Marine aquaculture within the framework of integrated coastal management

Marine aquaculture practices must be considered within a framework that deals with the balance between the aquaculture industry's economic growth and environmental protection of the coastal area. Public authorities should intervene in order to achieve this balance and exploit coastal resources rationally, or they will be unable to face the challenge of controlling economic activities that are often mutually exclusive and whose demands on limited coastal space will continue to grow. In the present paper, we intend to demonstrate current Spanish legislation's legal vacuum in the field of integrated coastal zone management, since sectorial management instruments are only oriented towards aquaculture, disregarding concurrent activities. An overview of current legislation concerning territorial management and European Union integrated coastal zone management programmes is followed by a comparative analysis with French legislation, whose legal instruments were designed with an eye to coastal management, in which aquaculture and related economic activities are playing an important role.La práctica de la acuicultura en el dominio público marítimo-terrestre implica tener en cuenta esta actividad desde el punto de vista del equilibrio entre el crecimiento económico de esta nueva industria y la protección del medio ambiente costero. Cada vez son más las actividades que comparten espacio con la acuicultura, muchas de ellas incompatibles entre sí, por lo que el Gobierno debe intervenir para conseguir dicho equilibrio y la explotación racional del litoral. Se trata de poner de manifiesto la ausencia de instrumentos jurídicos de planificación integral del litoral en nuestro ordenamiento, en el que únicamente se contemplan mecanismos de planificación sectorial orientados a la acuicultura pero sin tener en cuenta otras actividades concurrentes. Se estudia la normativa vigente sobre ordenación territorial y los programas de gestión integral del litoral elaborados en el ámbito de la Unión Europea. Para finalizar, se analiza, a título comparado, la legislación francesa del litoral que sí ha diseñado un instrumento de ordenación litoral en el que la acuicultura y el sector acuícola en general desempeñan un papel muy importante.Instituto Español de Oceanografí

Ancestry-related assortative mating in Latino populations

Examination of ancestry-informative genetic markers shows that Puerto Rican and Mexican populations have shown strong assortative mating that continues to this day

Metastable liquid lamellar structures in binary and ternary mixtures of Lennard-Jones fluids

We have carried out extensive equilibrium molecular dynamics (MD) simulations to investigate the Liquid-Vapor coexistence in partially miscible binary and ternary mixtures of Lennard-Jones (LJ) fluids. We have studied in detail the time evolution of the density profiles and the interfacial properties in a temperature region of the phase diagram where the condensed phase is demixed. The composition of the mixtures are fixed, 50% for the binary mixture and 33.33% for the ternary mixture. The results of the simulations clearly indicate that in the range of temperatures $78 < T < 102 ^{\rm o}$K, --in the scale of argon-- the system evolves towards a metastable alternated liquid-liquid lamellar state in coexistence with its vapor phase. These states can be achieved if the initial configuration is fully disordered, that is, when the particles of the fluids are randomly placed on the sites of an FCC crystal or the system is completely mixed. As temperature decreases these states become very well defined and more stables in time. We find that below $90 ^{\rm o}$K, the alternated liquid-liquid lamellar state remains alive for 80 ns, in the scale of argon, the longest simulation we have carried out. Nonetheless, we believe that in this temperature region these states will be alive for even much longer times.Comment: 18 Latex-RevTex pages including 12 encapsulated postscript figures. Figures with better resolution available upon request. Accepted for publication in Phys. Rev. E Dec. 1st issu

Surface Structure of Liquid Metals and the Effect of Capillary Waves: X-ray Studies on Liquid Indium

We report x-ray reflectivity (XR) and small angle off-specular diffuse scattering (DS) measurements from the surface of liquid Indium close to its melting point of $156^\circ$C. From the XR measurements we extract the surface structure factor convolved with fluctuations in the height of the liquid surface. We present a model to describe DS that takes into account the surface structure factor, thermally excited capillary waves and the experimental resolution. The experimentally determined DS follows this model with no adjustable parameters, allowing the surface structure factor to be deconvolved from the thermally excited height fluctuations. The resulting local electron density profile displays exponentially decaying surface induced layering similar to that previously reported for Ga and Hg. We compare the details of the local electron density profiles of liquid In, which is a nearly free electron metal, and liquid Ga, which is considerably more covalent and shows directional bonding in the melt. The oscillatory density profiles have comparable amplitudes in both metals, but surface layering decays over a length scale of $3.5\pm 0.6$ \AA for In and $5.5\pm 0.4$ \AA for Ga. Upon controlled exposure to oxygen, no oxide monolayer is formed on the liquid In surface, unlike the passivating film formed on liquid Gallium.Comment: 9 pages, 5 figures; submitted to Phys. Rev.

Ancient Host–Pathogen Associations Maintained by Specificity of Chemotaxis and Antibiosis

Switching by parasites to novel hosts has profound effects on ecological and evolutionary disease dynamics. Switching requires that parasites are able to establish contact with novel hosts and to overcome host defenses. For most host–parasite associations, it is unclear as to what specific mechanisms prevent infection of novel hosts. Here, we show that parasitic fungal species in the genus Escovopsis, which attack and consume the fungi cultivated by fungus-growing ants, are attracted to their hosts via chemotaxis. This response is host-specific: Escovopsis spp. grow towards their natural host cultivars more rapidly than towards other closely related fungi. Moreover, the cultivated fungi secrete compounds that can suppress Escovopsis growth. These antibiotic defenses are likewise specific: in most interactions, cultivars can inhibit growth of Escovopsis spp. not known to infect them in nature but cannot inhibit isolates of their naturally infecting pathogens . Cases in which cultivars are susceptible to novel Escovopsis are limited to a narrow set of host–parasite strain combinations. Targeted chemotactic and antibiotic responses therefore explain why Escovopsis pathogens do not readily switch to novel hosts, consequently constraining long-term dynamics of host–parasite coevolution within this ancient association

Vicious and Virtuous Cycles and the Role of External Non-government Actors in Community Forestry in Oaxaca and Michoacán, Mexico

Community forestry offers potential for socioeconomic benefits while maintaining ecosystem services. In Mexico, government and donor efforts to develop this sector focus on issues within forest communities. Often overlooked are effects of external non-government actors (NGOs and foresters) as links or barriers between communities and funding, capacity building, and technical support. To analyze the role of these actors, I analyze household survey and interview data from 11 communities with varying levels of vertical integration of forestry production in states with divergent records of community forestry, Oaxaca and Michoacán. Results suggest that strong community governance is necessary but not sufficient for vertical integration, and strong interactions with non-government actors are critical. These actors, operating within the existing framework of government regulations, have a range of incentives for engaging communities. Availability of these actors motivated by concern for community capacity instead of timber income may be a determinant of community forestry development

Meta-analysis of genome-wide association studies of asthma in ethnically diverse North American populations.

Asthma is a common disease with a complex risk architecture including both genetic and environmental factors. We performed a meta-analysis of North American genome-wide association studies of asthma in 5,416 individuals with asthma (cases) including individuals of European American, African American or African Caribbean, and Latino ancestry, with replication in an additional 12,649 individuals from the same ethnic groups. We identified five susceptibility loci. Four were at previously reported loci on 17q21, near IL1RL1, TSLP and IL33, but we report for the first time, to our knowledge, that these loci are associated with asthma risk in three ethnic groups. In addition, we identified a new asthma susceptibility locus at PYHIN1, with the association being specific to individuals of African descent (P = 3.9 × 10(-9)). These results suggest that some asthma susceptibility loci are robust to differences in ancestry when sufficiently large samples sizes are investigated, and that ancestry-specific associations also contribute to the complex genetic architecture of asthma