Metabolic responses to high pCO2 conditions at a CO2 vent site in juveniles of a marine isopod species assemblage

We are starting to understand the relationship between metabolic rate responses and species' ability to respond to exposure to high pCO2. However, most of our knowledge has come from investigations of single species. The examination of metabolic responses of closely related species with differing distributions around natural elevated CO2 areas may be useful to inform our understanding of their adaptive significance. Furthermore, little is known about the physiological responses of marine invertebrate juveniles to high pCO2, despite the fact they are known to be sensitive to other stressors, often acting as bottlenecks for future species success. We conducted an in situ transplant experiment using juveniles of isopods found living inside and around a high pCO2 vent (Ischia, Italy): the CO2 'tolerant' Dynamene bifida and 'sensitive' Cymodoce truncata and Dynamene torelliae. This allowed us to test for any generality of the hypothesis that pCO2 sensitive marine invertebrates may be those that experience trade-offs between energy metabolism and cellular homoeostasis under high pCO2 conditions. Both sensitive species were able to maintain their energy metabolism under high pCO2 conditions, but in C. truncata this may occur at the expense of [carbonic anhydrase], confirming our hypothesis. By comparison, the tolerant D. bifida appeared metabolically well adapted to high pCO2, being able to upregulate ATP production without recourse to anaerobiosis. These isopods are important keystone species; however, given they differ in their metabolic responses to future pCO2, shifts in the structure of the marine ecosystems they inhabit may be expected under future ocean acidification conditions

Typological Features of Economic Development in Russian Regions under the Conditions of Development of Continuous Education

In the modern conditions the socio-economic paradigm is changing, on the one hand, due to the transition to knowledge economy and, on the other hand, due to the need to develop innovation that determine competitiveness and the development level of national economies in the world. It is obvious that the progressive upgrade and the improvement of production processes (change in technological modes) can not be implemented without the increase in the level of human capital in the society and the enhancement of potential and qualification of the workforce. These changes largely depend on the education system. In almost all world countries there is an active process of modernization and change in the system of training. New forms and approaches appear, for example lifelong education (concept “Lifelong education”), informal forms of learning, self-education, etc. Without the development of these approaches it is not possible to become a competitive state in changing social, political and economic environment. This is particularly true for countries, which experience changes in the technological mode and have the necessity to transfer to new technologies. Russia is among such countries nowadays. In our opinion, the modern reforms do not give the opportunity to fulfill the main task of education – to ensure and create conditions for self-determination and self-moralization of an individual in the society, achieve the desired level of knowledge for development of innovation in the regions. In the framework of the conducted research we get the classification of all Russian regions by indicators, such as “innovation” and “investment attractiveness”, with the levels of education being taken into account. This approach, on the one hand, shows the heterogeneity of socio-economic development of the country’s regions and, on the other hands, ‒ allows us to reveal the fact that the same federal district can include both regions-locomotives and problematic regions. In view of the heterogeneity of the results we identify the prospects for modernization of the proposed regions classificatio

Exotic rock block from the Koshava gypsum mine, Northwest Bulgaria: Petrography, geochemistry, mineralogy and melting phenomena

The described exotic rock block (60×80×13–15 cm) was found at 290 m depth in a lower–middle Badenian gypsum layer in the Koshava mine, NW Bulgaria, near the Danube River. It is greyish-black, granular, with layered structure and layers composed of α-quartz rosettes covered with organic matter (kerogen-like type with high contents of Ge, Mo and B), wood relicts with chalcedony replacement, and porous lenses with compact accumulation of organic matter. The block is coated with quartz crust, up to 2 cm thick, with regmaglypt-like forms, also replaced by quartz. Aside from the surface, melting phenomena were also observed inside the quartz rosettes and especially in the wood relicts and porous lenses. The melted drops are actually crystallized chalcedony. The organic matter accumulations contain Si-organic zoned micrometre-sized spherules. Fe silicides were found in the organic matter of all parts of the block, in which hapkeite was determined by X-ray analysis. Other detected minerals include graphite, cristobalite, coesite, skeletal and framboidal pyrite, moassanite, magnetite, suessite, sphalerite and minerals formed in the gypsum lagoon (gypsum, celestine, barite, calcite, halite and clays). The geological position of the block in the gypsum without any other sediments, the extensive melting phenomena with melted spherules, crushed quartz, its enrichment in 18O isotope and the presence of coesite suggest that it is shock ejecta, in certain aspects resembling the large Muong Nong-type tektites, but its characteristics could be the basis for distinguishing it as a new tektite type. The fact that it was found in a gypsum layer of early–middle Badenian age points to its probable association with the Ries-Steinheim impact event, despite the long distance between them (~1100 km)