Lessons Learned From Efforts To Restore Oyster Populations In Maryland And Virginia, 1990 To 2007

A century-long decline of the fishery for the Eastern oyster Crassostrea virginica (Gmelin, 1791) in Maryland and Virginia stimulated numerous efforts by federal, state, and nongovernmental agencies to restore oyster populations, with limited success. To learn from recent efforts, we analyzed records of restoration and monitoring activities undertaken between 1990 and 2007 by 12 such agencies. Of the 1,037 oyster bars (reefs, beds, or grounds) for which we obtained data, 43% experienced both restoration and monitoring, with the remaining experiencing either restoration or monitoring only. Restoration activities involved adding substrate (shell), transplanting hatchery or wild seed (juvenile oysters), bar cleaning, and bagless dredging. Of these, substrate addition and transplanting seed were common actions, with bar cleaning and bagless dredging relatively uncommon. Limited monitoring efforts, a lack of replicated postrestoration sampling, and the effects of harvest on some restored bars hinders evaluations of the effectiveness of restoration activities. Future restoration activities should have clearly articulated objectives and be coordinated among agencies and across bars, which should also be off limits to fishing. To evaluate restoration efforts, experimental designs should include replication, quantitative sampling, and robust sample sizes, supplemented by pre- and postrestoration monitoring

Web Archiving Democracy

Mary Haberle is a Web Archivist at Archive-It, which is the Internet Archive’s subscription web archiving service. She's part of a support team that provides training and direct support services to our partners, including the archivists on this panel who are all using Archive-It at their institutions. Dory Bower has been an Archives Specialist at the U.S. Government Publishing Office since 2010, where she has worked on a number of projects to increase access to electronic U.S. government resources. Dory began working with web archiving in 2011 and has played a key role in all aspects of the Federal Depository Library Program Web Archive. Megan Craynon has worked at the Maryland State Archives since 2011, and has spent the majority of that time as a team member on the web archiving project. She currently serves as the Deputy Director of Special Collections. Ben Goldman is the Kalin Librarian for Technological Innovations at Penn State University Libraries, where he has overseen web archiving efforts since 2012. Roger Christman is the Governors’ Records Archivist at the Library of Virginia. In his spare time, he also manages the Library’s web archiving program. Nicholas Worby is the Government Information and Statistics Librarian as well as the Web Archives Program Coordinator at the University of Toronto. Ian Milligan is an associate professor of digital and Canadian history at the University of Waterloo. He’s leading a Mellon-funded project to develop a cloud-based infrastructure for the analysis of web archives.As repositories of primary source materials, archives play a central role in supporting the democratic principles of transparency and accountability. Political discourse and many official records of government have shifted from analog to web-based delivery. Web archiving programs that collect content created by elected officials and governments are vital to a robust civil society, which is central to a healthy democracy. This panel brings together information professionals and a digital historian engaged with related content. Professionals actively acquiring websites of elected officials and online government publications will discuss why and how their institutions are building web archives in these areas and what gaps, if any, exist. Panelists will offer their perspectives on the current state of researcher access and how archives can better support researcher engagement with web archives. Questions of professional and institutional responsibility as citizens and as employees of democratic institutions will be explored

Eukaryotic DNA Polymerases: Proposal for a Revised Nomenclature

Pol polymeraseIn 1975, a Greek letter nomenclature system was introduced to designate DNA polymerases from mammalian cells (1). Ten years ago, progress in the biochemical analysis of eukaryotic DNA polymerases and in the isolation of their genes, particularly in the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae, necessitated a revision of the Greek letter nomenclature system and an expansion to include all eukaryotic organisms (2). Until a few years ago, this system sufficed to designate the six known DNA polymerases α, β, γ, δ, ε, and ζ

From ether to acid: a plausible degradation pathway of glycerol dialkyl glycerol tetraethers

Glycerol dialkyl glycerol tetraethers (GDGTs) are ubiquitous microbial lipids with extensive demonstrated and potential roles as paleoenvironmental proxies. Despite the great attention they receive, comparatively little is known regarding their diagenetic fate. Putative degradation products of GDGTs, identified as hydroxyl and carboxyl derivatives, were detected in lipid extracts of marine sediment, seep carbonate, hot spring sediment and cells of the marine thaumarchaeon Nitrosopumilus maritimus. The distribution of GDGT degradation products in environmental samples suggests that both biotic and abiotic processes act as sinks for GDGTs. More than a hundred newly recognized degradation products afford a view of the stepwise degradation of GDGT via (1) ether bond hydrolysis yielding hydroxyl isoprenoids, namely, GDGTol (glycerol dialkyl glycerol triether alcohol), GMGD (glycerol monobiphytanyl glycerol diether), GDD (glycerol dibiphytanol diether), GMM (glycerol monobiphytanol monoether) and bpdiol (biphytanic diol); (2) oxidation of isoprenoidal alcohols into corresponding carboxyl derivatives and (3) chain shortening to yield C39and smaller isoprenoids. This plausible GDGT degradation pathway from glycerol ethers to isoprenoidal fatty acids provides the link to commonly detected head-to-head linked long chain isoprenoidal hydrocarbons in petroleum and sediment samples. The problematic C80to C82tetraacids that cause naphthenate deposits in some oil production facilities can be generated from H-shaped glycerol monoalkyl glycerol tetraethers (GMGTs) following the same process, as indicated by the distribution of related derivatives in hydrothermally influenced sediments.Seventh Framework Programme (European Commission) (ERC Grant 247153

TechKNOW Volume 15, Issue 2

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TechKNOW Volume 15, Issue 1

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TechKNOW Volume 14, Issue 1

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