The Remipedia (Crustacea): A Study of Their Reproduction and Ecology

Remipedes are an unusual group of troglobitic crustaceans that live exclusively in anchialine caves. Since their discovery in 1979, nine species have been described, seven of which are found in caves in the West Indies, one from the Yucatan peninsula of Mexico and one from the Canary Islands. Most of what is known about these animals has come mainly from taxonomic descriptions. Little has been published about their reproductive biology or ecology. The objectives of this dissertation were to investigate the reproductive biology and ecology of the remipedes inhabiting Sagittarius Cave on Grand Bahama Island, Bahamas. Sagittarius Cave was chosen as a study site because it was inhabited by several species of remipedes and because of its remote location and lack of disturbance by divers. The cave was sampled every three months for a year. The remipedes and associated fauna in the aphotic zone were collected, and physical factors such as salinity, dissolved oxygen, and temperature were measured. Sagittarius Cave is euhaline throughout but has two or more distinct density interfaces beneath which the water is very low in dissolved oxygen, usually less than 1 ppm. Remipedes are confined to this nearly anoxic habitat. Six species of remipedes were found in the cave along with a community of troglobitic organisms composed primarily of crustaceans. The six species of remipedes collected included two new monotypic genera. The study of the reproductive biology was restricted to two species of remipedes, Speleonectes benjamini and Godzilliognomus frondosus, because of their abundance in the cave. These species were found to be simultaneous hermaphrodites. The occurrence of mature oocytes was associated with mature spermatophores. Various degrees of oogenesis and spermatogenesis were documented in each individual. Emphasis was placed on the male reproductive system, and ultrastructural details of the sperm are given. The sperm is flagellated and packed into distinctly shaped spermatophores. General information about remipede internal anatomy and a comparison of external morphology are included, as well as a key to all remipede species and an annotated checklist

A comparative geological study of some major kimberlite pipes in the Northern Cape and Orange Free State

In the first part of this thesis the petrological status of 'kimberlite' is defined and mineralogical and textural classifications which allow systematic documentation and collation of these complex rocks are evaluated. Quantitative mineralogical classification based on the modal abundances of the matrix minerals is advocated. A textural classification is adopted within which different textures are related to different modes and conditions of kimberlite emplacement. In the subsequent and major part of the thesis the results of a comparative geological study of six diamondiferous kimberlite pipes are reported. The pipes concerned are the De Beers, Wesselton, Dutoitspan, Bultfontein, Finsch and Koffiefontein occurrences (collectively termed the KIMFIK pipes)

Mammals of the Northern Great Plains

For the purposes of this book, the Northern Great Plains are defined as the states of Nebraska, North Dakota, and South Dakota. As a physiographic concept, the northern part of the great interior grasslands of North America is, of course, much broader in geographic extent than the Dakotas and Nebraska, but the three states lie in the heart of the region, and thus the title for this work seems appropriate. Our expectations in writing Mammals of the Northern Great Plains were to provide a comprehensive, yet semitechnical, treatmeat of free-living mammals that would prove useful to specialist and nonspecialist alike. The content and style therefore were developed in a way we hope will interest the inquiring high-school student, on the one hand, and provide a point of reference for the professional mammalogist on the other. Between these extremes, wildlife biologists, conservationists, environmental specialists, college students of vertebrate zoology, and others interested in mammalian natural history should find the present treatment useful for their needs as well. In the accounts that follow, species of each genus are listed in alphabetical order. Genera, families, and orders are arranged in conventional phylogenetic sequence, and treatment of these higher taxa is deliberately brief. Readers desiring more detail should consult the synopsis by Anderson and Jones (1967) for orders and families and that of Walker et al. (1964 and subsequent editions) for genera. Both scientific and vernacular names of species generally follow Jones, Carter, and Genoways (1979). Information in the accounts of species is organized under five headings: Name, Distribution, Description, Natural History, and Selected References. In the first section, comment is made on the derivation of the scientific name of the species; often, alternative vernacular names are provided. The section on distribution describes the general geographic and ecological range of a species. Subspecies (if recognized) are listed in this section. The geographic ranges of most species are mapped, based on the currently known distribution; the maps, however, are deliberately conservative, and additional fieldwork in various parts of the region certainly will extend the known limits of many mammals. In several cases where too few specimens of a species have been reported to allow the distribution in the tristate region to be shaded with confidence, only the actual localities of record are indicated

RV SONNE Fahrtbericht/Cruise Report SO225, Manihiki II Leg 2, The Manihiki Plateau - Origin, structure and effects of oceanic plateaus and Pleistocene dynamic of the West Pacific warm water pool ; 19.11.2012 - 06.01.2013, Suva/Fiji - Auckland/New Zealand

