The feeding ecology of some zooplankters that are important prey items of larval fish

Diets of 76 species of fish larvae from most oceans of the world were inventoried on the basis of information in 40 published studies. Although certaln geographlc, size- and taxon-specific patterns were apparent, certain zooplankton taxa appeared in the diets of larvae of a variety of fish species in numerous localities. Included were six genera of calanoid copepods (Acartia, Calanus, Centropages, Paracalanus, Pseudocaianus, Temora), three genera of cyclopoid copepods (Corycaeus, Oilhona, Oncata), harpacticoid copepods, copepod nauplii, tintinoids, cladocerans of the genera Evadne and Podon, barnacle nauplii, gastropod larvae, pteropods of the genus Limacina, and appendicularians. Literature on feeding habits of these zooplankters reveals that most of the copepods are omnivorous, feeding upon both phytoplankton and other zooplankton. Some taxa, such as Calanus, Paracalanus, Pseudocalanus, and copepod nauplii appear to be primarily herbivorous, while others, such as Acartia, Centropages, Temora, and cyclopoids exhibit broad omnivory or carnivory. The noncopepod zooplankters are primarily filter-feeders upon pbytoplankton and/or bacterioplankton. Despite the importance of zooplankters in larval fish food webs, spectic knowledge of the feeding ecology of many taxa is poor. Further, much present knowledge comes only from laboratory investigations that may not accurately portray feeding habits of zooplankters in nature. Lack of knowledge of the feeding ecology of many abundant zooplankters, which are also important in larval fish food webs, precludes realistic understanding of pelagic ecosystem dynamics. (PDF file contains 34 pages.

Western Maine Coastal Current reduces primary production rates, zooplankton abundance and benthic nutrient fluxes in Massachusetts Bay

Author Posting. © The Author(s), 2013. This is the author's version of the work. It is posted here by permission of Oxford University Press for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in ICES Journal of Marine Science 71 (2014): 1158-1169, doi:10.1093/icesjms/fst195.Primary production was measured from 1992-2010 in Massachusetts Bay and just outside Boston Harbor for the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority’s outfall monitoring program. In 2003, annual primary production decreased by 221-278 g C m-2 year-1, with decreased rates continuing through 2010. Based on a conceptual model, oceanographic and meteorological variables were analyzed with production rates to determine if concurrent environmental changes were responsible for the reduced primary production in Massachusetts Bay. Results indicated that stronger influx of low salinity water from the western Maine Coastal Current (WMCC) in recent years might be responsible for the decreases. The WMCC appeared to have become fresher from increased river discharge in the western Gulf of Maine. Northeasterly winds in recent years promoted WMCC intrusion into Massachusetts Bay. Correlation between primary production and surface salinities suggested the impact of the WMCC on production rates. We hypothesized that increased stratification resulted in reduced vertical mixing and nutrient concentrations in surface waters for phytoplankton growth. However, no significant correlations were observed between the annual primary production and nutrient concentrations in Massachusetts Bay. Reduced production rates in Massachusetts Bay have been associated with reduced zooplankton abundances, benthic ammonium fluxes and sediment oxygen demand in summer months.Funding for this work was provided by the MWRA on a contract awarded to Battelle Ocean Sciences (Project Number 215515), and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Award Number NA05NOS4781201).2015-01-0

Comparison of the effects of two bongo net mesh sizes on the estimation of abundance and size of Engraulidae eggs

Resumo Estudos sobre a retenção do ictioplâncton por redes com diferentes tamanhos de malhas são importantes, pois ajudam na escolha do amostrador durante o planejamento da coleta e possibilitam o estabelecimento de fatores de correção. Tais fatores permitem a realização de comparações entre trabalhos realizados com diferentes malhagens. Na maioria dos estudos focando a retenção de ovos de peixes por diferentes tamanhos de malhas, a identificação taxonômica é feita até o nível de família, resultando na perda de informações mais detalhadas. Os ovos analisados foram obtidos em 172 estações oceanográficas realizadas na Plataforma Continental Sudeste do Brasil, com rede bongô de malhas 0,333 e 0,505 mm. Os ovos de Engraulidae foram separados em quatro tipos de acordo com características morfométricas tipos A, B, C (Engraulis anchoita) e D, ovos de menor volume. Apenas os ovos de E. anchoita, de maior excentricidade, e do tipo D, de menor volume, foram significativamente mais abundantes na rede de 0,333 mm, embora suas dimensões não tenham diferido entre as capturas realizadas com as duas malhagens e o tamanho do eixo menor desses dois tipos não tenha excedido 0,71 mm, valor semelhante à diagonal da malha de 0,505 mm.Abstract Studies of ichthyoplankton retention by nets of different mesh sizes are important because they help in choosing a sampler when planning collection and the establishment of correction factors. These factors make it possible to compare studies performed with nets of different mesh sizes. In most studies of mesh retention of fish eggs, the taxonomic identification is done at the family level, resulting in the loss of detailed information. We separated Engraulidae eggs, obtained with 0.333 mm and 0.505 mm mesh bongo nets at 172 oceanographic stations in the southeastern Brazilian Bight, into four groups based on their morphometric characteristics. The difference in the abundance of eggs caught by the two nets was not significant for those groups with highest volume, types A and B, but in type C (Engraulis anchoita), the most eccentric, and in type D, of the smallest volume, the difference was significant. However, no significant difference was observed in the egg size sampled with each net for E. anchoita and type D, which exhibited higher abundance in the 0.333 mm mesh net and minor axis varying from 0.45-0.71 mm, smaller than the 0.505 mm mesh aperture and the mesh diagonal

