Proximate environmental drivers of coral communities at Palmyra Atoll: establishing baselines prior to removing a WWII military causeway

A management proposal aims to partly remove a WWII military causeway at Palmyra Atoll to improve lagoon water circulation and alleviate sedimentation stress on the southeast backreef, an area of high coral cover and diversity. This action could result in a shift in sedimentation across reef sites. To provide management advice, we quantified the proximate environmental factors driving scleractinian coral cover and community patterns at Palmyra. The proportion of fine sedimentation was the optimal predictor of coral cover and changes in community structure, explaining 23.7% and 24.7% of the variation between sites, respectively. Scleractinian coral cover was negatively correlated with increases in fine sedimentation. Removing the causeway could negatively affect the Montipora corals that dominate the western reef terrace, as this genus was negatively correlated with levels of fine sedimentation. The tolerance limits of corals, and sediment re-distribution patterns, should be determined prior to complete removal of the causeway.     

Imposex in the rock shell, Thais clavigera, as evidence of organotin contamination in the marine environment of Korea

Imposex was measured in the rock shell, Thais clavigera, from the coast of the Korean peninsula. Frequency of imposex was 0% at two reference sites, but at 47 out of 61 sites, frequency of imposex was recorded as 100%. The degree of imposex was relatively high at the sites near a harbor and a shipyard. Tributyltin (TBT) and triphenyltin (TPT) concentrations in T. clavigera ranged from 5 to 508 ng/g and from 3 to 2460 ng/g, respectively. A significant positive relationship was found between degree of imposex and organotin concentration, whereas a significant negative relationship was obtained between female-to-male sex ratio and the degree of imposex. During a field transplantation of T. clavigera from a pristine area to a port, TBT and TPT were accumulated in T. clavigera, and imposex was induced. T. clavigera shows considerable potential as a bioindicator species of the adverse effects of TBT and TPT contamination.     

Concentration of polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) in sediment cores of Sundarban mangrove wetland, northeastern part of Bay of Bengal (India)

The paper presents the first comprehensive survey of congener profiles (12 congeners) of polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) in core sediment samples (<63 microm) covering seven sites in Sundarban mangrove wetland (India). Gas-chromatographic analyses were carried out in GC-Ms/Ms for tri- to hepta- brominated congeners. Results pointed out a non-homogenous contamination of the wetland with summation operator(12) PBDE values ranging from 0.08 to 29.03 ngg(-1), reflecting moderate to low contamination closely in conformity to other Asian aquatic environments. The general order of decreasing congener contribution to the total load was: BDE 47>99>100>154, similar to the distribution pattern worldwide. Although tetrabromodiphenyl ether BDE 47 was found in all samples followed by hexabromodiphenyl ether BDE-154, they were not necessarily the dominant congeners. No uniform temporal trend on PBDE levels was recorded probably due to particular hydrological characteristics of the wetland and/on non-homologous inputs from point sources (untreated municipal wastewater and local industries, electronic wastes from the dump sites, etc.) of these compounds. Because of the propensity of PBDEs to accumulate in various compartments of wildlife and human food webs, evaluation of biological tissues should be undertaken as a high priority.     

Analytical and numerical models to explain steady rates of spring flow

Flow from some springs in former glacial lakebeds of the Upper Midwest is extremely steady throughout the year and does not increase significantly after precipitation events or seasonal recharge. Analytical and simplified numerical models of spring systems were used to determine whether preferential ground water flow through high-permeability features in shallow sandstone aquifers could produce typical values of spring discharge and the unusually steady rates of spring flow. The analytical model is based on a one-dimensional solution for periodic ground water flow. Solutions to this model suggest that it is unlikely that a periodic forcing due to seasonal variations in areal recharge would propagate to springs in a setting where high-permeability features exist. The analytical model shows that the effective length of the aquifer, or the length of flowpaths to a spring, and the total transmissivity of the aquifer have the greatest potential to impact the nature of spring flow in this setting. The numerical models show that high-permeability features can influence the magnitude of spring flow and the results demonstrate that the lengths of ground water flowpaths increase when high-permeability features are explicitly modeled, thus decreasing the likelihood for temporal variations in spring flow.     

Conservation of biodiversity of the coastal resources of Sundarbans,Northeast India: an integrated approach through environmental education

