Microbial ecology and long-term persistence of crude oil in a taiga spruce forest

Thesis (Ph.D.) University of Alaska Fairbanks, 1997The microbial ecology of a 1976 experimental crude oil spill in an Alaskan taiga black spruce forest was investigated in this study. Substantial oil residue remained in the soil, and several microbial parameters showed evidence of long-term oiling effects. Overall, the data suggest that the surviving community in the oiled plot has shifted toward using oil C for growth. Numbers of hydrocarbon degrading microbes, and specific hydrocarbon mineralization potentials, were significantly elevated in the oiled (OIL) plot compared to an adjacent oil-free, reference (REF) plot. Glutamate mineralization potentials and soil C mineralization, on the other hand, were not different between treatments, suggesting that OIL plot heterotrophs were well-acclimated to the oil. Despite little difference between OTL and REF soils in total C mineralized in vitro, net N mineralized was lower and net nitrification was absent in OIL soils. Analysis of the residual oil indicated minimal amounts of N were added with the spilled oil. Biomasses of total fungi and bacteria, and numbers of protozoa, showed no consistent effects due to oiling, but metabolically active fungal and bacterial biomasses were uniformally lower in OTL samples. Community-level multiple substrate metabolism (Biolog) was assessed using a new technique for extracting kinetic data from the microplates. This analysis suggested that the microbial population diversity in the OIL soils was lower than in REF soils. Further, these data indicated that the surviving populations in the OIL plot may be considered metabolic generalists. Some evidence of crude oil biodegradation was seen in the chemistry data, but enrichment of the oil residue in higher molecular weight components, duration of contact with soil organic material, and slow rates of C mineralization indicate the crude oil will persist at this site for decades. Contamination of Alaskan taiga soil at this site has yielded observable long-term microbial community effects with larger-scale consequences for ecosystem function

Watching the Blue Planet from Space over Recent Decades: What's up for Science and Society?

Since the first photographs of Earth Rise taken by the Apollo astronauts in the 1960s galvanized the environmental movement, imaging of our planet from low Earth orbit has grown more sophisticated and diverse. Satellite and astronaut observations and imagery of the changing ocean still have the power to galvanize oceanographers and society. So what are some of the key ideas for oceanography and society that come out of out recent decades of ocean observation from space? Satellite oceanography has made fundamental contributions to our understanding and estimation of changing sea level, winds and storminess over the oceans, primary productivity of the seas, the role of the ocean in the water cycle, and the changes in the ocean known as ocean acidification. Some of these phenomena interact in complex ways and Mother Nature hides the future well. However, some things are clear. Sea level rise has been monitored from space for more than 20 years and now we have a more nuanced understanding of regional variation in sea level rise and the contributions of ocean thermal expansion and the melting of glaciers and ice sheets. Wind vectors at the ocean surface have been measured for more than 2 decades and provide evidence for shifts in wind patterns that help, for example, explain some of the regional variations in sea level rise. Chlorophyll-a has been estimated in a multi-decadal record of observations and is being used to describe the shifts and trends in ocean primary productivity. Sea surface temperature estimation from space has records going back to the 1970s and provides critical information for the interaction of the ocean with the atmosphere. Sea surface salinity has been measured from space only within the last decade and provides a novel new view of regional, seasonal, and inter-annual changes in the ocean related to precipitation, river run-off, and eddy transport. Potential changes in the Earths water cycle have a huge societal impact

SPURS : Salinity Processes in the Upper-ocean Regional Study— the North Atlantic Experiment

Author Posting. © The Oceanography Society, 2015. This article is posted here by permission of The Oceanography Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Oceanography 28, no. 1 (2015): 14-19, doi:10.5670/oceanog.2015.01

A Supervision of Pliable Presence during a Pandemic

supervision during a pandemic is aided with a flexible presence approach

FROM THE GUEST EDITORS. Introduction to the Special Issue on Ocean-Ice Interaction

The end of 2016 is an uneasy moment for climate science in the United States. With a new Administration and a new Congress arriving in January 2017, future support for climate science and observing systems is uncertain. Against this backdrop, this special issue of Oceanographyon ocean-ice interaction is timely. Although it was not our intent to highlight climate change, the fragile nature of Earth’s cryosphere and how it is responding to a warming world are essential parts of each article. Many aspects of the shrinking cryosphere are not yet understood, but the research described in these pages points to larger-than-anticipated—and alarming—changes to the planet’s large ice sheets, with associated future increases in global sea levels. Importantly, the articles in this special issue demonstrate the value to society of continuing vigorous scientific research that will enable us to better understand our planet’s rapidly changing polar environments

Promotion of healthy nutrition in clinical practice: a cross-sectional survey of practices and barriers among physiotherapists in southeast Nigeria

AbstractBackgroundHealthy diet counselling is an important concept in health promotion. Physiotherapists are well positioned to initiate or support healthy nutrition in addition to physical activity counselling, in routine patient consultation.ObjectiveTo determine the practices about and barriers to diet counselling practices among physiotherapists in Southeast Nigeria.MethodsIn this cross-sectional survey, a total of 140 questionnaires were distributed among physiotherapists.ResultsOverall, 103 physiotherapists responded. Physiotherapists are confident and consider the incorporation of dietary counselling very important and of high priority in their daily clinical work. They, however, assessed and counselled on dietary status opportunistically in patients. Notwithstanding, physiotherapists believed that the diet counselling they give could be effective in helping patients change their unhealthy dieting practices. Patients were also amenable to physiotherapists advocating on diet issues as part of their consultation. Several barriers to incorporating diet counselling into physiotherapy practice were identified, including lack of access to a dietician/health promotion staff/counsellors, lack of proper patient education materials, lack of expertise in relation to dietary risk factors' assessment and management, and uncertainty about what dietary services to provide.ConclusionAlthough physiotherapists consider it important to incorporate diet counselling in their daily clinical practice, development and implementation of strategies to improve physiotherapists' diet counselling knowledge, competence, skills, and practice are warranted

Autonomous multi-platform observations during the Salinity Processes in the Upper-ocean Regional Study

Author Posting. © The Oceanography Society, 2017. This article is posted here by permission of The Oceanography Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Oceanography 30, no. 2 (2017): 38–48, doi:10.5670/oceanog.2017.218.The Salinity Processes in the Upper-ocean Regional Study (SPURS) aims to understand the patterns and variability of sea surface salinity. In order to capture the wide range of spatial and temporal scales associated with processes controlling salinity in the upper ocean, research vessels delivered autonomous instruments to remote sites, one in the North Atlantic and one in the Eastern Pacific. Instruments sampled for one complete annual cycle at each of these two sites, which are subject to contrasting atmospheric forcing. The SPURS field programs coordinated sampling from many different platforms, using a mix of Lagrangian and Eulerian approaches. This article discusses the motivations, implementation, and first results of the SPURS-1 and SPURS-2 programs.SPURS is supported by multiple NASA grants, with important additional contributions from the US National Science Foundation, NOAA, and the Office of Naval Research, as well as international agencies. SVP drifters are deployed with support from NASA and the NOAA funded Global Drifter Program at the Lagrangian Drifter Laboratory of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography. SVP-S2 drifters are provided by NOAA-AOML and NASA. PRAWLER mooring development is supported by NOAA’s Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research, Ocean Observing and Monitoring Division, and by NOAA/PMEL