Diet of albacore Thunnus alalunga from the waters of Mauritius (western Indian Ocean) inferred from stomach contents and fatty acid analysis

The diet of albacore Thunnus alalunga from their spawning ground in the waters of Mauritius was investigated. The stomach contents of 249 albacore individuals, caught by industrial longliners and artisanal fishers, was analysed, and the dominant prey taxa were selected for lipid and fatty acid (FA) analysis. The FA profiles of prey were compared with those of liver tissue of spawning-capable and post-spawning female albacore, using multivariate analysis. Whereas stomach content analysis identified cephalopods and crustaceans as the dominant prey items in number, FA-profile analysis identified crustaceans and fishes as the most-frequently consumed prey of post-spawning female albacore. In contrast, the FA profiles of spawning-capable albacore and those of prey showed very low similarity. Analysis of the prey suggests that although cephalopods, crustaceans and fishes could all provide albacore with the required lipids and FAs, cephalopod prey seem to be less desirable owing to their lower energy content (i.e. low in total lipid, triacylglycerol, 16:0, 18:0 and 18:1ω9). Instead, the most beneficial food appeared to be locally available fishes, which are more energy-rich and have a higher docosahexaenoic acid/ eicosapentaenoic acid ratio. These results provide new information on the trophic ecology of albacore, promote our understanding of the importance of prey type for successful reproduction of albacore, and highlight the advantages of FA profiling to study diet.     

Influence of different air pollutants on the structure of needle wax of spruce (Picea abies [L.] Karsten)

With the help of the scanning electron microscope surface structures of spruces exposed to different sorts of air pollutants are examined. On the surface of unexposed spruce needles crystalline wax structures — hollow tubes — are visible covering the stomata rows on all sides of the needle and filling the stomatal antechamber with a close-knit mesh. Non-reactive dusts only mechanically disturb the wax structures; MgO-containing fine dusts influence the wax tubes in a more serious way: the wax tubes fuse and the crystalline structure is lost. X-ray-analysis of the deposited particles reveals Mg to be the dominating element. SO₂ also causes severe alterations of the wax structures; with oxidants as the main emission component the wax structures are nearly unaffected.     

Late Pleistocene–Holocene environments in Valle Carbajal, Tierra del Fuego, Argentina

The authors discuss Late Pleistocene–Holocene depositional environments in one of the Fuegian Andes valleys on the basis of palynological, geomorphological, and sedimentological analyses from two sites located near the Beagle Channel. The results obtained at these localities reinforce and refine the Late Pleistocene–Holocene climatic pattern previously recorded there. A colder period, associated with the Younger Dryas stadial event, is suggested by low Nothofagus pollen frequency, and communities of grass, low scrub, and shrub heath expanded into the low/middle slopes (10,310 ¹⁴C yr BP). By ca. 9500 ¹⁴C yr BP, warmer and drier conditions occurred, as evidenced by the development of open-grown vegetation in the valley floors (pollen zone O-3), followed by the expansion of open Nothofagus woodland (pollen zone O-2) in the middle Holocene. The milder climate subsequently changed, as indicated by the spreading of the closed forest and mire (pollen zone O-1), to more humid and cooler conditions during the last ca. 5000 yr BP.     

A hydrothermal deposit from explorer ridge in the northeast Pacific Ocean

Crusts composed of nontronite and ferromanganese oxides were recovered from Explorer Ridge, a spreading ridge segment in the northeastern Pacific Ocean located off the west coast of Canada. The chemical and mineralogical composition of the crusts closely resembles that of the mound-like hydrothermal deposits recently discovered at the FAMOUS site on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge and on the Galapagos spreading centre. Compositional anomalies suggest that the crusts are precipitates of hydrothermal vent solutions which were ejected discontinuously and subsequently mixed with seawater.     

