lack of upwelling activity weakened horizontal gradients in macrozooplankton assemblages so that differences between surface and deep assemblages were more pronounced. Catches in light traps were dominated by hyperiid amphipods during the first summer and by the neritic euphausiid Pseudeuphausia latifrons during the second. There was little within-season change in macrozooplankton assemblages during both summers, and only weak relationships were found between the environmental parameters and the distribution of individual macrozooplankton taxa.     

Comparison of two bias correction methods for precipitation simulated with a regional climate model

This study evaluates the performance of two bias correction techniques—power transformation and gamma distribution adjustment—for Eta regional climate model (RCM) precipitation simulations. For the gamma distribution adjustment, the number of dry days is not taken as a fixed parameter; rather, we propose a new methodology for handling dry days. We consider two cases: the first case is defined as having a greater number of simulated dry days than the observed number, and the second case is defined as the opposite. The present climate period was divided into calibration and validation sets. We evaluate the results of the two bias correction techniques using the Kolmogorov-Smirnov nonparametric test and the sum of the differences between the cumulative distribution curves. These tests show that both correction techniques were effective in reducing errors and consequently improving the reliability of the simulations. However, the gamma distribution correction method proved to be more efficient, particularly in reducing the error in the number of dry days.

     

Critical GIS pedagogies beyond ‘Week 10: Ethics’

Over two decades after the scholarly interventions that coalesced into ‘critical GIS’ as a field within GIScience, critical GIS remains underdeveloped in conversations on teaching and learning. The literature on GIScience education has emphasized content more than pedagogies – what to teach versus how to teach to move students toward particular learning objectives. This emphasis is reflected in dominant curricular approaches to critical GIS, in which questions around the complicated origins and complicit social, political, and economic relationships of GIS are taken up as discrete topics, tacked onto instruction that otherwise prioritizes technical dimensions of GIScience. We argue that GIScience coursework must resist such modularization by approaching critical GIS not as a set of topics, but an orientation to GIS praxis that ‘does’ GIS from within a questioning stance, to ask how we know. We outline specific curricular shifts and teaching practices we have used to foster this orientation in GIS students, offering ways of continually engaging students in practicing this orientation as they learn strong technical GIScience content. Finally, we trace the successes, challenges, and tensions sparked by these critical GIS pedagogies, drawing on student evaluation comments from our courses and reflecting on broader implications for GIScience instructors and geography faculty.     

Dilute gravity current and rain-flushed ash deposits in the 1.8 ka Hatepe Plinian deposit,Taupo, New Zealand

Two groups of poorly sorted ash-rich beds, previously interpreted as rain-flushed ashes, occur in the ca. AD 180 Hatepe Plinian pumice fall deposit at Taupo volcano, New Zealand. Two ash beds with similar dispersal patterns and an aggregate thickness of up to 13 cm make up the lowermost group (A). Group A beds extend 45 km north-east of the vent and cover 290 km². In the southern part of the group A distribution area, a coarse ash to lapilli-size Plinian pumice bed (deposit B) separates the two group A beds. The scarcity of lapilli (material seen elsewhere from the still-depositing pumice fall) in group A beds indicates that they were rapidly transported and deposited. However, this rapid transportation and deposition did not produce cross-bedding, nor did it erode the underlying deposits. It is proposed that thick (>600 m) but dilute gravity currents generated from the collapsing outer margin of the otherwise buoyant Hatepe Plinian eruption column deposited the group A beds. The upper ash beds (group C) consist of one to seven layers, attain an aggregate thickness of 35 cm, and vary considerably in thickness and number of beds with respect to distance from vent. Group C beds contain variable amounts of ash mixed with angular Plinian pumices and are genuine rain-flushed ashes. Several recent eruptions at other volcanoes (Ukinrek Maars, Vulcan, Rabaul, La Soufrère de Guadeloupe and Soufrière, St Vincent) have produced gravity currents similar in style, but much smaller than those envisaged for group A deposits. The overloaded margins of otherwise buoyant eruption plumes generated these gravity currents. Laboratory studies have produced experimental gravity current analogues. Hazards from dilute gravity currents are considerable but often overlooked, thus the recognition of gravity current deposits will contribute to more thorough volcanic hazard assessment of prehistoric eruption sequences.     

