Mediterranean populations of loggerhead Caretta caretta and green sea turtles Chelonia mydas are subject to several anthropogenic threats, with documented mortality from incidental capture in fishing gear. However, how such mortalities actually affect the populations is uncertain without an estimate of population size. We derived a theoretical demographic structure for...
Broadband absorption spectroscopy, by way of FTIR, was used to investigate the vapor cloud of a single millimeter sized liquid droplet suspended by a syringe as it evaporates at standard conditions. Single beam data were collected every 8 seconds resulting in a time-resolved record. Species concentrations were tracked using their...
Spider wasps had long been proposed to originate in the mid-Cretaceous based on the Burmese amber fossil Bryopompilus interfector Engel and Grimaldi, 2006. We performed a morphological examination of this fossil and determined it does not belong to Pompilidae or any other described hymenopteran family. Instead, we place it in...
Accurately monitoring tropical forest carbon stocks is a challenge that remains outstanding. Allometric models that consider tree diameter, height and wood density as predictors are currently used in most tropical forest carbon studies. In particular, a pantropical biomass model has been widely used for approximately a decade, and its most...
Heliotropium foliatum and Tournefortia humilis are transferred to Euploca Nutt. respectively as Euploca foliata comb. n. and Euploca humilis comb. n. A collection from Guyana has been recently identified as Euploca humistrata, a species previously considered a Brazilian endemic. A collection from French Guiana documents for the first time the...
A new weevil species (urn:lsid:zoobank.org: act:2D5E9E4A-A250-4D0A-AF69-CF4753436686), Pseudopilolabus othnius Poinar, Brown and Legalov, sp. nov. (Coleoptera: Attelabidae), is described from Dominican amber. The new species is close to the extant P. viridanus (Gyllenhal, 1839) and P. splendens (Gyllenhal, 1839) but differs by having a bronzed body, narrower and more convex elytral...
Reproductively and geographically isolated populations of predators may be synchronized by a phenomenon known as the Moran effect—specifically if they exhibit common responses to external processes, such as climate, density dependence (parasites, disease), or prey. Prey has the ability to synchronize predators if geographically isolated predator populations target the same...
Background. The US commercial fishing industry is hazardous, as measured by mortality data. However, research on non-fatal injuries is limited. Non-fatal injuries constitute the majority of occupational injuries and can result in workers' lowered productivity and wages, lost quality of life, and disability. In the United States, a Work Process...
Nanotechnology is of increasing significance. Curation of nanomaterial data into electronic databases offers opportunities to better understand and predict nanomaterials’ behaviour. This supports innovation in, and regulation of, nanotechnology. It is commonly understood that curated data need to be sufficiently complete and of sufficient quality to serve their intended purpose....
Advances in trace gas analysis allow localised, non-atmospheric features to be resolved in ice cores, superimposed on the coherent atmospheric signal. These high-frequency signals could not have survived the low-pass filter effect that gas diffusion in the firn exerts on the atmospheric history and therefore do not result from changes...
Sea-level and ice-sheet databases have driven numerous advances in understanding the Earth system. We describe the challenges and offer best strategies that can be adopted to build self-consistent and standardised databases of geological and geochemical information used to archive palaeo-sea-levels and palaeo-ice-sheets. There are three phases in the development of...
Ammonia oxidation is the first and rate-limiting step in nitrification and is dominated by two distinct groups of microorganisms in soil: ammonia-oxidizing archaea (AOA) and ammonia-oxidizing bacteria (AOB). AOA are often more abundant than AOB and dominate activity in acid soils. The mechanism of ammonia oxidation under acidic conditions has...
We present the WD2014 chronology for the upper part (0–2850 m; 31.2 ka BP) of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) Divide (WD) ice core. The chronology is based on counting of annual layers observed in the chemical, dust and electrical conductivity records. These layers are caused by seasonal changes...
Phenology is an integrative science that comprises the study of recurring biological activities or events. In an era of rapidly changing climate, the relationship between the timing of those events and environmental cues such as temperature, snowmelt, water availability, or day length are of particular interest. This article provides an...
The seasonal climate drivers of the carbon cycle in tropical forests remain poorly known, although these forests account for more carbon assimilation and storage than any other terrestrial ecosystem. Based on a unique combination of seasonal pan-tropical data sets from 89 experimental sites (68 include aboveground wood productivity measurements and...
Hydrology is the main environmental filter in aquatic ecosystems and may result in shared tolerances and functional traits among species in disparate ecosystems. We analyzed the associations between taxonomic and functional facets of diversity within aquatic ecosystems (ponds vs. streams) across a hydroperiod gradient (1–365 d) to untangle the hydrologic...
Interannual variability in salmon (Oncorhynchus spp.) production in the northeast Pacific is understood to be driven by oceanographic variability and bottom-up processes affecting prey availability to juvenile salmon. Scyphozoan jellyfish have an important role in shaping the pathways of energy flow through pelagic food webs. While jellyfish obtain high production...
Previous research has suggested that the use of more authentic learning activities can produce more robust and durable knowledge gains. This is consistent with calls within civil engineering education, specifically hydrology, that suggest that curricula should more often include professional perspective and data analysis skills to better develop the "T-shaped"...
Fibre optic distributed temperature sensing (DTS) is widely applied in Earth sciences. Many applications require a spatial resolution higher than that provided by the DTS instrument. Measurements at these higher resolutions can be achieved with a fibre optic cable helically wrapped on a cylinder. The effect of the probe construction,...
Managing for species using current weather patterns fails to incorporate the uncertainty associated with future climatic conditions; without incorporating potential changes in climate into conservation strategies, management and conservation efforts may fall short or waste valuable resources. Understanding the effects of climate change on species in the Great Plains of...
Heterotrophic respiration (HR), the aerobic and anaerobic processes mineralizing organic matter, is a key carbon flux but one impossible to measure at scales significantly larger than small experimental plots. This impedes our ability to understand carbon and nutrient cycles, benchmark models, or reliably upscale point measurements. Given that a new...
The dipyridophenazine (dppz) based ruthenium polypyridyl complexes are known as molecular ‘light-switches’ for DNA. This property is poised to serve in diagnostic and therapeutic applications, but the poor cellular uptake restricts their use in live cells. Herein, we show that the cellular uptake, and more interestingly and surprisingly, the nuclear...
Concrete is certainly prone to internal deteriorations or defects during the construction and operating periods. Compared with other nondestructive techniques, infrared thermography can easily detect the subsurface delamination in a very short period of time, but accurately identifying its size and depth in concrete is a very challenging task. In...
Biomass burning impacts vegetation dynamics, biogeochemical cycling, atmospheric chemistry, and climate, with sometimes deleterious socio-economic impacts. Under future climate projections it is often expected that the risk of wildfires will increase. Our ability to predict the magnitude and geographic pattern of future fire impacts rests on our ability to model...
The clotting protein von Willebrand factor (VWF) binds to platelet receptor glycoprotein Ibα (GPIbα) when VWF is activated by chemicals, high shear stress, or immobilization onto surfaces. Activation of VWF by surface immobilization is an important problem in the failure of cardiovascular implants, but is poorly understood. Here, the authors...
As a result of warming temperatures and subsequently declining snowpacks, forest fires are increasing in frequency, intensity and extent across the western USA. In turn, forest fire disturbance affects patterns of snow accumulation and ablation by reducing canopy interception and modifying the snowpack energy balance. Following a 2011, high severity...