Tuna fisheries provides an important source of income, foreign exchange and employment for many Pacific Island States. It is also seen as a major avenue for industrial development by most Pacific Island States. The Law of the Sea Convention, while recognising the rights of coastal States to manage and develop...
The Western Central Pacific Fishery Commission (WCPFC) was inaugurated in 2004 after a preparatory process which commenced in 1996. Scientific advice is that skipjack stocks are in good condition, but bigeye and yellowfin stocks are being exploited too heavily and reductions of effort are needed to avoid overfishing. Compared to...
Since 1958 when Alfred C. Redfield (1) recognized the similarity between the ratios of elements in living biomass and those dissolved in the surrounding seawater, we have understood that microorganisms largely control the concentrations, distribution, and molecular makeup of nutritional resources in the ocean. The primary elemental ingredients for life,...
Using national crop and livestock production records from 1961–2003 and satellite-derived data on pasture greenness from 1982–2003 we show that the productivity of crops, livestock, and pastures in Africa is predictably associated with the El Niño Southern Oscillation and the North Atlantic Oscillation. The causal relations of these results are...
Influenza A incidence peaks during winter in temperate regions. The basis for this pronounced seasonality is not understood, nor is it well documented how influenza A transmission principally occurs. Previous studies indicate that relative humidity (RH) affects both influenza virus transmission (IVT) and influenza virus survival (IVS). Here, we reanalyze...
Wind-driven coastal ocean upwelling supplies nutrients to the
euphotic zone near the coast. Nutrients fuel the growth of phytoplankton,
the base of a very productive coastal marine ecosystem
[Pauly D, Christensen V (1995) Nature 374:255–257]. Because
nutrient supply and phytoplankton biomass in shelf waters are
highly sensitive to variation in...
Oceanic iron (Fe) fertilization experiments have advanced the understanding of how Fe regulates biological productivity and air–sea carbon dioxide (CO₂) exchange. However, little is known about the production and consumption of halocarbons and other gases as a result of Fe addition. Besides metabolizing inorganic carbon, marine microorganisms produce and consume...
Small RNAs, including microRNAs (miRNAs), small interfering RNAs
(siRNAs), and trans-acting siRNAs (tasiRNAs), control gene expression
and epigenetic regulation. Although the roles of miRNAs and
siRNAs have been extensively studied, their expression diversity
and evolution in closely related species and interspecific hybrids
are poorly understood. Here, we show comprehensive analyses...
Summertime wind stress along the coast of the northwestern United States typically exhibits intraseasonal oscillations (ISOs) with periods from ≈15 to 40 days, as well as fluctuations on the 2- to 6-day “weather-band” and 1-day diurnal time scales. Coastal upwelling of cool, nutrient-rich water is driven by extended periods of...
The Younger Dryas cold interval represents a time when much of the Northern Hemisphere cooled from ≈12.9 to 11.5 kiloyears B.P. The cause of this event, which has long been viewed as the canonical example of abrupt climate change, was initially attributed to the routing of freshwater to the St....