New Perspectives on Ecological Mechanisms Affecting Coral Recruitment on Reefs

Coral mortality has increased in recent decades, making coral recruitment more important than ever in sustaining coral reef ecosystems and contributing to their resilience. This review summarizes existing information on ecological factors affecting scleractinian coral recruitment. Successful recruitment requires the survival of coral offspring through sequential life history stages. Larval availability, successful settlement, and post-settlement survival and growth are all necessary for the addition of new coral individuals to a reef and ultimately maintenance or recovery of coral reef ecosystems. As environmental conditions continue to become more hostile to corals on a global scale, further research on fertilization ecology, connectivity, larval condition, positive and negative cues influencing substrate selection, and post-settlement ecology will be critical to our ability to manage these diverse ecosystems for recovery. A better understanding of the ecological factors infl uencing coral recruitment is fundamental to coral reef ecology and management

Neuronal correlates of cognitive control are altered in women with endometriosis and chronic pelvic pain

Endometriosis is a debilitating women's health condition and is the most common cause of chronic pelvic pain. Impaired cognitive control is common in chronic pain conditions, however, it has not yet been investigated in endometriosis. The aim of this study was to explore the neuronal correlates of cognitive control in women with endometriosis. Using a cross-sectional study design with data collected at a single time-point, event-related potentials were elicited during a cued continuous performance test from 20 women with endometriosis (mean age = 28.5 ± 5.2 years) and 20 age- and gender-matched controls (mean age = 28.5 ± 5.2 years). Event-related potential components were extracted and P3 component amplitudes were derived with temporal principal components analysis. Behavioral and ERP outcomes were compared between groups and subjective pain severity was correlated with ERP component amplitudes. No significant behavioral differences were seen in task performance between the groups (all p > 0.094). Target P3b (all p < 0.034) and SW (all p < 0.040), and non-target early P3a (eP3a; all p < 0.023) and late P3a (lP3a; all p < 0.035) amplitudes were smaller for the endometriosis compared to the healthy control group. Lower non-target eP3a (p < 0.001), lP3a (p = 0.013), and SW (p = 0.019) amplitudes were correlated with higher pain severity scores. Findings suggest that endometriosis-associated chronic pelvic pain is linked to alterations in stimulus-response processing and inhibitory control networks, but not impaired behavioral performance, due to compensatory neuroplastic changes in overlapping cognitive control and pain networks

The SAMI Pilot Survey: stellar kinematics of galaxies in Abell 85, 168 and 2399

We present the SAMI Pilot Survey, consisting of integral field spectroscopy of 106 galaxies across three galaxy clusters, Abell 85, Abell 168 and Abell 2399. The galaxies were selected by absolute magnitude to have Mr < -20.25 mag. The survey, using the Sydney-AAO Multi-object Integral field spectrograph (SAMI), comprises observations of galaxies of all morphological types with 75 per cent of the sample being early-type galaxies (ETGs) and 25 per cent being late-type galaxies (LTGs). Stellar velocity and velocity dispersion maps are derived for all 106 galaxies in the sample. The lambdaR parameter, a proxy for the specific stellar angular momentum, is calculated for each galaxy in the sample. We find a trend between lambdaR and galaxy concentration such that LTGs are less concentrated higher angular momentum systems, with the fast-rotating ETGs (FRs) more concentrated and lower in angular momentum. This suggests that some dynamical processes are involved in transforming LTGs to FRs, though a significant overlap between the lambdaR distributions of these classes of galaxies implies that this is just one piece of a more complicated picture. We measure the kinematic misalignment angle, Psi, for the ETGs in the sample, to probe the intrinsic shapes of the galaxies. We find the majority of FRs (83 per cent) to be aligned, consistent with them being oblate spheroids (i.e. discs). The slow rotating ETGs (SRs), on the other hand, are significantly more likely to show kinematic misalignment (only 38 per cent are aligned). This confirms previous results that SRs are likely to be mildly triaxial systems

The SAMI pilot survey: The kinematic morphology-density relation in Abell 85, Abell 168 and Abell 2399

