Reproduction of Mediterranean zooxanthellate and azooxanthellate scleractinian corals along environmental gradients

Despite extensive studies focus mainly on sexual reproductive characteristics in tropical scleractinian species, there is limited knowledge on temperate regions. The Mediterranean is a biodiversity hotspot under intense pressure from anthropogenic impacts. Climatic models further predict that the Mediterranean basin will be one of the most impacted regions by the ongoing warming trend. This makes it a potential model of more global patterns to occur in the world’s marine biota, and a natural focus of interest for research on climate. The present research contributed to increase data on reproductive modes and sexuality of temperate scleractinian corals, highlighting their developmental plasticity, showing different forms of propagation and different responses to environmental change. For the first time, sexuality and reproductive mode in Caryophyllia inornata were determined. An unusual embryogenesis without a clear seasonal pattern was observed, suggesting the possibility of an asexual origin. Sexual reproduction of Astroides calycularis was governed by annual changes in seawater temperature, as observed for other Mediterranean dendrophylliids. Defining the reproductive biology of these species is the starting point for studying their potential response to variations of environmental parameters, on a global climate change context. The results on the influence of temperature on reproductive output of the zooxanthellate (symbiosis with unicellular algae) Balanophyllia europaea and the non-zooxanthellate Leptopsammia pruvoti suggest that the latter may be quite tolerant to temperature increase, since the zooxanthellate species resulted less efficient at warm temperatures. A possible explanation could be related to their different trophic system. In B. europaea thermal tolerance is primarily governed by the symbiotic algae, making it more sensitive to temperature changes. On the contrary, the absence of symbionts in L. pruvoti might make it more resistant to temperature. In a progressively warming Mediterranean, the efficiency on scleractinian reproduction could be influenced in different ways, reflecting their extraordinary adaptability

Environmental awareness gained during a citizen science project in touristic resorts is maintained after 3 years since participation

The research leading to these results has received funding from Project AWARE Foundation, ASTOI Association, Milano, Ministry of Tourism of the Arab Republic of Egypt, Settemari S. p. A Tour Operator, Scuba Nitrox Safety International, Viaggio nel Blu Diving Center.Tourism is one of the largest economic sectors in the world. It has a positive effect on the economy of many countries, but it can also lead to negative impacts on local ecosystems. Informal environmental education through Citizen Science (CS) projects can be effective in increasing citizen environmental knowledge and awareness in the short-term. A change of awareness could bring to a behavioral change in the long-term, making tourism more sustainable. However, the long-term effects of participating in CS projects are still unknown. This is the first follow-up study concerning the effects of participating in a CS project on cognitive and psychological aspects at the basis of pro-environmental behavior. An environmental education program was developed, between 2012 and 2013, in a resort in Marsa Alam, Egypt. The study directly evaluated, through paper questionnaires, the short-term (after 1 week or 10 days) retention of knowledge and awareness of volunteers that had participated in the activities proposed by the program. After three years, participants were re-contacted via email to fill in the same questionnaire as in the short-term study, plus a new section with psychological variables. 40.5% of the re-contacted participants completed the follow-up questionnaires with a final sample size of fifty-five people for this study. Notwithstanding the limited sample size, positive trends in volunteer awareness, personal satisfaction regarding the CS project, and motivation to engage in pro-environmental behavior in the long-term were observed.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

