Contact rates with nesting birds before and after invasive snake removal: estimating the effects of trap-based control

Invasive predators are responsible for almost 60% of all vertebrate extinctions worldwide with the most vulnerable faunas occurring on islands. The brown treesnake (Boiga irregularis) is a notorious invasive predator that caused the extirpation or extinction of most native forest birds on Guam. The success of avian reintroduction efforts on Guam will depend on whether snake-control techniques sufficiently reduce contact rates between brown treesnakes and reintroduced birds. Mouse-lure traps can successfully reduce brown treesnake populations at local scales. Over a 22-week period both with and without active snake removal, we evaluated snake-trap contact rates for mouse- and bird-lure traps. Bird-lure traps served as a proxy for reintroduced nesting birds. Overall, mouse-lure traps caught more snakes per trap night than did bird-lure traps. However, cameras revealed that bird-lure traps had a snake contact rate almost 15 times greater than the number of successfully captured snakes. Snakes that entered bird-lure traps tended to be larger and in better body condition and were mostly captured in bird-lure traps, despite numerous adjacent mouse-lure traps. Traps placed along grid edges caught more snakes than interior traps, suggesting continuous immigration into the trapping grid within which bird-lure traps were located. Contact between snakes and bird-lure traps was equivalent before and after snake removal, suggesting mouse-lure traps did not adequately reduce the density of snakes that posed a risk to birds, at least at the timescale of this project. This study provides evidence that some snakes exhibit prey selectivity for live birds over live mouse lures. Reliance on a single control tool and lure may be inadequate for support of avian reintroductions and could lead to unintended harvest-driven trait changes of this invasive predator

Contact rates with nesting birds before and after invasive snake removal: estimating the effects of trap-based control

Invasive predators are responsible for almost 60% of all vertebrate extinctions worldwide with the most vulnerable faunas occurring on islands. The brown treesnake (Boiga irregularis) is a notorious invasive predator that caused the extirpation or extinction of most native forest birds on Guam. The success of avian reintroduction efforts on Guam will depend on whether snake-control techniques sufficiently reduce contact rates between brown treesnakes and reintroduced birds. Mouse-lure traps can successfully reduce brown treesnake populations at local scales. Over a 22-week period both with and without active snake removal, we evaluated snake-trap contact rates for mouse- and bird-lure traps. Bird-lure traps served as a proxy for reintroduced nesting birds. Overall, mouse-lure traps caught more snakes per trap night than did bird-lure traps. However, cameras revealed that bird-lure traps had a snake contact rate almost 15 times greater than the number of successfully captured snakes. Snakes that entered bird-lure traps tended to be larger and in better body condition and were mostly captured in bird-lure traps, despite numerous adjacent mouse-lure traps. Traps placed along grid edges caught more snakes than interior traps, suggesting continuous immigration into the trapping grid within which bird-lure traps were located. Contact between snakes and bird-lure traps was equivalent before and after snake removal, suggesting mouse-lure traps did not adequately reduce the density of snakes that posed a risk to birds, at least at the timescale of this project. This study provides evidence that some snakes exhibit prey selectivity for live birds over live mouse lures. Reliance on a single control tool and lure may be inadequate for support of avian reintroductions and could lead to unintended harvest-driven trait changes of this invasive predator

Development of a Methodology for the Quantitative Assessment of Ireland’s Inshore Kelp Resource

Lead Partner: Queen’s University, Belfast. Project Partners: University College Cork and Envision Mapping Ltd.The main aim of the project was to develop and demonstrate an acoustic methodology for the estimation of kelp biomass based on a low-cost commercial marine acoustic system and modification of the standard software. The approach will be of significant value to regulatory authorities for the monitoring of healthy kelp beds and their associated fauna and flora. It will also provide a scientific basis for future kelp harvesting trials, be instrumental in developing appropriate management plans for such practices and will aid in the evaluation of the recovery in harvested areas.This project (Grant-Aid Agreement No. PBA/SW/07/002(01)) was carried out under the Sea Change strategy with the support of the Marine Institute and the Marine Research Sub-Programme of the National Development Plan 2007–2013.Funder: Marine Institut

