The postglacial history of three Picea species in New England, USA

Given the difficulty of separating the three Picea species—P. glauca, P. mariana, and P. rubens (white, black, and red spruce)—in the pollen record, little is known about their unique histories in eastern North America following deglaciation. Here we report the first use of a classification tree analysis (CART) to distinguish pollen grains of these species. It was successfully applied to fossil pollen from eight sites in Maine and one in Massachusetts. We focused on the late glacial/early Holocene (14,000 to 8000 cal yr B.P.) and the late Holocene (1400 cal yr B.P. to present)—the two key periods since deglaciation when Picea has been abundant in the region. The result shows a shift from a Picea forest of P. glauca and P. mariana in the late glacial to a forest of P. rubens and P. mariana in the late Holocene. The small number of P. rubens grains identified from the late glacial/early Holocene samples (<5%) suggests that that species was either absent or rare at most of the sites. The occurrence and distribution of the three species do not reveal any geographic or temporal trend during late glacial time, but the data suggest that they were distributed in local patches on the landscape. The results of this study indicate that the recent population expansion of Picea (1000 to 500 cal yr B.P.) was likely the first time since deglaciation that P. rubens was abundant in the region.     

湖北省土壤侵蚀景观空间异质性及驱动因子分析

地域分异是地球表层大小不等、内部具有一定相似性地段之间的相互分化以及由此产生的差异。为了研究不同区位土壤侵蚀问题，从土壤生态景观及系统论出发，运用地质学、地理学、景观生态学、环境学的理论和研究方法，研究湖北省土壤侵蚀景观空间格局及其驱动因子，使土壤侵蚀问题研究提高到一个新的水平。湖北省土壤侵蚀景观具有南北分带、东西分区，为一不对称的断块一环组合，土壤流呈现向长江、江汉盆地中心轴带辐聚、单流向特点。景观空间异质性形成的首要驱动因子是大地构造背景，以房县一襄樊一广济断裂带为界，南北两侧地壳物质组成和构造发展史存在较明显的差异，现代气候带、降雨量、温热程度及土地利用等差异，造成了湖北省区域土壤地理、土壤生态的分异，形成湖北省土壤生态带、区具有南北分带，东西分区的宏观格局；其次大兴安岭一武陵山深部构造陡变带两侧新构造运动强度差异、大别造山带构造强烈隆升，导致土壤侵蚀强度的西强东弱、南北强中间弱的态势；成土母岩差异性决定了土壤可蚀性的多变；空间上“土壤侵蚀内城区”分布在湖北省的周边地区，经济贫困、管理落后，这一地区的经济水平与水土流失间形成“自反馈作用”，这一现象在我国水土保持、生态建设工作中应该引起重视。     

基于ENVI 的唐山湾三岛土地利用遥感分类方法的比较分析

对唐山湾三岛2010年10月10 m分辨率的SPOT5多光谱数据源,采用不同分类方法进行识别和判断,并对比不同分类器在遥感影像分类中的应用效果和分类精度。有针对性地探究海岛土地利用遥感分类过程中不同方法的优劣,获取最适于岛陆地区土地利用的遥感分类方法。根据土地利用现状分类标准(GB/T21010-2007)和海岛陆域土地利用类型划分的相关规定,将唐山湾三岛主要分为滩涂、裸地、林地、草地、居住区、内陆水体和潮间带(潮水覆盖区)6类。并分别构建结合人为控制的非监督分类、监督分类和基于专家知识的决策树分类系统,参照更高分辨率影像、先验知识和野外调查资料,评价分类结果与实地调查结果的吻合程度,最终通过总体分类精度和Kappa系数等指标对各分类器精度进行评价和对比分析。     

Age and growth of Cape stumpnose Rhabdosargus holubi (Pisces: Sparidae) in the Eastern Cape,South Africa

Rhabdosargus holubi is a small (maximum weight=2.4?kg) yet important fishery species in the estuaries of the south-east coast of South Africa. Little is known of its biology and specifically its growth rate, which is essential for sustainable management of the fishery. We examined and counted the opaque zones in the sectioned otoliths of 134 R. holubi to determine its age and growth parameters. The otoliths from two recaptured fish marked with oxytetracycline confirmed that one opaque zone was deposited annually. The species reached a maximum age of 18 years and growth was adequately described by a von Bertalanffy growth function of the form: L_t = 358.1 (1 – e^{?0.24(t+0.77)}) mm fork length. There were no significant differences between any of the male and female growth parameters (likelihood ratio test: p = 0.3). The growth was slow (omega index: ω = 86.56); however, despite this, the unique life history of R. holubi may provide a degree of resilience to heavy fishing pressure in estuaries.     

白缘(鱼央)5S rDNA的扩增分析及其在染色体上的FISH定位

本文分别对雌雄白缘(鱼央)的5S rDNA进行了PCR扩增和序列分析,并采用双色荧光原位杂交(FISH)技术,以白缘(鱼央)的5S rDNA序列和小麦的45S rDNA为探针,对其在白缘(鱼央)雌雄中期染色体上进行了FISH定位研究。结果表明,白缘(鱼央)5S rDNA序列无雌雄差异;5S rDNA的保守区序列为117 bp;5S rDNA和45S rDNA分别被定位于白缘(鱼央)的性染色体和第5号染色体上。同时从GenBank中获得了22种鱼的5S rDNA,运用DNAman软件构建了23种鱼的系统发育树,对白缘(鱼央)的进化地位进行了初步研究。本研究为阐明白缘(鱼央)在鱼类系统进化中的位置、重复序列在脊椎动物性染色体上的分布状况以及与性别决定与分化的关系,提供了资料积累和分析依据。     