Security Messages: Or, How I Learned to Stop Disregarding and Heed the Warning

Attacks on information security continue to be reported in the media, and result in large losses for organizations. While some attacks are the result of sophisticated threats, others can be traced to failures by organizational insiders to observe basic security policies such as using caution when opening unsolicited email attachments. Faced with the challenges and time demands of everyday stressors, security policy compliance can be costly for individuals; security actions require time and distract attention from other primary tasks. This costliness can lead individuals to ignore prompts to perform security updates, scan their computers for threats, or reboot their computers to apply security updates. This dissertation contains three studies that address the following overarching research question: How can end-user adherence to security messages be better understood and improved, and how can theory inform security-message design? First, two complementary studies are presented that examine the integration of media naturalness theory into a security message context using field study and fMRI designs. Study 1, the field study, unobtrusively captures objective measures of attention from Amazon Mechanical Turk users (N=510) as they perform a between-subjects deception protocol. Study 2, the fMRI study, examines neural activations from a within-subjects participant design (N=23) in response to different security message designs with integrated emotive human facial expressions. Data from studies 1 and 2 show that warnings with integrated facial expressions of threat (fear, disgust) generally elicited greater adherence rates and higher evidence of cognition and elaboration than did warnings with integrated neutral facial expressions or than did warnings with no integrated facial expressions, supporting our hypotheses. Study 3 explores the pattern of risk taking and analysis that users engage in when interacting with interruptive security messages. The corroboration of multiple behavioral dependent variables suggests that users predominantly use a bimodal risk tradeoff paradigm when interacting with interruptive security messages. All three studies address the overarching research question of understanding and improving end user adherence to security messages

Primers and qPCR parameters.

<p>Primers and qPCR parameters.</p

Principal coordinates ordination (PCO) bi-plot of whole mRNA expression levels (blu circles: samples collected at 3 m; red circles: samples collected at 12 m) with super-imposed cluster analysis (black lines) by condition (Euclidean Distance resemblance matrix; 999 permutations).

<p>SA1-3m: samples from SA1 collected at 3 m; SA1-12m: samples from SA1 collected at 12 m; SA2-3m: samples from SA2 collected at 3 m; SA2-12m: samples from SA2 collected at 12 m; TA-3m: samples from TA collected at 3 m; TA-12m: samples from TA collected at 12 m.</p

Comparisons of <i>P</i>. <i>verrucosa</i> mRNA expression responses to thermal stress among different sampling sites and depths.

<p><b>(A,B,C)</b> Treatment ranking according to the qPCR data describing the transcriptional responses to increased temperature in coral nubbins collected at 3 m or 12 m. Hierarchical clustering was performed using fold change variations (log₂-transformed) of <i>ATPs</i>, <i>ndh</i> and <i>hsp70</i> mRNA levels between thermally challenged nubbins and controls at each time point. Fold changes at each time-point were finally expressed as variations compared to levels assessed in nubbins after the 14-day acclimation period and before the onset of the thermal stress (T₀), which served as the reference condition. Colors represent relative expression levels with respect to control corals at each time point. <b>(D,E,F)</b> Overview of the mRNA expression profiles (means) showing the transcriptional response to thermal stress in 3-m and 12-m collected corals. Dots represent point data for each gene product at the selected time-point, while solid lines represent the average trend of variations. Detailed data for transcript expression changes and related statistics are reported in <a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0171456#pone.0171456.s003" target="_blank">S3 Fig</a> (mRNA levels at the onset of the thermal stress exposure), <a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0171456#pone.0171456.g006" target="_blank">Fig 6</a> (<i>hsp70</i> expression following thermal stress), and <a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0171456#pone.0171456.s004" target="_blank">S4 Fig</a> (<i>ATPs</i> and <i>ndh</i> expressions following thermal stress).</p

The experimental setup (see Supporting information S1 File for details).

<p><b>(A)</b> Schematic flowchart of the experimental design. Replicates for each condition are given in brackets. T₀: time zero of the thermal stress exposure; 3d: 3-days sampling point; 7d: 7-days sampling point. <b>(B)</b> Thermal stress profile simulated in the experiment. Open and grey-filled bars on top of the graph indicate light/dark daily cycles (10L:14D). Green arrows indicate the sampling points.</p

<i>In-situ</i> measurements of water parameters upon coral collection from the sampling sites.

<p><i>In-situ</i> measurements of water parameters upon coral collection from the sampling sites.</p