Kinetic and thermodynamic factors controlling manganese concentrations in oceanic waters

Data are presented describing the changes in the distribution of dissolved and particulate Mn observed over a 16-month period in the periodically anoxic waters of Saanich Inlet, a fjord located on the coast of Vancouver Island, British Columbia. During the spring and summer when the bottom waters were anoxic, a dense cloud of particulate Mn was found at mid-depths where Mn²⁺ enriched anoxic bottom waters were mixing with oxygenated waters; then, during the autumn aand winter following an intrusion which reoxygenated the bottom water, an intense precipitation of Mn was observed throughout the entire water column. During this latter period, dissolved Mn concentrations in the bottom water, which exceeded 1000 nmol/l under anoxic conditions, decreased towards a lower limit of 1.6 nmole/l, a value comparable to that observed in Pacific Ocean waters of similar pH and dissolved oxygen content. Mn in the particulate matter collected just above the oxic-anoxic interface was found to have an average oxidation number of +3.05; and, on this basis, it is proposed that dissolved Mn concentrations in oceanic waters are controlled by the precipitation of the metastable oxide mineral manganite (γ-MnOOH), a hypothesis consistent with the fact that dissolved Mn values in subsurface Pacific Ocean waters closely approach the equilibrium solubility of this phase. Temporal and spatial gradients in the particulate Mn distribution were used to calculate the in situ rate of Mn precipitation, and the results of these calculations then were fitted to theoretical rate equations which suggest that the precipitation of Mn is controlled by 2 parallel processes: bacterial oxidation and an inorganic autocatalytic oxidation reaction.     

The effect of sediment-water exchange on manganese deposition and nodule growth in Jervis Inlet,British Columbia

The processes controlling Mn deposition in the vicinity of a nodule site in Jervis Inlet, a fjord in the British Columbia mainland coast, were studied. The results indicate that Mn, due to reductive remobilization in the subsurface sediments, undergoes intensive exchange across the sediment-water interface and, because of this exchange and the effects of water circulation processes within the inlet, tends to be stripped from shallow water sediments and to be redeposited as an oxide precipitate in the surface sediment of the deepest areas. There it undergoes diagenetic reactions in the subsurface sediments that, as demonstrated by saturation of the pore waters, finally result in its burial as a carbonate phase. The distribution of properties in the vicinity of the Mn nodule site indicates that concretion growth occurs in an area of strong currents and low sedimentation rate where rocks resting on the bottom act as centers to which Mn-oxide particles suspended in the bottom water are apparently being cemented.     

A flexible streaming software architecture for scientific instruments

The recently completed prototyping efforts for a new type of riometer, the Advanced Rio-Imaging Experiment in Scandinavia (ARIES), required the development of a uniquely flexible software architecture to deal with what in software engineering terms is referred to as a ‘Wicked System:’ Source, volume and type of data as well as required processing are only very loosely defined at the outset of the project. Speed, reconfigurability, remote control and data provenance are of major importance for the success of the project both during development and during operation of the deployed prototype. Details of the Advanced Riometer Components (ARCOM) component-based software architecture are presented. The software architecture is not specific to ARIES, and ARCOM components can readily be re-used in other, similar instruments.     

The effect of manganese oxide scavenging on molybdenum in saanich inlet,British Columbia

A simple colorimetric method was developed for determining molybdenum in seawater by solvent extraction of its dithiolate and was then applied during a nine month study of Saanich Inlet. This inlet is a fjord on the coast of Vancouver Island, British Columbia, in which the bottom waters alternate between a weakly oxygenated and anoxic state. Results are given for the concentrations of dissolved and suspended molybdenum, suspended manganese, dissolved oxygen and of salinity measurements. Salinity-molybdenum correlations demonstrate that the deep waters are deficient in molybdenum, a conclusion consistent with reports that the sediments deposited in the reducing zone are enriched with molybdenum precipitated from the anoxic bottom waters. Suspended manganese, which occurs in large amounts as a result of the oxidative precipitation of dissolved Mn(II) diffusing from anoxic waters, has a distribution that is directly correlated to that of suspended molybdenum and which tends to be inversely related to that of dissolved molybdenum, suggesting that molybdenum is being coprecipitated with manganese oxides. Such a hypothesis is supported by the fact that the average molybdenum to manganese weight ratio of suspended matter closely approximates that of local manganese nodules, and by a mathematical analysis of the distribution data which includes development of a model for scavenging. Computations using the model relationships indicate that manganese oxide scavenging tends to concentrate molybdenum in the reducing waters where the anoxic processes responsible for its deposition in the sediments become operative. Additional calculations based upon current estimates of oceanic residence times suggest that manganese-oxide scavenging operating on an oceanic scale could be removing approximately 10% of the molybdenum being added to the oceans.     

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