The distribution of ciliates on Ecology Glacier (King George Island, Antarctica): relationships between species assemblages and environmental parameters

Ciliates are important consumers of pico- and nano-sized producers, are nutrient regenerators, and are an important food source for metazoans. To date, ecological research on ciliates has focused on marine ecosystems rather than on glacier habitats. This paper presents the first major study on ciliates from the Ecology Glacier (South Shetland Islands, Antarctica). The objective of the study was to investigate the structure and spatial distribution of ciliate communities and to identify the environmental factors determining the structure of the assemblages. Microbial communities were collected from three habitats: surface snow, cryoconite holes, and glacier streams. Sampling was carried out every 3–4 days from January 17 to February 24, 2012. A total of 18 ciliate taxa were identified. The species richness, abundance, and biomass of protozoa differed significantly between the stations studied with the lowest numbers in streams on the glacier surface and the highest numbers in cryoconite holes. The RDA performed to specify the direct relationships between the abundance of ciliate taxa and environmental variables showed obvious differences between studied habitats. The analysis showed that all variables together explained 62.4 % of total variance. However, variables thatsignificantly explained the variance in ciliate communities in cryoconite holes, snow, and surface streams were temperature, conductivity, and total nitrogen. Further research is required to explain the impact of biotic factors influencing the presence of ciliates, including the abundance of bacteria, microalgae, and small Metazoa

High-resolution near real-time drought monitoring in South Asia

by Saran Aadhar and Vimal Mishr

Systems constellations : A better way to identify branding opportunities?

Contains fulltext : 46286.pdf (publisher's version ) (Closed access)Building strong brands has become one of the main marketing priorities for brand-supportive companies. The leading positivist paradigm in marketing may not be, however, the most-effective perspective in identifying branding opportunities. This paper offers an alternative phenomenological point of view by applying the innovative systems constellation technique within the soft systems methodology to identify new branding opportunities. A case study illustrates its content validity but also shows there is limited support for its reliability, which is in line with the positivists' reservation on phenomenological methods and techniques.1 p