Preface

Author Posting. © The Author(s), 2014. This is the author's version of the work. It is posted here by permission of Elsevier for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Deep Sea Research Part II: Topical Studies in Oceanography 103 (2014): 1-5, doi:10.1016/j.dsr2.2014.02.007.The Gulf of Maine (GOM) is a continental shelf sea in the northwest Atlantic, USA that supports highly-productive shellfisheries that are frequently contaminated by toxigenic Alexandrium fundyense blooms and outbreaks of paralytic shellfish poisoning (PSP), resulting in significant economic and social impacts. Additionally, an emerging threat to these resources is from blooms of toxic Pseudo-nitzschia species that produce domoic acid, the toxin responsible for amnesic shellfish poisoning (ASP). Nearshore shellfish toxins are monitored by state agencies, whereas most offshore stocks have had little or no routine monitoring. As a result, large areas of federal waters have been indefinitely closed or their shellfish beds underexploited because of the potential risk these toxins pose and the lack of scientific understanding and management tools. Patterns and dynamics of Alexandrium blooms and the resulting shellfish toxicity in nearshore waters were examined in a number of research projects, the largest being the Ecology and Oceanography of Harmful Algal Blooms (ECOHAB)-Gulf of Maine (GOM), a five-year regional program emphasizing field surveys, laboratory studies and numerical modeling. At the completion of the ECOHAB-GOM program (documented in Anderson et al., 2005), great progress was made in understanding A. fundyense blooms and resulting shellfish toxicity in nearshore waters, but there were major unknowns that still required investigation. For example, little was known about A. fundyense bloom dynamics in the waters south and east of Cape Cod, Massachusetts, and in particular, about the link between blooms in surface waters and toxicity in deep offshore shellfish. Large areas of offshore shellfish beds were off limits to harvest, including a 40,000 km2 region closed during the 2005 bloom and a much larger zone (~80,000 km2) including portions of Georges Bank was closed in 1990 after high levels of PSP toxicity were detected. In recent years, pressures were mounting from industry to open those offshore areas and to develop management strategies so that surfclam (Spisula solidissima), ocean quahog (Arctica islandica), and roe-on sea scallop (Placopecten magellanicus) fisheries could be opened. In response to these unknowns and societal needs, a new multi-investigator program, GOMTOX (Gulf of Maine Toxicity), was formulated and ultimately funded through the NOAA ECOHAB program. GOMTOX was a regional observation and modeling program that investigated the patterns and mechanisms underlying A. fundyense and Pseudo-nitzschia blooms and the resulting toxicity in shellfish in the southern GOM and its adjacent New England shelf waters, with special emphasis on the delivery pathways, mechanisms, and dynamics of offshore shellfish toxicity. The GOMTOX team of investigators included 16 principal investigators from eight institutions and, continuing in the ECOHAB-GOM tradition, strong participation from federal and state resource managers as well as representatives of the shellfish industry. This team worked together for over five years, running numerous large-scale survey cruises of Alexandrium cells and cysts, and also supporting industry cruises to collect shellfish from offshore sites including Georges Bank. Other efforts included participation in National Marine Fisheries Service surveys for shellfish (sea scallops, surfclams, and ocean quahogs), numerical modeling studies, deployment of sediment traps, and laboratory and ship-based experiments to investigate grazing and other processes that might regulate blooms and deliver toxins to shellfish in deeper waters. A smaller-scale but concurrent effort collected samples to characterize Pseudo-nitzschia species and their potential toxicity in the region.We gratefully acknowledge the support of NOAA through the ECOHAB program. Partial support for some of the studies contained herein was provided by NSF and NIEHS through the Woods Hole Center for Oceans and Human Health. Funding for J.L. Martin’s contributions from the Bay of Fundy was provided by Fisheries and Oceans Canada and NERACOOS, which is a part of the U.S. Integrated Ocean Observing System, funded in part by National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)