Size-dependent, Spatial, and Temporal Variability of Juvenile Walleye Pollock (Theragra chalcogramma) Feeding at a Structural Front in the Southeast Bering Sea

Abstract. The waters surrounding the Pribilof Islands are an important nursery ground for juvenile walleye pollock (Theragra chalcogramma), an important forage fish in the pelagic food web of the productive Bering Sea shelf region. The diet of juvenile pollock was studied in two consecutive years along a transect line crossing from a well‐mixed coastal domain, through a frontal region to stratified water farther offshore. Variability in stomach fullness was high and evidence for increased feeding intensity in the front was weak. Prey diversity and prey size generally increased with increasing fish size, shifting from predominantly small copepods to larger, more evasive prey items such as euphausiids, crab megalopae and fish. The diet of the fish reflected changes in the relative abundance of copepods and euphausiids in the prey fields between years. Juvenile pollock showed increased feeding rates at dusk, and stomach fullness as well as prey condition were generally lowest just before sunrise; however, the proportion of euphausiids increased in the diet of pollock caught at night, suggesting that some food was also ingested during darkness. Juvenile pollock and their euphausiid prey both vertically migrated above the thermocline at night, although each had a different daytime depth.     

Aureoles of Pb(II)-enriched feldspar around monazite in paragneiss and anatectic pods of the Napier Complex,Enderby Land,East Antarctica: the roles of dissolution-reprecipitation and diffusion

Extraordinarily high Pb content in K-feldspar and plagioclase has been found contiguous to monazite in two occurrences in the ultrahigh-temperature Napier Complex of Antarctica. Monazite shows a variety of textures and compositions. In a garnet-sillimanite-orthopyroxene paragneiss at Mount Pardoe (Amundsen Bay), grains range 80–150 μm across and are anhedral; two grains are Th- and Si-dominant. In pods that crystallized from anatectic melts at 2500 Ma at Zircon Point, Casey Bay, monazite grains range 0.05 mm–1 cm in length and are highly variable in texture. The coarsest grains (>0.7 cm) are skeletal and euhedral, whereas the smallest grains are anhedral and associated with fine- to medium-grained quartz, K-feldspar, plagioclase, garnet, sillimanite and rutile in aggregates that form interstitial veinlets interpreted to be a second generation of anatexis during an event at 1100 Ma. The huttonite component (ThSiO₄) reaches 30 mole% in the cores of the coarsest skeletal grains, whereas other grains, particularly smaller ones, show complex and irregular zoning in Th and U. The latter zoning is attributed to dissolution-reprecipitation, which also resulted in complete Pb loss during the 1100 Ma event. In the paragneiss at Mount Pardoe, K-feldspar and myrmekitic plagioclase (An16) are found in a 70–80 μm band between monazite and orthopyroxene and contain up to 12.7 wt.% and 2.7 wt.% PbO, respectively, corresponding to 18.5% and 3.4% PbAl₂Si₂O₈ component, respectively. Cathodoluminescence of both feldspars increases with distance from a nearby monazite grain and is not correlated with Pb content. Incorporation of Pb in K-feldspar and plagioclase could be a result of diffusion, even though the monazite adjacent to feldspar apparently lost little Pb, i.e., Pb could have been transported by fluid from the Th-rich grains, which did lose Pb. In contrast to the paragneiss, cathodoluminescence correlates with Pb content of K-feldspar in aureoles surrounding skeletal monazite grains 0.7–1 cm across in anatectic pods at Zircon Point. Pb content of K-feldspar decreases monotonically to near detection limits within several millimetres of monazite grains; the greatest PbO concentration is attained in K-feldspar inliers and embayments in monazite, 8.8 wt.%, corresponding to 11.7% PbAl₂Si₂O₈ component. Fine-grained quartz in the K-feldspar suggests that the mechanism for Pb incorporation involved breakdown of feldspar: Pb²⁺ + 2(K,Na)AlSi₃O₈ → PbAl₂Si₂O₈ + 4SiO₂ + 2(K,Na)⁺ . The smooth decrease of Pb in the aureoles is not characteristic of dissolution-reprecipitation, which is characterized by abrupt changes of composition, and it seems more likely that Pb was incorporated in K-feldspar by diffusion at 1100 Ma. We suggest a model whereby fluid introduced during the 1100 Ma event flowed along grain boundaries and penetrated mineral grains. Temperatures were sufficiently high, i.e., 700°C, assuming burial in the mid-crust, for the fluid to induce localized melting of quartzofeldspathic matrix of the anatectic pods. Loss of radiogenic Pb was complete. Some penetration of K-feldspar by aqueous fluid is suggested by the presence of scattered galena specks and by rays of turbidity emanating from monazite. Aqueous fluid or water-rich granitic melt may have mediated the diffusion of Pb in feldspar, but it did not cause dissolution-reprecipitation. Although Pb was mobilized by aqueous fluid or water-rich granitic melt, it was not entirely flushed from the immediate vicinity of the monazite, but nearly half was incorporated in adjacent feldspar. Fluid activity that could cause Pb loss in monazite does not always leave an obvious trace, i.e., hydrous minerals, such as sericite, are very sparse, and biotite is absent in the anatectic pods at Zircon Point. Nonetheless, electron microprobe dating of monazite from the pods could not detect the 2500 Ma age of original crystallization determined by isotopic dating.