Overview of the Processes driving Exchange At Cape Hatteras Program

© The Author(s), 2022. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in Seim, H., Savidge, D., Andres, M., Bane, J., Edwards, C., Gawarkiewicz, G., He, R., Todd, R., Muglia, M., Zambon, J., Han, L., & Mao, S. Overview of the Processes driving Exchange at Cape Hatteras Program. Oceanography, (2022), https://doi.org/10.5670/oceanog.2022.205.The Processes driving Exchange At Cape Hatteras (PEACH) program seeks to better understand seawater exchanges between the continental shelf and the open ocean near Cape Hatteras, North Carolina. This location is where the Gulf Stream transitions from a boundary-trapped current to a free jet, and where robust along-shelf convergence brings cool, relatively fresh Middle Atlantic Bight and warm, salty South Atlantic Bight shelf waters together, forming an important and dynamic biogeographic boundary. The magnitude of this convergence implies large export of shelf water to the open ocean here. Background on the oceanography of the region provides motivation for the study and gives context for the measurements that were made. Science questions focus on the roles that wind forcing, Gulf Stream forcing, and lateral density gradients play in driving exchange. PEACH observational efforts include a variety of fixed and mobile observing platforms, and PEACH modeling included two different resolutions and data assimilation schemes. Findings to date on mean circulation, the nature of export from the southern Middle Atlantic Bight shelf, Gulf Stream variability, and position variability of the Hatteras Front are summarized, together with a look ahead to forthcoming analyses.We gratefully acknowledge NSF funding (OCE-1558920 to UNC-CH, OCE-1559476 to SkIO, OCE-1558521 to WHOI, OCE-1559178 to NCSU); technical support from Sara Haines, Craig Marquette, Trip Patterson, Nick DeSimone, Erran Sousa, Gabe Matthias, Patrick Deane, Brian Hogue, Frank Bahr, and Ben Hefner; cruise participants Jacob Forsyth, Joleen Heiderich, Chuxuan Li, Marco Valero, Lauren Ball, John McCord, and Kyle Maddux-Lawrence; and the crew of R/V Armstrong for their able support during three PEACH cruises

Pathways of shelf water export from the Hatteras shelf and slope

Author Posting. © American Geophysical Union, 2012. This article is posted here by permission of American Geophysical Union for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Geophysical Research 117 (2012): C08023, doi:10.1029/2012JC007995.It has long been recognized that a massive flow of Middle Atlantic Bight (MAB) shelf water is exported to the deep ocean in the region near Cape Hatteras, North Carolina. We examine the details of this export using data from an extensive array of 26 moorings, deployed over the shelf and slope between Cape Hatteras and the Chesapeake Bay mouth (from 35° 27′ to 36° 40′ N) as part of the U.S. Department of Energy's Ocean Margins Program. Our analysis indicates that the flow of the MAB shelf-edge frontal jet, which typically extends over the MAB slope, falls victim to export over the length of the mooring array, essentially vanishing by the southern extreme of the array. By contrast, the flow of MAB shelf water entering the study region over the inner and middle shelf (to roughly the 40-m isobath) tends to experience very little loss over the extent of the OMP array. Based on our findings and those of previous studies, we hypothesize that this inner and middle shelf flow is diverted seaward upon encountering the Hatteras Front, which separates MAB and South Atlantic Bight shelf waters. Some fraction of this flow appears to return to the OMP array, moving northeastward over the upper slope en route to the deep ocean. Our analysis also suggests that the export of MAB shelf water is enhanced as the Gulf Stream approaches the shelf-edge near Diamond Shoals, a process we deem to be a high priority for future study.The Ocean Margins Program was funded by the U.S. Department of Energy through various grants. Our analysis was supported by a grant (OCE-0926999) from the National Science Foundation.2013-02-2

Characterisation of the muon beams for the Muon Ionisation Cooling Experiment

A novel single-particle technique to measure emittance has been developed and used to characterise seventeen different muon beams for the Muon Ionisation Cooling Experiment (MICE). The muon beams, whose mean momenta vary from 171 to 281 MeV/c, have emittances of approximately 1.2–2.3 π mm-rad horizontally and 0.6–1.0 π mm-rad vertically, a horizontal dispersion of 90–190 mm and momentum spreads of about 25 MeV/c. There is reasonable agreement between the measured parameters of the beams and the results of simulations. The beams are found to meet the requirements of MICE

Conifers in cold environments synchronize maximum growth rate of tree-ring formation with day length

Intra-annual radial growth rates and durations in trees are reported to differ greatly in relation to species, site and environmental conditions. However, very similar dynamics of cambial activity and wood formation are observed in temperate and boreal zones. Here, we compared weekly xylem cell production and variation in stem circumference in the main northern hemisphere conifer species (genera Picea, Pinus, Abies and Larix) from 1996 to 2003. Dynamics of radial growth were modeled with a Gompertz function, defining the upper asymptote (A), x-axis placement (β) and rate of change (κ). A strong linear relationship was found between the constants β and κ for both types of analysis. The slope of the linear regression, which corresponds to the time at which maximum growth rate occurred, appeared to converge towards the summer solstice. The maximum growth rate occurred around the time of maximum day length, and not during the warmest period of the year as previously suggested. The achievements of photoperiod could act as a growth constraint or a limit after which the rate of tree-ring formation tends to decrease, thus allowing plants to safely complete secondary cell wall lignification before winter