Material and instruments linked to the saharawi food: cultural, linguistic and semantic elements

En este artículo, centrado en la región denominada Sáhara Occidental (antiguo Sáhara Español), y directamente relacionado con la dialectología y las tradiciones populares, ofrecemos un estudio sobre el material y los instrumentos culinarios utilizados tradicionalmente (aunque mucho de ello se conserva hoy en día) por los habitantes autóctonos de dicha región. Para ello, abordamos cuestiones principales tales como el dialecto ḥassā-niya; la cocción y preparación tradicional de los alimentos en la zona objeto de estudio; los instrumentos y vasijas para el tratamiento de la leche; los instrumentos para el tratamiento del grano o el uso y aprovechamiento de arbustos para la obtención de la madera, ya que la inmensa mayoría de los recipientes de madera se fabricaban a partir de algunas de las especies leñosas más representativas del entorno. El enfoque es, básicamente, antropológico, con un evidente componente semántico, reflejado en el uso abundante de terminología árabe ḥassā-niya, con su equivalente castellano.This article focuses on the region called Western Sahara (former Spanish Sahara) and directly related to dialectology and folk traditions, we provide a study on the culinary equipment and instruments used once (although much of it remains today) by the indigenous inhabitants of the region. To this end, we address key issues such as Hassaniya dialect; cooking and food preparation in the traditional survey area; instruments and vessels for the treatment of milk; tools for treatment of grain or the use and utilization of shrubs for obtaining wood, since the vast majority of wooden containers were made of some of the most representative woody species in the area. The approach is basically anthropological, with obvious semantic component, reflected in the generous use of Arab-Hassaniya terminology, with its equivalent in Spanish

GENOTOXICITY OF SHALLOW WATERS NEAR THE BRAZILIAN ANTARCTIC STATION "COMANDANTE FERRAZ" (EACF), ADMIRALTY BAY, KING GEORGE ISLAND, ANTARCTICA

Series of biomonitoring surveys were undertaken weekly in February 2012 to investigate the genotoxicity of the shallow waters around the Brazilian Antarctic Station "Comandante Ferraz" (EACF). The comet assay was applied to assess the damage to the DNA of hemocytes of the crustacean amphipods Gondogeneia antarctica collected from shallow waters near the Fuel Tanks (FT) and Sewage Treatment Outflow (STO) of the research station, and compare it to the DNA damage of animals from Punta Plaza (PPL) and Yellow Point (YP), natural sites far from the EACF defined as experimental controls. The damage to the DNA of hemocytes of G. antarctica was not significantly different between sites in the biomonitoring surveys I and II. In survey III, the damage to the DNA of animals captured in shallow waters near the Fuel Tanks (FT) and Sewage Treatment Outflow (STO) was significantly higher than that of the control site of Punta Plaza (PPL). In biomonitoring survey IV, a significant difference was detected only between the FT and PPL sites. Results demonstrated that the shallow waters in front of the station may be genotoxic and that the comet assay and hemocytes of G. antarctica are useful tools for assessing genotoxicity in biomonitoring studies of Antarctic marine coastal habitats

The role of fish as predators of krill (Euphausia superba) and other pelagic resources in the Southern Ocean

Krill forms an important part of the diet of many Antarctic fish species. An understanding of the role of fish as krill predators in the Southern Ocean is critical to understanding how changes in fish abundance, such as through fishing or environmental change, are likely to impact on the food webs in the region. First attempts to estimate the krill and pelagic food consumption by Antarctic demersal fish in the low Antarctic were made in the late 1970s/early 1980s. Those estimates were constrained by a paucity of biomass estimates and the mostly qualitative nature of food studies. Food consumption estimates were extended to the mesopelagic realm and the high-Antarctic Zone in the late 1980s and early 1990s when these areas were exploited commercially for Electrona carlsbergi. Currently, the best estimates of annual krill consumption by fish are 23 000 000–29 000 000 tonnes of krill and other pelagic prey taken annually by demersal fish in the 1980s in the whole Southern Ocean, and 5 000 000–32 000 000 tonnes taken by mesopelagic fish in the Atlantic sector of the Southern Ocean. It is clear from this review that fish are important predators of krill, in particular the larger myctophids and some channichthyids and nototheniids, and that the importance of krill in fish diets varies substantially both with time and location on various scales, as well as with the availability of alternate prey in the different regions in the Southern Ocean. Ecosystem models therefore need to account for their role. However, several key areas of uncertainty exist, which need to be considered in ecosystem and food-web models for the Southern Ocean. For instance, no robust estimates of food consumption by mesopelagic fish can be provided for the vast areas of the Indian and Pacific Ocean sectors, or for several of the most abundant myctophid species in the Atlantic sector, due to the paucity of relevant studies in these regions. Where biomass estimates do exist, such as in the Atlantic sector, there can be a lack of precision in trawl and hydroacoustic surveys. Studies that adequately capture the seasonal variation in consumption rates and changing importance of krill in the diet of fish are also rare. Furthermore, the effects of large changes in abundance and community structure of fishes brought about by industrial fishing need to be considered when evaluating patterns that have emerged in Southern Ocean ecosystems in the course of the 20th century. As a first step towards a modelling approach to include fish in krill-based food-web models, it is suggested to incorporate data on Champsocephalus gunnari from the western Atlantic sector and Dissostichus mawsoni from the Ross Sea into modelling approaches within the CCAMLR Ecosystem Monitoring Program. Both species are important predators of krill (C. gunnari) and fish (D. mawsoni) in turn form key prey for top predators in each region