Final report : verification of bay productivity measurement by remote sensors

From University of Texas at Austin Marine Science Institute to Texas Water Development BoardInteragency cooperative contract TWDB contract no. IA03-483-003July 2004Ecosystem function in estuarine environments is known to be an important indicator of ecosystem health and productivity. There is a need to quantify estuarine ecosystem function variability and link to freshwater inflow to enable better management of ecosystem health and productivity. An important and quantifiable component of ecosystem function is ecosystem metabolism. Results indicate that open water methods were more appropriate than light-dark bottle methods for measuring net ecosystem metabolism in shallow water estuarine ecosystems because of the large contribution of benthos, which is ignored in water bottles. Spatial and temporal variability in net ecosystem metabolism was found. Spatial variability was attributed to differences in benthic habitats and/or station locations with respect to freshwater inflow point sources. Temporal variability in net ecosystem metabolism may be driven by differences in seasonal temperatures and freshwater inflow differences on seasonal time scales. Net ecosystem metabolism was directly related to amounts of freshwater inflow. The strength of this relationship depended on proximity to freshwater sources. Future studies of whole ecosystem metabolism in shallow estuarine ecosystems should employ open water methods and should strive to link other dynamic environmental conditions, such as temperature or irradiance, to ecosystem health, function, and productivity.Marine Scienc

Integrating placement and audience characteristics to assess the recall of product placements in film: findings from a field study

This research incorporates into a single model characteristics of product placements in films and characteristics of the consumers and their viewing environment to assess the memorability of the placements. Eleven movies containing a total of 98 placements of varied characteristics were coded. 3,532 individuals who viewed a DVD rental of one of these movies at home completed a questionnaire on the following day. The questionnaire included audience viewing characteristics as well as a free recall measure of placements. The results reveal important insights into the variables that affect, positively or negatively, the day after recall of products placed in moviesBrand placement, consumer, movie, product placement, spontaneous day after recall

Phylogenetic diversity promotes ecosystem stability

Ecosystem stability in variable environments depends on the diversity of form and function of the constituent species. Species phenotypes and ecologies are the product of evolution, and the evolutionary history represented by co-occurring species has been shown to be an important predictor of ecosystem function. If phylogenetic distance is a surrogate for ecological differences, then greater evolutionary diversity should buffer ecosystems against environmental variation and result in greater ecosystem stability. We calculated both abundance-weighted and unweighted phylogenetic measures of plant community diversity for a long-term biodiversity–ecosystem function experiment at Cedar Creek, Minnesota, USA. We calculated a detrended measure of stability in aboveground biomass production in experimental plots and showed that phylogenetic relatedness explained variation in stability. Our results indicate that communities where species are evenly and distantly related to one another are more stable compared to communities where phylogenetic relationships are more clumped. This result could be explained by a phylogenetic sampling effect, where some lineages show greater stability in productivity compared to other lineages, and greater evolutionary distances reduce the chance of sampling only unstable groups. However, we failed to find evidence for similar stabilities among closely related species. Alternatively, we found evidence that plot biomass variance declined with increasing phylogenetic distances, and greater evolutionary distances may represent species that are ecologically different (phylogenetic complementarity). Accounting for evolutionary relationships can reveal how diversity in form and function may affect stability

The Drosophila genome nexus: a population genomic resource of 623 Drosophila melanogaster genomes, including 197 from a single ancestral range population.

Hundreds of wild-derived Drosophila melanogaster genomes have been published, but rigorous comparisons across data sets are precluded by differences in alignment methodology. The most common approach to reference-based genome assembly is a single round of alignment followed by quality filtering and variant detection. We evaluated variations and extensions of this approach and settled on an assembly strategy that utilizes two alignment programs and incorporates both substitutions and short indels to construct an updated reference for a second round of mapping prior to final variant detection. Utilizing this approach, we reassembled published D. melanogaster population genomic data sets and added unpublished genomes from several sub-Saharan populations. Most notably, we present aligned data from phase 3 of the Drosophila Population Genomics Project (DPGP3), which provides 197 genomes from a single ancestral range population of D. melanogaster (from Zambia). The large sample size, high genetic diversity, and potentially simpler demographic history of the DPGP3 sample will make this a highly valuable resource for fundamental population genetic research. The complete set of assemblies described here, termed the Drosophila Genome Nexus, presently comprises 623 consistently aligned genomes and is publicly available in multiple formats with supporting documentation and bioinformatic tools. This resource will greatly facilitate population genomic analysis in this model species by reducing the methodological differences between data sets

