372 research outputs found
Potential impacts of offshore oil spills on polar bears in the Chukchi Sea
Sea ice decline is anticipated to increase human access to the Arctic Ocean allowing for offshore oil and gas development in once inaccessible areas. Given the potential negative consequences of an oil spill on marine wildlife populations in the Arctic, it is important to understand the magnitude of impact a large spill could have on wildlife to inform response planning efforts. In this study we simulated oil spills that released 25,000 barrels of oil for 30 days in autumn originating from two sites in the Chukchi Sea (one in Russia and one in the U.S.) and tracked the distribution of oil for 76 days. We then determined the potential impact such a spill might have on polar bears (Ursus maritimus) and their habitat by overlapping spills with maps of polar bear habitat and movement trajectories. Only a small proportion (1 -10%) of high-value polar bear sea ice habitat was directly affected by oil sufficient to impact bears. However, 27-38% of polar bears in the region were potentially exposed to oil. Oil consistently had the highest probability of reaching Wrangel and Herald islands, important areas of denning and summer terrestrial habitat. Oil did not reach polar bears until approximately 3 weeks after the spills. Our study found the potential for significant impacts to polar bears under a worst case discharge scenario, but suggests that there is a window of time where effective containment efforts could minimize exposure to bears. Our study provides a framework for wildlife managers and planners to assess the level of response that would be required to treat exposed wildlife and where spill response equipment might be best stationed. While the size of spill we simulated has a low probability of occurring, it provides an upper limit for planners to consider when crafting response plans
Folding domains and intramolecular ionic interactions of lysine residues in glyceraldehyde 3-phosphate dehydrogenase
Selective inactivation of the transacylase components of the 2-oxo acid dehydrogenase multienzyme complexes of Escherichia coli
Purification of 2-oxo acid dehydrogenase multienzyme complexes from ox heart by a new method
Expression in Escherichia coli of a sub-gene encoding the lipoyl and peripheral subunit-binding domains of the dihydrolipoamide acetyltransferase component of the pyruvate dehydrogenase complex of Bacillus stearothermophilus
The role of lipoic acid residues in the pyruvate dehydrogenase multienzyme complex of Escherichia coli
Effects of modification of the tyrosine residues of bacteriorhodopsin with tetranitromethane
Temperature-dependence of intramolecular coupling of active sites in pyruvate dehydrogenase multienzyme complexes
The shape of invasion perclation clusters in random and correlated media
The shape of two-dimensional invasion percolation clusters are studied
numerically for both non-trapping (NTIP) and trapping (TIP) invasion
percolation processes. Two different anisotropy quantifiers, the anisotropy
parameter and the asphericity are used for probing the degree of anisotropy of
clusters. We observe that in spite of the difference in scaling properties of
NTIP and TIP, there is no difference in the values of anisotropy quantifiers of
these processes. Furthermore, we find that in completely random media, the
invasion percolation clusters are on average slightly less isotropic than
standard percolation clusters. Introducing isotropic long-range correlations
into the media reduces the isotropy of the invasion percolation clusters. The
effect is more pronounced for the case of persisting long-range correlations.
The implication of boundary conditions on the shape of clusters is another
subject of interest. Compared to the case of free boundary conditions, IP
clusters of conventional rectangular geometry turn out to be more isotropic.
Moreover, we see that in conventional rectangular geometry the NTIP clusters
are more isotropic than TIP clusters
Limited proteolysis of the pyruvate dehydrogenase multienzyme complex of Bacillus subtilis
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