R/V SONNE cruises SO-224 and SO-225 are part of the cooperative project MANIHIKI II between GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel and the Alfred Wegener Institute Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI), funded by the German Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF). This multidisciplinary project continues previous research at the Manihiki Plateau conducted since 2007 (SO-193) on morphological, volcanological, geochemical, and geochronological studies and is now broadened by geophysical and paleoceanographic research foci. SO-225 focused on stratigraphically controlled sampling of the igneous successions of the Manihiki Plateau. This has been accomplished by using the remotely operated vehicle ROV Kiel 6000 and chain bag dredges. Coring of deep sea sediments and sampling of the overlying water column has been added to the program. SO-225 and subsequent shore-based research in the home institutes mainly address (1) the temporal, spatial, and compositional evolution of the igneous basement of Manihiki Plateau, (2) the environmental impact of the large volcanic eruptions, which formed the Manihiki Plateau, (3) the Plio-Pleistocene dynamics and evolution of the West Pacific Warm Pool during the last ~3 million years, and (4) the potential oceanographic interaction between the equatorial Pacific and the Southern Ocean (“ocean tunnel hypothesis”) and its climatic responses. The integration of scientific results from SO-224 and SO-225 with existing data from the West Pacific large igneous provinces Manihiki, Hikurangi, and Ontong Java will contribute towards a better understanding of the origin and effects of volcanic mega events, the formation of large igneous provinces, and the paleoceanography and paleoclimate of the equatorial West Pacific. R/V SONNE cruise SO-225 started in Suva/Fiji on November 21st, 2012, and ended in Auckland/New Zealand on Januar 5th, 2013. Complementing 2,940 nm multi-beam mapping and 2,250 nm sediment echo-sounding, a total of 62 deployments of various devices have been carried out during SO-225. Ten of 11 multi corers yielded sediment samples, 16 piston corer and 3 gravity corer deployments recovered altogether 131.6 m sediment cores. The sampling of the water column by CTD and multi net was successful. Foraminiferal sand and ooze dominate among the sediment samples, some cores also contained sandy clayey silt rich in foraminifers and nanno ooze. The sediment cores cover a more than 1,100 km core transect extending from the ocean floor to the north of the Manihiki Plateau to the southern foothills of the High Plateau. Preliminary studies on board showed that the SO-225 sediment sampling yielded excellent paleoceanographic archives which can be correlated along the entire core transect and dated back to Pliocene. Further preliminary results include that past climate changes significantly affected the West Pacific Warm Pool. The sediment samples also will allow to reconstruct the Plio/Pleistocene variability of equatorial currents and the Antarctic intermediate water. Four ROV dives yielded 32 rock samples from two profiles across the slopes in the northern and central part of the Manihiki Plateau (North Plateau and Danger Island Troughs). Stratigraphically controlled sampling along c. 3 km long profile reaching from 4,600 m up to 3,260 m water depth across the flank of the south-eastern foothills of the North Plateau was particularly successful. Due to a series of unfortunate circumstances beyond our control, further ROV sampling on SO-225 had to be cancelled. Instead we decided to run dredges to considerably broaden the range of samples from the Manihiki Plateau basement by dredging. Twenty-three dredge hauls have been conducted in an average water depth of 4,380 m. Of these, 20 delivered magmatic rocks, 12 volcaniclastics, 8 sedimentary rocks, and 13 Mn-Fe-Oxide crusts. Notably, some of the dredged rocks show spinifex textures indicating unusual high eruption temperatures and several dredges contained fresh volcanic glass. The recovery of fresh glass from a presumably c. 120 million years old flood basalt province is a great achievement which will enable detailed petrological and geochemical studies of the plateau forming melts. Finally, mapping of submarine volcano Monowai en route on the transit to Auckland SO-225 should contribute to a time series of maps which continuously document the evolution of the volcano. During profiling, however, a sudden and significant increase in volcanic activity hindered us in mapping the top area of Monowai

Using MapReduce Streaming for Distributed Life Simulation on the Cloud

Distributed software simulations are indispensable in the study of large-scale life models but often require the use of technically complex lower-level distributed computing frameworks, such as MPI. We propose to overcome the complexity challenge by applying the emerging MapReduce (MR) model to distributed life simulations and by running such simulations on the cloud. Technically, we design optimized MR streaming algorithms for discrete and continuous versions of Conway’s life according to a general MR streaming pattern. We chose life because it is simple enough as a testbed for MR’s applicability to a-life simulations and general enough to make our results applicable to various lattice-based a-life models. We implement and empirically evaluate our algorithms’ performance on Amazon’s Elastic MR cloud. Our experiments demonstrate that a single MR optimization technique called strip partitioning can reduce the execution time of continuous life simulations by 64%. To the best of our knowledge, we are the first to propose and evaluate MR streaming algorithms for lattice-based simulations. Our algorithms can serve as prototypes in the development of novel MR simulation algorithms for large-scale lattice-based a-life models.https://digitalcommons.chapman.edu/scs_books/1014/thumbnail.jp

1870 - Report of the California State Agricultural Society for 1868 and 1869

1870 report on various subjects pertaining to the California State Agricultural Society in 1868 and 1869, copies of some of the bulletins issued by the Society during the year, and a review of the physical conditions and characteristics of most of the counties of the State, with statistics showing the farm acreage, the assessable wealth, and industrial resources for those counties.https://digitalcommons.csumb.edu/hornbeck_usa_3_d/1021/thumbnail.jp

The Economics of Biodiversity The Dasgupta Review Full Report

In 2019, Her Majesty’s Treasury (UK) commissioned Sir Partha Dasgupta, an economist and Professor Emeritus at Cambridge University to produce an independent, global review on the Economics of Biodiversity. Sir Partha was assisted by a multi-disciplinary Advisory Panel that included representatives of public policy, science, economics and business. The Review argues that countries should de-emphasize GDP as an index of progress and instead should focus on a national Wealth measure that includes an accounting for Natural Capital. After World War II, when the world was very different from what it is now, Sir Partha argues the economic questions being faced could be studied most productively by excluding Natural Capital and focusing on Produced Capital (e.g. infrastructure) and Human Capital. But today, as economists have begun to devise methods to value and to track Natural Capital, it is becoming apparent that while Produced and Human Capital may be increasing, Natural Capital is declining. The Review analyzes what we know about Natural capital and begins to address how Natural Capital might be incorporated into a valid assessment of national wealth and long-term sustainability