Onboard sampling of the rockfish and lingcod commerical passenger fishing vessel industry in northern and central California, January through December 1995

The Central California Marine Sport Fish Project has been collecting angler catch data on board Commercial Passenger Fishing Vessels (CPFVs) fishing for rockfish or lingcod since 1987. The program depends on the voluntary cooperation of CPFV owners and operators. This fifth report in a series presents data collected in 1995, refers to historical data from 1987 to 1994, and documents trends in species composition, angler effort, catch per unit effort (CPUE), and, for selected species, mean length, and length frequency. Angler catches on board central and northern California CPFVs were sampled from 12 ports, ranging from Fort Bragg in the north to Port San Luis (Avila Beach) in the south. Technicians observed a total of 1829 anglers fishing on 218 CPFV trips. These observed anglers caught 26,197 fish of which samplers determined 22,888 were kept. Over 62% of these fish were caught at Monterey or Morro Bay area ports. Only 18 of 55 species comprised at least one percent of the catch. The top ten species in order of abundance were yellowtail, blue, olive, and rosy rockfishes, lingcod, and canary, widow, gopher, starry, and vermilion rockfishes. Blue and yellowtail rockfishes together comprised approximately 47% of the observed catch. Overall, rockfishes represented 35 species or 64% of the 55 identified species. By number, rockfishes comprised 91.9 % of the observed catch. All CPUE and length data collected since 1987 were partitioned into six location groups for each port area, based on a combination of location, bottom depth, and distance from the nearest port. This allowed examination of indicator trends without potential biases due to non-random trip selection or ontogenetic changes in depth distribution for certain rockfishes. Results indicate that the two primary species in the northern and central California CPFV fishery, blue and yellowtail rockfishes (accounting for 47% of all observed fish in 1995), are in reasonably good condition with no steady declines in either average catch per angler hour or mean length during the last 8 years. The primary species of concern are mainly shallow-water species impacted by a recently expanded commercial hook-and-line fishery or deep-water species (chilipepper and bocaccio) which are fished intensively by the commercial industry and have experienced recent statewide stock declines. Estimated total rockfish catch, adjusted by logbook compliance rates and on board sampling data, has declined significantly in all port areas since 1992. This is largely attributable to increased recreational fishing effort for salmon as well as coast-wide stock declines in several important commercially fished species. (112pp.

Was Langzeitversuche für die Biolandbau-Forschung bedeuten

Langzeitversuche können Systemzusammenhänge des ökologischen Landbaus erklären und ergänzen faktorielle Untersuchungen. Welchen Charakter sie besitzen und wie sie zum Kulturdenkmal werden, beschreiben die Leiter des DOK-Langzeitversuchs Paul Mäder und Jochen Mayer. Der Beitrag wurde im April 2014 in der Zeitschrift Ökologie&Landbau publiziert. Diesem Eprint-Eintrag sind Beitrag als auch ergänzende Informationen beigefügt

Coaching Model of Performance Appraisal: A Local Case Study

The performance appraisal process is viewed by many as a key management tool that can enhance the development, communication, and implementation of an organisation's strategy, yet critics still debate the benefits. This paper uses a case study to explore the perceptions of staff of changing from a "Traditional" to a "Developmental" approach of performance appraisal.The case organisation updated their performance appraisal system by utilising technology, refocusing the performance appraisal competency areas and increasing the frequency of the appraisal process. The changes reflect the emerging trends of the performance appraisal process.Exploratory research was undertaken to determine whether these changes were viewed by staff and management as a positive improvement and whether the change supported contemporary performance appraisal initiatives commented upon within the literature

A revision of brain composition in Onychophora (velvet worms) suggests that the tritocerebrum evolved in arthropods

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The composition of the arthropod head is one of the most contentious issues in animal evolution. In particular, controversy surrounds the homology and innervation of segmental cephalic appendages by the brain. Onychophora (velvet worms) play a crucial role in understanding the evolution of the arthropod brain, because they are close relatives of arthropods and have apparently changed little since the Early Cambrian. However, the segmental origins of their brain neuropils and the number of cephalic appendages innervated by the brain - key issues in clarifying brain composition in the last common ancestor of Onychophora and Arthropoda - remain unclear.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Using immunolabelling and neuronal tracing techniques in the developing and adult onychophoran brain, we found that the major brain neuropils arise from only the anterior-most body segment, and that two pairs of segmental appendages are innervated by the brain. The region of the central nervous system corresponding to the arthropod tritocerebrum is not differentiated as part of the onychophoran brain but instead belongs to the ventral nerve cords.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Our results contradict the assumptions of a tripartite (three-segmented) brain in Onychophora and instead confirm the hypothesis of bipartite (two-segmented) brain composition. They suggest that the last common ancestor of Onychophora and Arthropoda possessed a brain consisting of protocerebrum and deutocerebrum whereas the tritocerebrum evolved in arthropods.</p

Evidence for proteolytic cleavage of brevican by the ADAMTSs in the dentate gyrus after excitotoxic lesion of the mouse entorhinal cortex

BACKGROUND: Brevican is a member of the lectican family of aggregating extracellular matrix (ECM) proteoglycans that bear chondroitin sulfate (CS) chains. It is highly expressed in the central nervous system (CNS) and is thought to stabilize synapses and inhibit neural plasticity and as such, neuritic or synaptic remodeling would be less likely to occur in regions with intact and abundant, lectican-containing, ECM complexes. Neural plasticity may occur more readily when these ECM complexes are broken down by endogenous proteases, the ADAMTSs (adisintegrin and metalloproteinase with thrombospondin motifs), that selectively cleave the lecticans. The purpose of these experiments was to determine whether the production of brevican or the ADAMTS-cleaved fragments of brevican were altered after deafferentation and reinnervation of the dentate gyrus via entorhinal cortex lesion (ECL). RESULTS: In the C57Bl6J mouse, synaptic density in the molecular layer of the dentate gyrus, as measured by synaptophysin levels in ELISA, was significantly attenuated 2 days (nearly 50% of contralateral) and 7 days after lesion and returned to levels not different from the contralateral region at 30 days. Immunoreactive brevican in immunoblot was elevated 2 days after lesion, whereas there was a significant increase in the proteolytic product at 7, but not 30 days post-lesion. ADAMTS activity, estimated using the ratio of the specific ADAMTS-derived brevican fragment and intact brevican levels was increased at 7 days, but was not different from the contralateral side at 2 or 30 days after deafferentation. CONCLUSION: These findings indicate that ADAMTS activity in the dentate outer molecular layer (OML) is elevated during the initial synaptic reinnervation period (7 days after lesion). Therefore, proteolytic processing of brevican appears to be a significant extracellular event in the remodeling of the dentate after EC lesion, and may modulate the process of sprouting and/or synaptogenesis