Three decades of continuous ocean observations in North Atlantic Spanish waters: The RADIALES time series project, context, achievements and challenges

Ship-based time-series observations provide crucial data for understanding marine ecosystems, improving decision making in ocean and coastal management. However, only a few time series survive for more than a decade. RADIALES is one of the longest multidisciplinary programs in operation in the northern and northwestern coast of Spain. In the last 30 years, this program collected monthly data on physical, chemical and plankton observations in an array of five sections of stations representative of upwelling and stratified dynamics. Here, the main achievements, including key contributions to ecosystem conservation policies, are summarized. The development of this program, in line with similar initiatives in other countries, included phases focused on the study of seasonality, on comparative analysis, and lately on the analysis of decadal variability and regime shifts. Furthermore, in recent years there was a substantial improvement in the identification of plankton species by genomics. Among the main findings of RADIALES are the quantification of ocean warming at subsurface layers, the determination of climatologies in thermohaline, biogeochemical and biological variables, the inventory of plankton species (from bacteria to zooplankton) and the identification of regionally coherent regime shifts. Baselines defined by RADIALES series were instrumental for the assessment of environmental impacts (e.g. oil spills) and for the support of environmental policies (e.g. Marine Strategy Framework Directive). By contributing to international databases, data from programs as RADIALES combined with new instrumental observations will help to develop a more coherent and comprehensive understanding of the ocean ecosystems, enhancing our ability to detect and forecast risks.IEO, GAIN (Xunta de Galicia)Versión del editor3,26

The Pampa-2016 experiment

ABSTRACTThe Pampa‐2016 experimental campaign was performed in a typical Pampa lowland South American region. It consisted of both surface flux measurements (at 3 and 29 m) and a radiosonde launched every 3 h. The resulting meteorological observations allowed for the analysis of turbulent properties associated with both a stable and a convective boundary layer. The combined analysis of the surface data and vertical soundings has revealed some general characteristics of the atmospheric boundary layer for both the nocturnal stable conditions and the daytime convective environment. The continuous surface measurements showed that the nocturnal stable inversion, occurring in calm winds, is basically generated by the radiative cooling mechanism that is established after the late afternoon transition. The analysis of night‐time surface data also showed that, under stable conditions in the case of vanishing wind speed, the friction velocity has unrealistic values that are very close to zero. This situation is undesirable for numerical models that generally use this quantity as a lower boundary condition. The analysis of night‐time temperature profiles revealed two contrasting patterns in agreement with the classical classification of radiative night (a very stable boundary layer) and a turbulent night (a weakly stable boundary layer). In contrast, the analysis of the daytime temperature profiles provided an estimation of the convective time scale that is of the order of 10 min, in agreement with experimental values. A spectral analysis and the consequent estimation of the spectral peaks under unstable and stable conditions were in agreement with literature values

Uso de gonadotrofina corionica equina em programas de transferencia de embriões bovinos a tempo fixo

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Efeito da idade sobre os índices de parição em vacas de corte

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How far can we go in simplifying biomonitoring assessments? An integrated analysis of taxonomic surrogacy, taxonomic sufficiency and numerical resolution in a megadiverse region

The need for biodiversity conservation is increasing at a rate much faster than the acquisition of knowledge of biodiversity, such as descriptions of new species and mapping species distributions. As global changes are winning the race against the acquisition of knowledge, many researchers resort to the use of surrogate groups to aid in conservation decisions. Reductions in taxonomic and numerical resolution are also desirable, because they could allow more rapid the acquisition of knowledge while requiring less effort, if little important information is lost. In this study, we evaluated the congruence among 22 taxonomic groups sampled in a tropical forest in the Amazon basin. Our aim was to evaluate if any of these groups could be used as surrogates for the others in monitoring programs. We also evaluated if the taxonomic or numerical resolution of possible surrogates could be reduced without greatly reducing the overall congruence. Congruence among plant groups was high, whereas the congruence among most animal groups was very low, except for anurans in which congruence values were only slightly lower than for plants. Liana (Bignoniaceae) was the group with highest congruence, even using genera presence-absence data. The congruence among groups was related to environmental factors, specifically the clay and phosphorous contents of soil. Several groups showed strong spatial clumping, but this was unrelated to the congruence among groups. The high degree of congruence of lianas with the other groups suggests that it may be a reasonable surrogate group, mainly for the other plant groups analyzed, if soil data are not available. Although lianas are difficult to count and identify, the number of studies on the ecology of lianas is increasing. Most of these studies have concluded that lianas are increasing in abundance in tropical forests. In addition to the high congruence, lianas are worth monitoring in their own right because they are sensitive to global warming and the increasing frequency and severity of droughts in tropical regions. Our findings suggest that the use of data on surrogate groups with relatively low taxonomic and numerical resolutions can be a reliable shortcut for biodiversity assessments, especially in megadiverse areas with high rates of habitat conversion, where the lack of biodiversity knowledge is pervasive. (c) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.PhD scholarship from the Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Cientifico e Tecnologico (CNPq

Marine megafauna niche coexistence and hotspot areas in a temperate ecosystem

Versión del editor2,08

Uso de acetato de medroxiprogesterona associado ou não ao ECG para sincronização e inseminação artificial a tempo fixo de vacas de corte

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