Comparative genetic structure in two high-dispersal prawn species from the south-west Indian Ocean

The penaeid prawns Fenneropenaeus indicus and Metapenaeus monoceros support shallow-water prawn fisheries in the south-west Indian Ocean. They are sympatric and have similar life histories, including developmental stages that depend on estuarine and marine habitats and a short dispersal duration. Nevertheless, M. monoceros juveniles display a more generalist habitat preference in estuaries and recruit to offshore habitats during a different season than F. indicus. We hypothesised that these differences would affect dispersal patterns, leading to dissimilar geographic genetic structure between the two taxa. Given their short dispersal phase, we also hypothesised that the Mozambique Channel would form a barrier to dispersal between the southeastern African mainland and Madagascar sites. Population differentiation was assessed based on analysis of mitochondrial DNA control-region sequences. Both species displayed high haplotype and low nucleotide diversity. Pairwise ?_ST statistics supported the existence of admixed populations along the African mainland sites for both species, with geographic distance isolating populations at the extremes of the sampled range (Kenya and east coast of South Africa). The Madagascar population differed significantly from African mainland populations. The concordant patterns in population differentiation suggest that F. indicus and M. monoceros can be considered as single African stocks, or fisheries management units.     

Evolution,architecture and hierarchy of distributary deep‐water deposits: a high‐resolution outcrop investigation from the Permian Karoo Basin,South Africa

Sea floor and shallow seismic data sets of terminal submarine fan lobes can provide excellent planform timeslices of distributive deep‐water systems but commonly only limited information on cross‐sectional architecture. Extensive outcrops in the Tanqua depocentre, south‐west Karoo Basin, provide these three‐dimensional constraints on lithofacies distributions, stacking patterns, depositional geometries and the stratigraphic evolution of submarine lobe deposits at a scale comparable with modern lobe systems. Detailed study (bed‐scale) of a single‐lobe complex (Fan 3) over a 15 km by 8 km area has helped to define a four‐fold hierarchy of depositional elements from bed through to lobe element, lobe and lobe complex. The Fan 3 lobe complex comprises six distinct fine‐grained sandstone packages, interpreted as lobes, which display compensational stacking patterns on a 5 km scale. Between successive lobes are thin‐bedded, very fine‐grained sandstones and siltstones that do not change lithofacies over several kilometres and therefore are identified as a different architectural element. Each lobe is built by many lobe elements, which also display compensational stacking patterns over a kilometre scale. Thickness variations of lobe elements can be extremely abrupt without erosion, particularly in distal areas where isopach maps reveal a finger‐like distal fringe to lobes. Lobe deposits, therefore, are not simple radial sheet‐dominated systems as commonly envisaged.     

New Digital Magnetograph At Big Bear Solar Observatory

A new digital magnetograph system has been installed and tested at Big Bear Solar Observatory. The system uses part of BBSO's existing videomagnetograph (VMG) system: a quarter wave plate, a ferro-electric liquid crystal to switch polarizations, and a 0.25 Å bandpass Zeiss filter tuned at Cai 6103 Å. A new 256×256 pixels, 12-bit Dalsa camera is used as the detector and as the driver to switch the liquid crystal. The data rate of the camera is 90 frames s–1. The camera is interfaced to a Pentium-166 PC with a Tech imaging board for data acquisition and analysis. The computer has 128 MByte of RAM, and up to 700 live images can be stored in memory for quick post-exposure image processing (image selection and alignment). We have significantly improved the sensitivity and spatial resolution over the old BBSO VMG system. In particular: (1) New digital image data are in 12 bits while the video signal is digitized as 8 bits. Polarizations weaker than 1% can not be detected by a single pair subtraction in the video system. The digital system can detect a polarization signal of about 0.3% by a single pair subtraction. (2) Data rate of the digital system is 90 frames s–1, that of the video system is 30 frames s–1. So the time difference between two polarizations is reduced in the new system. Under good seeing conditions, the data rate of 90 frames s–1 ensures that most of the wavefront distortions are frozen and fairly closely the same for the left and right circular polarized image pairs. (3) Magnetograms are constructed after image selection and alignment. We discuss the characteristics of this new system. We present the results of our first tests to reconstruct magnetograms with speckle interferometric techniques. We also present some preliminary results on the comparison of facular/micropore contrasts and magnetic field structure. The experiment with this small detector lays ground for a larger format digital magnetograph system at BBSO, as well as a future Fabry-Pérot system, which will be able to scan across the spectral line.     

High‐order adaptive optical system for Big Bear Solar Observatory

A high‐order Adaptive Optical (AO) system for the 65 cm vacuum telescope of the Big Bear Solar Observatory (BBSO) is presented. The Coudé‐exit of the telescope has been modified to accommodate the AO system and two imaging magnetograph systems for visible‐light and near infrared (NIR) observations. A small elliptical tip/tilt mirror directs the light into an optical laboratory on the observatory's 2^nd floor just below the observing floor. A deformable mirror (DM) with 77 mm diameter is located on an optical table where it serves two wave‐front sensors (WFS), a correlation tracker (CT) and Shack‐Hartman (SH) sensor for the high‐order AO system, and the scientific channels with the imaging magnetographs. The two‐axis tip/tilt platform has a resonance frequency around 3.3 kHz and tilt range of about 2 mrad, which corresponds to about 25″ in the sky. Based on 32 × 32 pixel images, the CT detects image displacements between a reference frame and real‐time frames at a rate of 2 kHz. High‐order wave‐front aberrations are detected in the SH WFS channel from slope measurements derived from 76 sub‐apertures, which are recorded with 1,280 × 1,024 pixel Complex Metal Oxide Semiconductor (CMOS) camera manufactured by Photobit camera. In the 4 × 4 pixel binning mode, the data acquisition rate of the CMOS device is more than 2 kHz. Both visible‐light and NIR imaging magnetographs use Fabry‐Pérot etalons in telecentric configurations for two‐dimensional spectro‐polarimetry. The optical design of the AO system allows using small aperture prefilters, such as interference or Lyot filters, and 70 mm diameter Fabry‐Pérot etalons covering a field‐of‐view (FOV) of about 180″ × 180″.     