鞘藻属和毛鞘藻属营养细胞分裂方式的比较研究

于 1 999年 7月在湖北省仙桃市湿润土壤中采得一种鞘藻 ,经培养和电镜观察 ,发现该株鞘藻营养生长主要依赖位于丝状体最上面的细胞分裂 ,分生出的子细胞在该细胞亚顶端的胞壁破裂点掀开一个帽子 ,此帽子便附着于细胞侧壁上 ,这在鞘藻属中为首次报道 ,与 2 0 0 0年 1 2月在武汉纸坊青龙山水库采得的一种毛鞘藻的基细胞也附着相同的帽子结构。观察结果表明 ,该属基细胞亦具有明显的居间分裂能力。在观察这两属营养细胞居间分裂的同时 ,详细报道了这一种特殊的细胞分裂———顶端分裂 ,详细比较了这两属的营养细胞分裂方式 ,并对其分裂方式的机制进行探讨。结果表明 ,这两属细胞在细胞分裂方式上有极为亲密的亲缘关系 ,但毛鞘藻属更复杂、独特的营养细胞分裂显示它的进化地位比鞘藻属高。     

Differences in throughfall drop size distributions in the presence and absence of foliage

ABSTRACT

Throughfall drop size distributions (DSDs) are important for plant–soil interactions. This is the first known study to quantify differences in throughfall DSDs with the presence and absence of foliage. Employing a disdrometer, three parameters solely representing throughfall drip were measured and calculated: maximum drop diameter (D_MAX), median volume diameter of drops (D₅₀D_R) and relative volume percentage of drops (pD_R). Beneath Liriodendron tulipifera L. in Maryland (USA), D_MAX, D₅₀D_R and pD_R were substantially larger when the canopy was unfoliated. In fact, the presence or absence of foliage was one of the primary factors affecting all three throughfall DSDs along with air temperature, according to the boosted regression tree analysis. Experimental results were attributed to differing physical properties of intercepted water between foliated and unfoliated periods and differential water behavior on leaves and bark. Future work should examine the effects of concentrated drip points on the development of throughfall-induced hot spots.

Editor M.C. Acreman; Associate editor F. Hattermann     

Evaporation modelling by heuristic regression approaches using only temperature data

Accurate estimation of pan evaporation (E_pan) is very important in water resources management, irrigation scheduling and water budget of lakes. This study investigates the accuracy of two heuristic regression approaches, multivariate adaptive regression splines (MARS) and M5 model tree (M5Tree) in estimating pan evaporation using only temperature data as input. Monthly minimum temperature, maximum temperature and E_pan data from three Turkish stations were used, with month number (periodicity information) added as input to see its effect on estimation accuracy. The models were compared with the calibrated Hargreaves-Samani (CHS), Stephens-Stewart (SS) and multiple linear regression methods. Three different train-test splitting strategies (50%–50%, 60%–40% and 75%–25%) were employed for better evaluation of the applied methods. The results show that the MARS method generally estimated monthly E_pan with higher accuracy compared to the M5Tree, CHS and SS methods. When extraterrestrial radiation, calculated from Julian date and latitude information, was used as input to the SS instead of solar radiation, satisfactory estimates were obtained. A positive effect on model accuracy was observed when involving periodicity information in inputs and increasing training data length.     

A Review of Studies Dealing with Tree Rings and Rockfall Activity: The Role of Dendrogeomorphology in Natural Hazard Research

Over the last few years, rockfall research has increasingly focused on hazard assessment and risk analysis. Input data on past rockfall activity were gathered from historical archives and lichenometric studies or were obtained through frequency–volume statistics. However, historical records are generally scarce, and lichenometry may only yield data with relatively low resolutions. On forested slopes, in contrast, tree-ring analyses may help, generally providing annual data on past rockfall activity over long periods. It is the purpose of the present literature review to survey the current state of investigations dealing with tree-ring sequences and rockfall activity, with emphasis on the extent to which dendrogeomorphology may contribute to rockfall research. Firstly, a brief introduction describes how dendrogeomorphological methods can contribute to natural hazard research. Secondly, an account is provided of the output of dendrogeomorphological studies investigating frequencies, volumes or spatial distributions of past rockfall activity. The current and potential strengths of dendrogeomorphology are then presented before, finally, the weaknesses of tree rings as natural archives of past rockfall activity are discussed and promising directions for further studies outlined.     

Fossilisation of a silica diagenesis reaction front on the mid-Norwegian margin

The diagenetic transformation of biogenic silica from opal-A to opal-CT was recognised on seismic reflection data over an area of 78 × 10³ km² on the mid-Norwegian margin. The opal-A/CT diagenetic boundary appears as a positive, high amplitude reflection that generally cross-cuts the hosting stratigraphy. We demonstrate that it is not a sea bottom simulating reflection (BSR) and also that is not in thermal equilibrium with the present day isotherms. We present arguments that three styles of deformation associated with the opal-A/CT reflection – polygonal faulting, regional anticlines and synclines and differential compaction folding – indicate that the silica diagenesis reaction front is fossilised at a regional scale. Isochore maps demonstrate the degree of conformity between the opal-A/CT reflection and three seismic horizons of Late Miocene to Early Pliocene age that potentially represent the paleo-seabed when ‘fossilisation’ of the reaction front took place. The seismic interpretational criteria for recognition of a fossilised diagenetic front are evaluated and the results of our study are integrated with previous studies from other basins of the NE Atlantic in order to determine if the arrest of silica diagenesis was diachronous along this continental margin.