Search results for "lcsh:Science"
showing 10 items of 2187 documents
Moving Toward a Strategy for Addressing Climate Displacement of Marine Resources: A Proof-of-Concept
2020
Realistic predictions of climate change effects on natural resources are central to adaptation policies that try to reduce these impacts. However, most current forecasting approaches do not incorporate species-specific, process-based biological information, which limits their ability to inform actionable strategies. Mechanistic approaches, incorporating quantitative information on functional traits, can potentially predict species- and population-specific responses that result from the cumulative impacts of small-scale processes acting at the organismal level, and can be used to infer population-level dynamics and inform natural resources management. Here we present a proof-of-concept study…
Environmental Quality Assessment of Bizerte Lagoon (Tunisia) Using Living Foraminifera Assemblages and a Multiproxy Approach.
2015
This study investigated the environmental quality of the Bizerte Lagoon (Tunisia) through an integrated approach that combined environmental, biogeochemical, and living benthic foraminiferal analyses. Specifically, we analyzed the physicochemical parameters of the water and sediment. The textural, mineralogical, and geochemical characteristics of the sediment, including total organic carbon, total nitrogen, simultaneously extracted metals (SEM), acid volatile sulfides (AVS), chlorophyll a, CaCO3, and changes in bacterial populations and carbon isotopes were measured. The SEM/AVS values indicated the presence of relatively high concentrations of toxic metals in only some areas. Foraminiferal…
Environmental factors influencing the spatio-temporal distribution of Carybdea marsupialis (Lineo, 1978, Cubozoa) in South-Western Mediterranean coas…
2017
21 pages, 5 figures, 2 tables, supporting information 10.1371/journal.pone.0181611.s001, 10.1371/journal.pone.0181611.s002, 10.1371/journal.pone.0181611.s003, 10.1371/journal.pone.0181611.s004, 10.1371/journal.pone.0181611.s005, 10.1371/journal.pone.0181611.s006
Seascape connectivity of European anchovy in the Central Mediterranean Sea revealed by weighted Lagrangian backtracking and bio-energetic modelling
2020
AbstractEcological connectivity is one of the most important processes that shape marine populations and ecosystems, determining their distribution, persistence, and productivity. Here we use the synergy of Lagrangian back-trajectories, otolith-derived ages of larvae, and satellite-based chlorophyll-a to identify spawning areas of European anchovy from ichthyoplanktonic data, collected in the Strait of Sicily (Central Mediterranean Sea), i.e., the crucial channel in between the European and African continents. We obtain new evidence of ecosystem connectivity between North Africa and recruitment regions off the southern European coasts. We assess this result by using bio-energetic modeling, …
Assessing cetacean surveys throughout the Mediterranean Sea: a gap analysis in environmental space
2018
Heterogeneous data collection in the marine environment has led to large gaps in our knowledge of marine species distributions. To fill these gaps, models calibrated on existing data may be used to predict species distributions in unsampled areas, given that available data are sufficiently representative. Our objective was to evaluate the feasibility of mapping cetacean densities across the entire Mediterranean Sea using models calibrated on available survey data and various environmental covariates. We aggregated 302,481 km of line transect survey effort conducted in the Mediterranean Sea within the past 20 years by many organisations. Survey coverage was highly heterogeneous geographicall…
Ocean acidification drives community shifts towards simplified non-calcified habitats in a subtropical?temperate transition zone
2018
AbstractRising atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide are causing surface seawater pH and carbonate ion concentrations to fall in a process known as ocean acidification. To assess the likely ecological effects of ocean acidification we compared intertidal and subtidal marine communities at increasing levels of pCO2 at recently discovered volcanic seeps off the Pacific coast of Japan (34° N). This study region is of particular interest for ocean acidification research as it has naturally low levels of surface seawater pCO2 (280–320 µatm) and is located at a transition zone between temperate and sub-tropical communities. We provide the first assessment of ocean acidification effects at …
Searching for a compromise between biological and economic demands to protect vulnerable habitats
2018
AbstractIdentifying vulnerable habitats is necessary to designing and prioritizing efficient marine protected areas (MPAs) to sustain the renewal of living marine resources. However, vulnerable habitats rarely become MPAs due to conflicting interests such as fishing. We propose a spatial framework to help researchers and managers determine optimal conservation areas in a multi-species fishery, while also considering the economic relevance these species may have in a given society, even in data poor situations. We first set different ecological criteria (i.e. species resilience, vulnerability and trophic level) to identify optimal areas for conservation and restoration efforts, which was bas…
Organic nitrogen steadily increasing in Norwegian rivers draining to the Skagerrak coast
2020
AbstractDeclining atmospheric nitrogen (N) deposition, through reduction in the direct input of inorganic N, may result in less inorganic N being leached from soils to freshwaters (dissolved inorganic N = DIN). Declining sulphur deposition, through reducing the ionic strength in soil water, increases the solubility and mobility of organic soil compounds and may result in increased leaching of organically bound N to freshwaters (total organic N = TON). It is unknown to which extent these two independents and opposing trends, i.e. DIN decline versus TON increase, may affect the nutrient balance (load, stoichiometry) of river water draining into coastal zones. By combining long-term atmospheri…
ILTER – The International Long-Term Ecological Research Network as a Platform for Global Coastal and Ocean Observation
2019
International audience; Understanding the threats to global biodiversity and ecosystem services posed by human impacts on coastal and marine environments requires the establishment and maintenance of ecological observatories that integrate the biological, physical, geological, and biogeochemical aspects of ecosystems. This is crucial to provide scientists and stakeholders with the support and knowledge necessary to quantify environmental change and its impact on the sustainable use of the seas and coasts. In this paper, we explore the potential for the coastal and marine components of the International Long-Term Ecological Research Network (ILTER) to fill this need for integrated global obs…
A large-scale, higher-level, molecular phylogenetic study of the insect order Lepidoptera (moths and butterflies).
2013
Background Higher-level relationships within the Lepidoptera, and particularly within the species-rich subclade Ditrysia, are generally not well understood, although recent studies have yielded progress. We present the most comprehensive molecular analysis of lepidopteran phylogeny to date, focusing on relationships among superfamilies. Methodology / Principal Findings 483 taxa spanning 115 of 124 families were sampled for 19 protein-coding nuclear genes, from which maximum likelihood tree estimates and bootstrap percentages were obtained using GARLI. Assessment of heuristic search effectiveness showed that better trees and higher bootstrap percentages probably remain to be discovered even …