The Indian Sundarbans, a diversified coastal wetland on the southern fringe of the State of West Bengal, harbors a luxuriant biodiversity and acts as a potential refuge of living marine resources. Girdled with thick mangrove foliage, this estuarine delta system offers an excellent nursery ground for most of the brackishwater finfish and shellfish. Since supply of hatchery-produced tiger prawn seed (Penaeus monodon) is highly inadequate in West Bengal, the aquaculture farms of this region largely depend on the supply from natural resources. Being motivated by a regular cash income, the majority of coastal people from Sundarbans have adopted prawn seed collection as their profession almost throughout the year as an important source of earning. The users are neither trained nor guided at any stage from collection to marketing and are fully dependent on traditional methods. They first sort out the tiger prawn seeds (mainly the postlarval stage PL 20) accounting only 0.25-0.27% of the total catch and thereafter the major portion of the haul are thrown away on the beach flats or the tidal mudflats. This wasted by-catch contains the juveniles of economic and uneconomic varieties of finfish and shellfish along with a bulk of holoplankters and meroplankters (non-target species). This practice causes several ecological and occupational consequences, namely, (i) the huge destruction of the pelagic biota that can lead to severe stock depletion as well as hamper the energy transference through the marine ecosystem food webs; (ii) constant dragging of nets along the coast and tidal creeks paves the way for soil erosion, uprooting the mangrove seedlings and saltmarsh vegetation; (iii) the water quality is deteriorating in the catchment areas due to mud erosion and (iv) due to constant contact with the seawater, the collectors are affected with waterborne diseases, skin infections, reproductive tract disease in women and many other contagious diseases.This paper, in addition to identifying the challenge to environmental quality and resource abundance, emphasizes the need for grass-root public education so that local people come to understand, support and implement sustainable resource conservation and environmental protection activities now and in the future. As a follow-up course of action, the authors have initiated a general awareness program for developing consciousness among the coastal people regarding proper use of natural resources. Initiatives are taken for educating coastal people by holding workshops and seminars with the use of educational resource materials. Exclusive awareness camps and grass root level training for coastal people are also being proposed as a future course of action by means of exhibitions, audiovisuals etc. It is proposed that local government bodies come forward to mitigate this problem with scientific and rational approaches and to take proper actions towards conservation.     

The Discovery of a Second Field Methane Brown Dwarf from Sloan Digital Sky Survey Commissioning Data

We report the discovery of a second field methane brown dwarf from the commissioning data of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). The object, SDSS J134646.45-003150.4 (hereafter SDSS 1346-00), was selected because of its very red color and stellar appearance. Its spectrum between 0.8 and 2.5 μm is dominated by strong absorption bands of H2O and CH4 and closely mimics those of Gliese 229B and SDSS 162414.37+002915.6 (hereafter SDSS 1624+00), two other known methane brown dwarfs. SDSS 1346-00 is approximately 1.5 mag fainter than Gliese 229B, suggesting that it lies about 11 pc from the Sun. The ratio of flux at 2.1 μm to that at 1.27 μm is larger for SDSS 1346-00 than for Gliese 229B and SDSS 1624+00, which suggests that SDSS 1346-00 has a slightly higher effective temperature than the others. Based on a search area of 130 deg2 and a detection limit of z*=19.8, we estimate a space density of 0.05 pc-3 for methane brown dwarfs with Teff approximately 1000 K in the 40 pc3 volume of our search. This estimate is based on small-sample statistics and should be treated with appropriate caution.     

Improving benthic monitoring by combining trawl and grab surveys

Environmental monitoring is performed on seafloor communities since these organisms are relatively stationary and integrate the environmental conditions over many years. Standard practices involve sampling by grab. Epifaunal taxa, often missed by grab sampling, are likely to have different ecological functions. We investigate how current environmental assessments represent the benthic community as a whole by comparing taxonomic and functional components sampled by grabs and epibenthic trawls. Faunal communities sampled by trawl (filtrating or predator, epifauna) and grab (infaunal, detrivore) differs widely by sampling distinct functional components, and these may be expected to respond to different human-induced stressors. Neither component appears to be a good surrogate for the community as a whole. We suggest a benthic monitoring by combining both techniques. Sustainable ecosystem functioning is intimately tied to the health of both components of the benthic community, and is recognized as an important goal by signatories of the Convention on Biological Diversity.     

Analysis of the 16S-23S rDNA intergenic spacers (IGSs) of marine vibrios for species-specific signature DNA sequences

Vibrios are widespread in the marine environment and a few pathogenic species are known to be commonly associated with outbreaks of diarrheal diseases in humans due to the consumption of raw or improperly cooked seafood. However, there are also many Vibrio species which are potentially pathogenic to vertebrate and invertebrate aquatic animals, and of which little is known. In an attempt to develop rapid PCR detection methods for these latter class of vibrios, we have examined the 16S-23S intergenic spacers (IGSs) of 10 lesser-known Vibrio species and successfully developed species-specific primers for eight of them--Vibrio costicola, V. diazotrophicus, V. fluvialis, V. nigripulchritudo, V. proteolyticus, V. salmonicida, V. splendidus and V. tubiashii. The IGS amplicons were amplified using primers complementary to conserved regions of the 16S and 23S rRNA genes, and cloned into plasmid vectors and sequenced. Analysis of the IGS sequences showed that 37 ribosomal RNA (rrn) operons representing seven different IGS types have been cloned from the 10 vibrios. The three IGS types--IGS(0), IGS(IA) and IGS(Glu)--were the most prevalent forms detected. Multiple alignment of representative sequences of these three IGS types from different Vibrio species revealed several domains of high sequence variability, which were used to design species-specific primers for PCR. The specificity of the primers were evaluated using total DNA prepared from different Vibrio species and bacterial genera. The results showed that the PCR method can be used to reliably detect eight of the 10 Vibrio species in marine waters in this study.