Fast Imaging Solar Spectrograph of the 1.6 Meter New Solar Telescope at Big Bear Solar Observatory

For high resolution spectral observations of the Sun – particularly its chromosphere, we have developed a dual-band echelle spectrograph named Fast Imaging Solar Spectrograph (FISS), and installed it in a vertical optical table in the Coudé Lab of the 1.6 meter New Solar Telescope at Big Bear Solar Observatory. This instrument can cover any part of the visible and near-infrared spectrum, but it usually records the Hα band and the Ca ii 8542 Å band simultaneously using two CCD cameras, producing data well suited for the study of the structure and dynamics of the chromosphere and filaments/prominences. The instrument does imaging of high quality using a fast scan of the slit across the field of view with the aid of adaptive optics. We describe its design, specifics, and performance as well as data processing     

Wood distribution in neotropical forested headwater streams of La Selva,Costa Rica

Surveys of wood along 30 forested headwater stream reaches in La Selva Biological Station in north‐eastern Costa Rica represent the first systematic data reported on wood loads in neotropical streams. For streams with drainage areas of 0·1–8·5 km² and gradients of 0·2–8%, wood load ranged from 3 to 34·7 m³ wood/100 m channel and 41–612 m³ wood/ha channel. These values are within the range reported for temperate streams. The variables wood diameter/flow depth, stream power, the presence of backflooding, and channel width/depth are consistently selected as significant predictors by statistical models for wood load. These variables explain half to two‐thirds of the variability in wood load. These results, along with the spatial distribution of wood with respect to the thalweg, suggest that transport processes exert a greater influence on wood loads than recruitment processes. Wood appears to be more geomorphically effective in altering bed elevations in gravel‐bed reaches than in reaches with coarser or finer substrate. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A Borehole Test for Chlorinated Solvent Diffusion and Degradation Rates in Sedimentary Rock

We present a new field measurement and numerical interpretation method (combined termed “test”) to parameterize the diffusion of trichloroethene (TCE) and its biodegradation products (DPs) from the matrix of sedimentary rock. The method uses a dual-packer system to interrogate a low-permeability section of the rock matrix adjacent to a previously contaminated borehole and uses the borehole monitoring history to establish the pretest condition. TCE and its DPs are removed from the groundwater between the packers at the onset of the testing. The parameters estimated by fitting a radial diffusion model to the concentration history and borehole concentration data, also termed back diffusion, are the tortuosity factor and sorption coefficients of TCE and DPs in the rock matrix and the TCE and DP biodegradation rate coefficients in the borehole. We demonstrate the equipment design and the interpretive method using a borehole accessing the gray mudstone at a TCE contaminated site in the Newark Basin. In this test, both nonreactive (bromide) and reactive (trichlorofluoroethene) tracers are used to constrain the estimated parameters; however, the bromide tracer was not needed to estimate the parameters in this test. The parameters estimated from the field test are consistent with values measured independently in laboratory experiments using field samples of similar lithology. From the interpretation, we compute the TCE and DP concentration distributions in the rock matrix prior to the test to illustrate how the results can be used to enhance understanding of contaminant distribution in the rock matrix.     

Flowpath Independent Monitoring of Reductive Dechlorination Potential in a Fractured Rock Aquifer

The flowpath dependent approaches that are typically employed to assess biodegradation of chloroethene contaminants in unconsolidated aquifers are problematic in fractured rock settings, due to difficulties defining discrete groundwater flowpaths in such systems. In this study, the variation in the potential for chloroethene biodegradation with depth was evaluated in a fractured rock aquifer using two flowpath independent lines of field evidence: (1) the presence of the three biochemical prerequisites [electron donor(s), chloroethene electron acceptor(s), and chlororespiring microorganism(s)] for efficient chloroethene chlororespiration and (2) the in situ accumulation of chloroethene reductive dechlorination daughter products. The validity of this approach was assessed by comparing field results with the results of [1, 2-¹⁴C] cis -DCE microcosm experiments. Microcosms were prepared with depth-specific core material, which was crushed and emplaced in discrete packer intervals for 1 year to allow colonization by the indigenous microbial community. Packer intervals characterized by significant electron donor concentrations, elevated numbers of chlororespiring microorganisms, and high reductive dechlorination product to parent contaminant ratios correlated well with the production of ¹⁴C-labeled reductive dechlorination products in the microcosm experiments. These results indicate that, in the absence of information on discrete groundwater flowpaths, a modified approach emphasizing flowpath independent lines of evidence can provide insight into the temporal and spatial variability of contaminant biodegradation in fractured rock systems.