We examine the kinematic morphology of early-type galaxies (ETGs) in three galaxy clusters Abell 85, 168 and 2399. Using data from the Sydney-AAOMulti-object Integral field spectrograph we measure spatially resolved kinematics for 79 ETGs in these clusters. We calculate λR, a proxy for the projected specific stellar angular momentum, for each galaxy and classify the 79 ETGs in our samples as fast or slow rotators. We calculate the fraction of slow rotators in the ETG populations (fSR) of the clusters to be 0.21 ± 0.08, 0.08 ± 0.08 and 0.12 ± 0.06 for Abell 85, 168 and 2399, respectively, with an overall fraction of 0.15 ± 0.04. These numbers are broadly consistent with the values found in the literature, confirming recent work asserting that the fraction of slow rotators in the ETG population is constant across many orders of magnitude in global environment. We examine the distribution of kinematic classes in each cluster as a function of environment using the projected density of galaxies: the kinematic morphology-density relation.We find that in Abell 85 fSR increases in higher density regions but in Abell 168 and 2399 this trend is not seen. We examine the differences between the individual clusters to explain this. In addition, we find slow rotators on the outskirts of two of the clusters studied, Abell 85 and 2399. These galaxies reside in intermediate to low density regions and have clearly not formed at the centre of a cluster environment. We hypothesize that they formed at the centres of groups and are falling into the clusters for the first time

The SAMI Galaxy Survey: The link between angular momentum and optical morphology

We investigate the relationship between stellar and gas specific angular momentum j, stellar massM* and optical morphology for a sample of 488 galaxies extracted from the Sydney-AAO Multi-object Integral field Galaxy Survey.We find that j, measured within one effective radius, monotonically increases with M* and that, for M* > 109.5 M⊙, the scatter in this relation strongly correlates with optical morphology (i.e. visual classification and Sérsic index). These findings confirm that massive galaxies of all types lie on a plane relating mass, angular momentum and stellar-light distribution, and suggest that the large-scale morphology of a galaxy is regulated by its mass and dynamical state. We show that the significant scatter in the M*-j relation is accounted for by the fact that, at fixed stellar mass, the contribution of ordered motions to the dynamical support of galaxies varies by at least a factor of 3. Indeed, the stellar spin parameter (quantified via λR) correlates strongly with Sérsic and concentration indices. This correlation is particularly strong once slow rotators are removed from the sample, showing that late-type galaxies and early-type fast rotators form a continuous class of objects in terms of their kinematic properties

The state of the Martian climate

60°N was +2.0°C, relative to the 1981–2010 average value (Fig. 5.1). This marks a new high for the record. The average annual surface air temperature (SAT) anomaly for 2016 for land stations north of starting in 1900, and is a significant increase over the previous highest value of +1.2°C, which was observed in 2007, 2011, and 2015. Average global annual temperatures also showed record values in 2015 and 2016. Currently, the Arctic is warming at more than twice the rate of lower latitudes

The SAMI Galaxy Survey: Cubism and covariance, putting round pegs into square holes

We present a methodology for the regularization and combination of sparse sampled and irregularly gridded observations from fibre-optic multiobject integral field spectroscopy. The approach minimizes interpolation and retains image resolution on combining subpixel dithered data. We discuss the methodology in the context of the Sydney-AAO multiobject integral field spectrograph (SAMI) Galaxy Survey underway at the Anglo-Australian Telescope. The SAMI instrument uses 13 fibre bundles to perform high-multiplex integral field spectroscopy across a 1° diameter field of view. The SAMI Galaxy Survey is targeting ~3000 galaxies drawn from the full range of galaxy environments. We demonstrate the subcritical sampling of the seeing and incomplete fill factor for the integral field bundles results in only a 10 per cent degradation in the final image resolution recovered. We also implement a new methodology for tracking covariance between elements of the resulting data cubes which retains 90 per cent of the covariance information while incurring only a modest increase in the survey data volume

Screening of Microorganisms for Biodegradation of Simazine Pollution (Obsolete Pesticide Azotop 50 WP)

The capability of environmental microorganisms to biodegrade simazine—an active substance of 2-chloro-s-triazine herbicides (pesticide waste since 2007)—was assessed. An enormous metabolic potential of microorganisms impels to explore the possibilities of using them as an alternative way for thermal and chemical methods of utilization. First, the biotope rich in microorganisms resistant to simazine was examined. Only the higher dose of simazine (100 mg/l) had an actual influence on quantity of bacteria and environmental fungi incubated on substrate with simazine. Most simazine-resistant bacteria populated activated sludge and biohumus (vermicompost); the biggest strain of resistant fungi was found in floral soil and risosphere soil of maize. Compost and biohumus were the sources of microorganisms which biodegraded simazine, though either of them was the dominant considering the quantity of simazine-resistant microorganisms. In both cases of periodic culture (microorganisms from biohumus and compost), nearly 100% of simazine (50 mg/l) was degraded (within 8 days). After the repeated enrichment culture with simazine, the rate of its degradation highly accelerated, and just after 24 h, the significant decrease of simazine (20% in compost and 80% in biohumus) was noted. Although a dozen attempts of isolating various strains responsible for biodegradation of simazine from compost and biohumus were performed, only the strain identified as Arthrobacter urefaciens (NC) was obtained, and it biodegraded simazine with almost 100% efficiency (within 4 days)