The incidence of plastic ingestion by fishes: From the prey’s perspective

One of the primary threats to ocean ecosystems from plastic pollution is ingestion by marine organisms. Well-documented in seabirds, turtles, and marine mammals, ingestion by fish and sharks has received less attention until recently. We suggest that fishes of a variety of sizes attack drifting plastic with high frequency, as evidenced by the apparent bite marks commonly left behind. We examined 5518 plastic items from random plots on Kamilo Point, Hawai’i Island, and found 15.8% to have obvious signs of attack. Extrapolated to the entire amount of debris removed from the 15 km area, over 1.3 tons of plastic is attacked each year. Items with a bottle shape, or those blue or yellow in color, were attacked with a higher frequency. The triangular edges or punctures left by teeth ranged from 1 to 20 mm in width suggesting a variety of species attack plastic items. More research is needed to document the specific fishes and rates of plastic ingestion.     

中国海岸带及近海科学数据平台研究与开发

基于海洋数据的多样性和时空复杂性的特点,采用目前先进的大型空间数据库管理软件——Oracle9i的ArcSDE,ArcGIS桌面系统,完成了海岸带及近海科学数据平台实体的装载和组织工作,并在ArcObject组件的基础上开发了基于C/S的数据平台的前端管理系统,当前该系统可以实现面向海洋用户的遥感数据无缝拼接、多源数据多种快速查询、提取、影像数据的装载以及影像元数据的管理和修改等多种功能.该系统主要服务对象是涉及国家主管海岸带和近海专业的科研调查部门或个人,自其建立以来已经陆续开展一些应用服务,达到了理想的效果,满足了用户的需求.     

激光干涉测距三维秩亏网的拟稳平差

激光跟踪仪采用激光干涉测距原理,其测距精度远远高于测角精度。利用激光跟踪仪的高精度激光干涉测距值,构成空间三维激光干涉测边网,可以消除测角误差对空间点位的影响,大幅度提高三维点坐标精度。由于激光干涉测距三维网存在数亏问题,且整网控制点的稳定性不同,因此采用秩亏自由网平差模型,分别以测站点和定向点为拟稳点对测量数据进行平差解算。平差结果表明,在拟稳点选择合理的情况下,空间点三维坐标平差值反算的距离与测量距离的差值优于±10μm;点位误差可以优于±20μm。     

Simion Mehedinţi's Contribution to Modern Romanian Geography

Armed with a scholarship to find an answer to the question “What is geography?” Simion Mehedin?i's studies took him to continental Europe's three main centers of geographic thought: Paris, Berlin, and Leipzig. We explore how his innovative ideas flourished, especially in Leipzig under Ratzel. The first Romanian geographer, Mehedin?i, must be credited with having defined geography as a science of mutual relationships between geospheres. This thinking reached its pinnacle in two complex books, Terra and Ethnos, the contents of which we synthetically explore. We also trace the unfavorable historical and geopolitical conditions that led to this pioneering work being little recognized worldwide.     

常用稳健估计方法在测边网解算中的应用

针对最小二乘估计中稳健估计方法的效果尚未被分析证明的问题,该文以不同观测值数量、不同粗差数量和等权或不等权观测值的三个测边网为例,通过仿真实验的方法,对12种常用稳健估计方法的稳健性进行了比较,确定了对测边网解算相对更为有效的稳健估计方法。结果表明,L1法、Danish法、German-McClure法和IGGIII方案是12种方法中更为有效的稳健估计方法,能相对更有效地消除或减弱粗差对参数估计结果的影响。     

神府矿区活鸡兔矿井烧变岩水害防治工程研究

活鸡免矿井是神木北部矿区首批建设的现代化煤矿之一，于2000年12月投产，生产原煤800万t/a。由于该矿井范围内煤层上部（垂距21-30m）赋存有10.97km^2烧变岩裂隙含水层，其静储量高达130万m^3，单孔涌水量可达2000m^3/d，对煤矿的安全开采构成了巨大威胁。同时，烧变岩裂隙水双是可供矿区开发利用的宝贵水资源，为消除水害隐患及合理利用地下水资源，采用了钻孔泄水方式将烧变岩裂隙水引入矿区供水系统，既保证了矿井的安全生产，又取得了巨大的经济效益与环境效益。     

Physical dynamics and biological implications of a mesoscale eddy in the lee of Hawai’i: Cyclone Opal observations during E-Flux III