Historical Data Review of Dissolved Oxygen and Related Parameters for the Lavaca Bay TMDL Project

"This historical data review is part of the Lavaca Bay/Chocolate Bay (Segment 2453) Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) Project. The data generated will be used to identify areas within the segment for further investigation, assess the segment for Dissolved Oxygen (DO) exceedences, and support the development of a TMDL for DO. Segment 2453 was listed on the 305(b) list because DO concentrations are occasionally lower than the criterion established to assure optimum conditions for aquatic life in a 13.7-square mile area near the Alcoa Ship channel. “Aquatic life use” is a term used in Texas water resource management to characterize water bodies and specify water quality criteria for those bodies. The Texas Natural Resource Conservation Commission (TNRCC) has identified four aquatic life use categories: exceptional, high, intermediate, and limited. The TNRCC criteria for DO varies with the Aquatic life use designation of a water body (Table 1; Texas Natural Resource Conservation Commission, 2000). For Texas estuaries designated with exceptional aquatic life use, DO criteria are 24-hr mean < 5.0 mg 1⁻¹ and 24-hr minimum < 4.0 mg 1⁻¹. Lavaca Bay (segment 2453) is designated for exceptional aquatic life use. Estuaries designated for high aquatic use must meet less strenuous criteria of 24-hr mean < 4.0 mg 1⁻¹ and 24-hr minimum < 3.0 mg 1⁻¹. Dissolved oxygen is a parameter used to evaluate aquatic ecosystem health. Dissolved oxygen is a useful indicator because it is required for organism respiration and microbial sediment decomposition processes (Strobel and Heltshe 2000). In addition, low DO (i.e., hypoxia) can be caused by excess nutrient inputs into the aquatic system (e.g., sewage outfalls, non-point source pollution, etc.)"--Introduction.Texas Natural Resource Conservation Commission Contract No. 582-1-30479Marine Scienc

The Role of a Summer Field Experience in Fostering STEM Students' Socioemotional Perceptions and Social Justice Awareness as Preparation for a Science Teaching Career

This study aims to better understand the role that teacher exploration programs play in supporting science teacher education recruitment and retention in ways that are consistent with social justice goals. Utilizing reflective and descriptive journal data from 126 STEM undergraduate students engaged in an intensive and immersive four-day internship that took place in summer 2015 and summer 2016, this study examines how a well-integrated field experience prepares students to consider a possible future science teaching career in high needs schools. Findings indicate that students who participated in this summer field experience program developed classroom pedagogical knowledge and skills, as well as heightened interpersonal, socioemotional understanding with respect to students. As preparation for the possibility of entering a social-justice focused credential teaching program, the internships also exposed the STEM undergraduates to high-need schools, fostered interns' social justice awareness, and provided an opportunity for them to reflect experientially – in terms of their own educational privileges and from their field time in the classrooms – on educational inequities confronting schools and students. These experiences allowed the STEM interns to more deeply appreciate the importance of connecting with students and developing positive and constructive relationships with them, a valuable foundation for those who may choose to pursue a formal social-justice oriented teacher education program

Planck-Scale Physics and the Peccei-Quinn Mechanism

Global-symmetry violating higher-dimension operators, expected to be induced by Planck-scale physics, in general drastically alter the properties of the axion field associated with the Peccei-Quinn solution to the strong-CP problem, and render this solution unnatural. The particle physics and cosmology associated with other global symmetries can also be significantly changed.Comment: 10p