Burrowing Behavior of a Deposit Feeding Bivalve Predicts Change in Intertidal Ecosystem State

Behavior has a predictive power that is often underutilized as a tool for signaling ecological change. The burrowing behavior of the deposit feeding bivalve Macoma balthica reflects a typical food-safety trade-off. The choice to live close to the sediment surface comes at a risk of predation and is a decision made when predation danger, food intake rates or future fitness prospects are low. In parts of the Dutch Wadden Sea, Macoma populations declined by 90% in the late 1990s, in parallel with large-scale mechanical cockle-dredging activities. During this decline, the burrowing depth of Macoma became shallow and was correlated with the population decline in the following year, indicating that it forecasted population change. Recently, there has been a series of large recruitment events in Macoma. According to the food-safety trade-off, we expected that Macoma should now live deeper, and have a higher body condition. Indeed, we observed that Macoma now lives deeper and that living depth in a given year forecasted population growth in the next year, especially in individuals larger than 14 mm. As living depth and body condition were strongly correlated in individuals larger than 14 mm, larger Macoma could be living deeper to protect their reproductive assets. Our results confirmed that burrowing depth signals impending population change and, together with body condition, can provide an early warning signal of ecological change. We suggest that population recovery is being driven by improved intertidal habitat quality in the Dutch Wadden Sea, rather than by the proposed climate-change related effects. This shift in ecosystem state is suggested to include the recovery of diatom habitat in the top layer of the sediment after cockle-dredging ended

Introducing delay dynamics to Bertalanffy's spherical tumour growth model

We introduce delay dynamics to an ordinary differential equation model of tumour growth based upon von Bertalanffy's growth model, a model which has received little attention in comparison to other models, such as Gompterz, Greenspan and logistic models. Using existing, previously published data sets we show that our delay model can perform better than delay models based on a Gompertz, Greenspan or logistic formulation. We look for replication of the oscillatory behaviour in the data, as well as a low error value (via a Least-Squares approach) when comparing. We provide the necessary analysis to show that a unique, continuous, solution exists for our model equation and consider the qualitative behaviour of a solution near a point of equilibrium

Composition of Fluids Responsible for Gold Mineralization in the Pechenga Structure-Imandra-Varzuga Greenstone Belt, Kola Peninsula, Russia.

This study presents the first fluid inclusion data from quartz of albite–carbonate–quartz altered rocks and metasomatic quartzite hosting gold mineralization in the Pechenga structure of the Pechenga– Imandra–Varzuga greenstone belt. A temperature of 275–370°C, pressure of 1.2–4.5 kbar, and the fluid composition of gold-bearing fluid are estimated by microthermometry, Raman spectroscopy, and LA-ICP-MS of individual fluid inclusions, as well as by bulk chemical analyses of fluid inclusions. In particular, the Au and Ag concentrations have been determined in fluid inclusions. It is shown that albite–carbonate–quartz altered rocks and metasomatic quartzite interacted with fluids of similar chemical composition but under different physicochemical conditions. It is concluded that the gold-bearing fluid in the Pechenga structure is similar to that of orogenic gold deposits

The geometry of diffusing and self-attracting particles in a one-dimensional fair-competition regime

We consider an aggregation-diffusion equation modelling particle interaction with non-linear diffusion and non-local attractive interaction using a homogeneous kernel (singular and non-singular) leading to variants of the Keller-Segel model of chemotaxis. We analyse the fair-competition regime in which both homogeneities scale the same with respect to dilations. Our analysis here deals with the one-dimensional case, building on the work in Calvez et al. (Equilibria of homogeneous functionals in the fair-competition regime), and provides an almost complete classification. In the singular kernel case and for critical interaction strength, we prove uniqueness of stationary states via a variant of the Hardy-Littlewood-Sobolev inequality. Using the same methods, we show uniqueness of self-similar profiles in the sub-critical case by proving a new type of functional inequality. Surprisingly, the same results hold true for any interaction strength in the non-singular kernel case. Further, we investigate the asymptotic behaviour of solutions, proving convergence to equilibrium in Wasserstein distance in the critical singular kernel case, and convergence to self-similarity for sub-critical interaction strength, both under a uniform stability condition. Moreover, solutions converge to a unique self-similar profile in the non-singular kernel case. Finally, we provide a numerical overview for the asymptotic behaviour of solutions in the full parameter space demonstrating the above results. We also discuss a number of phenomena appearing in the numerical explorations for the diffusion-dominated and attraction-dominated regimes