E-Flux III (March 10–28, 2005) was the third and last field experiment of the E-Flux project. The main goal of the project was to investigate the physical, biological and chemical characteristics of mesoscale eddies that form in the lee of Maui and the Island of Hawai’i, focusing on the physical–biogeochemical interactions. The primary focus of E-Flux III was the cyclonic cold-core eddy Opal, which first appeared in the NOAA GOES sea-surface temperature (SST) imagery during the second half of February 2005. During the experiment, Cyclone Opal moved over 160 km, generally southward. Thus, the sampling design had to be constantly adjusted in order to obtain quasi-synoptic observations of the eddy. Analyses of ship transect-depth profiles of CTD, optical and acoustic Doppler current profiler (ADCP) data revealed a well-developed feature characterized by a fairly symmetric circular shape with a radius of about 80 km. Depth profiles of temperature, salinity and density were characterized by an intense doming of isothermal, isohaline and isopycnal surfaces. Isopleths of nutrient concentrations were roughly parallel to isopycnals, indicating the upwelling of deep nutrient-rich water. The deep chlorophyll maximum layer (DCML) shoaled from a depth of about 130 m in the outer regions of the eddy to about 60 m in the center. Chlorophyll concentrations reached their maximum values in Opal's core region (about 40 km in diameter), where nutrients were upwelled into the euphotic layer. ADCP velocity data clearly showed the cyclonic circulation associated with Opal. Vertical sections of tangential velocities were characterized by values that increased linearly with radial distance from near zero close to the center to a maximum of about at roughly 25 km from the center, and then slowly decayed. The vertical extent of the cyclonic circulation was primarily limited to the upper mixed layer, as tangential velocities decayed quite rapidly within a depth range of 90–130 m. Potential vorticity analysis suggests that only a relatively small (about 50 km in diameter) and shallow (to a depth of approximately 70 m) portion of the eddy is isolated from the surrounding waters. Radial movements of water can occur between the center of the eddy and the outer regions along density surfaces within an isopycnal range of σ–t_23.6 () and σ–t_24.4 (). Thus the biogeochemistry of the system might have been greatly influenced by these lateral exchanges of water at depth, especially during Opal's southward migration. While the eddy was translating, deep water in front of the eddy might have been upwelled into the core region, leading to an additional injection of nutrients into the euphotic zone. At the same time, part of the chlorophyll-rich waters in the core region might have remained behind the translating eddy and, thus contributed to the formation of an eddy wake characterized by relatively high chlorophyll concentrations.     

牙鲆Lhx1基因的克隆和表达分析

Lhx1基因对于哺乳动物卵巢缪勒氏管的形成具有重要作用, 但鱼类中的报道仅限于其在体轴和肾脏形成中的作用, 尚未见到其与性别及性腺发育相关的报道。本研究克隆获得了牙鲆(Paralichthys olivaceus)Lhx1a和Lhx1b开放阅读框(ORF)序列, 长度分别为1224 bp 和1206 bp (GenBank 注册号为:JX999940、JX999941), 同源序列比较显示牙鲆Lhx1a和Lhx1b基因均具有两个LIM 及一个HOX 结构域, 符合Lhx1进化保守性。这两个基因在牙鲆雌、雄成鱼各组织RT-PCR 差异表达谱不尽相同, Lhx1a在精巢中弱表达, 卵巢中不表达, 在其他组织中雌、雄表达谱差异不大, 都只在脑和眼组织有弱表达;而Lhx1b的表达在性腺中相对较高, 且卵巢的表达量高于精巢。进一步检测牙鲆Lhx1a和Lhx1b在雌、雄性腺发育各期的表达谱, 发现这两个基因表达集中于Ⅲ、Ⅳ期性腺, Lhx1a在精巢中弱表达, Lhx1b卵巢中的表达明显高于精巢, 而在Ⅰ、ⅡII、Ⅴ期性腺几乎均不表达。由此推断牙鲆Lhx1a 和Lhx1b均为性别相关基因, 但在两性性腺发育中的作用可能各有不同。     

Beyond environmental impact: articulating the “intangibles” in a resource conflict

Environmental planning is an arena of policy making in which formal public deliberation is among the most extensive. At the same time, environmental disputes can also be among the most resistant to resolution, often becoming entangled in issues that some describe as “intangible”. The discourse is largely structured by regulatory frameworks, such as environmental impact assessment laws and procedures, which focus primarily on operational rights (what one can or cannot do where and when) and tangible impacts on the physical or natural environment. A comparative case study of mariculture in Hawai‘i reveals that a large measure of public concerns focused on collective choice rights (who has a right to make which decisions on behalf of whom) and the more intangible impacts to the social or cultural environment. These concerns are often nested in a historic context that has implications for the social processes that they create. The findings from this study imply a need for more structured or systematic ways to deliberate issues of collective choice rights alongside operational rights within the larger process of environmental planning.     

Interspecies care and aging in a gorilla 2.0 world

Two key figures analyzed in Donna Haraway’s monograph, Primate Visions: Gender Race and Nature in The World of Modern Science (1989) warrant further analysis in the emerging cyber politics of environmental conservation. These figures are Koko, a female lowland gorilla born in the San Francisco Zoo and her companion Dr. Francine (Penny) Patterson, a developmental psychologist who taught Koko how to communicate with a modified form of American Sign Language (ASL). Nine years after Haraway’s initial analysis, Koko and Patterson became early examples of conservation-related Web 2.0 engagement with their unprecedented inter-species America Online chat room encounter with 7811 member participants. Today, Koko has a Twitter account (@kokotweets), a Facebook page, a YouTube channel and a website where users watch videos of Koko celebrating birthdays and donate to ‘distant’ conservation projects. One project site is a gorilla reserve in Cameroon and another is a former pineapple plantation turned private nature preserve in Maui, Hawai’i. Inspired by recent analytical work in animal geographies and feminist political ecology, this article explores complex landscapes of caring, aging and conservation in a time of proliferating social media engagement from colonized sites of enduring privilege. The article argues that new media adds layers of violence, disciplinary techniques and co-dependence to the aging bodies, caring practices and landscapes that Koko, Patterson and others inhabit in California and in the proposed physical spaces of a repurposed pineapple field in Maui.