PSP toxin levels and plankton community composition and abundance in size-fractionated vertical profiles during spring/summer blooms of the toxic dinoflagellate Alexandrium fundyense in the Gulf of Maine and on Georges Bank, 2007, 2008, and 2010 : 1. Toxin levels

This paper is not subject to U.S. copyright. The definitive version was published in Deep Sea Research Part II: Topical Studies in Oceanography 103 (2014): 329–349, doi:10.1016/j.dsr2.2013.04.013.As part of the NOAA ECOHAB funded Gulf of Maine Toxicity (GOMTOX)1 project, we determined Alexandrium fundyense abundance, paralytic shellfish poisoning (PSP) toxin composition, and concentration in quantitatively-sampled size-fractionated (20–64, 64–100, 100–200, 200–500, and >500 μm) particulate water samples, and the community composition of potential grazers of A. fundyense in these size fractions, at multiple depths (typically 1, 10, 20 m, and near-bottom) during 10 large-scale sampling cruises during the A. fundyense bloom season (May–August) in the coastal Gulf of Maine and on Georges Bank in 2007, 2008, and 2010. Our findings were as follows: (1) when all sampling stations and all depths were summed by year, the majority (94%±4%) of total PSP toxicity was contained in the 20–64 μm size fraction; (2) when further analyzed by depth, the 20–64 μm size fraction was the primary source of toxin for 97% of the stations and depths samples over three years; (3) overall PSP toxin profiles were fairly consistent during the three seasons of sampling with gonyautoxins (1, 2, 3, and 4) dominating (90.7%±5.5%), followed by the carbamate toxins saxitoxin (STX) and neosaxitoxin (NEO) (7.7%±4.5%), followed by n-sulfocarbamoyl toxins (C1 and 2, GTX5) (1.3%±0.6%), followed by all decarbamoyl toxins (dcSTX, dcNEO, dcGTX2&3) (<1%), although differences were noted between PSP toxin compositions for nearshore coastal Gulf of Maine sampling stations compared to offshore Georges Bank sampling stations for 2 out of 3 years; (4) surface cell counts of A. fundyense were a fairly reliable predictor of the presence of toxins throughout the water column; and (5) nearshore surface cell counts of A. fundyense in the coastal Gulf of Maine were not a reliable predictor of A. fundyense populations offshore on Georges Bank for 2 out of the 3 years sampled.Vangie Shue was supported through the FDA and also through the Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology Mentorship Program. Research support was provided by National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Grant NA06NOS4780245 for the Gulf of Maine Toxicity (GOMTOX) program. BAK, DJM, and DMA were partially supported by the Woods Hole Center for Oceans and Human Health through National Science Foundation Grants OCE-0430724 and OCE-0911031 and National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences Grant 1P50-ES01274201

Resistance through realism : Youth subculture films in 1970s (and 1980s) Britain

This document is the Accepted Manuscript version of the following article: Nathaniel Weiner, ‘Resistance through realism: Youth subculture films in 1970s (and 1980s) Britain’. The final, definitive version of this paper has been published in European Journal of Cultural Studies, November 2015, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/1367549415603376. Published by SAGE Publishing.Film scholars have argued that the British social realist films of the late 1950s and early 1960s reflect the concerns articulated by British cultural studies during the same period. This article looks at how the social realist films of the 1970s and early 1980s similarly reflect the concerns of British cultural studies scholarship produced by the University of Birmingham’s Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies during the 1970s. It argues that the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies’ approach to stylised working-class youth subcultures is echoed in the portrayal of youth subcultures in the social realist films Pressure (1976), Bloody Kids (1979), Babylon (1980) and Made in Britain (1982). This article explores the ways in which these films show us both the strengths and weaknesses of the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies’ work on subcultures.Peer reviewe

Charting the course for a Blue Economy in Peru: A Research Agenda

Ocean- and coastal-based economic activities are increasingly recognised as key drivers for supporting global economies. This move towards the “blue economy” is becoming globally widespread, with the recognition that if ocean-based activities are to be sustainable, they will need to move beyond solely extractive and exploitative endeavours, aligning more closely with marine conservation and effective marine spatial planning. In this paper we define the “blue economy” as a “platform for strategic, integrated and participatory coastal and ocean development and protection that incorporates a low carbon economy, the ecosystem approach and human well-being through advancing regional industries, services and activities”. In Peru, while the seas contribute greatly to the national economy, the full potential of the blue economy has yet to be realised. This paper presents the findings of an early career scientist workshop in Lima, Peru, in March 2016. The workshop “Advancing Green Growth in Peru” brought together researchers to identify challenges and opportunities for green growth across three Peruvian economic sectors—tourism, transport and the blue economy with this paper exploring in detail the priorities generated from the “blue economy” stream. These priorities include themes such as marine spatial planning, detailed evaluations of existing maritime industries (e.g. guano collection and fisheries), development of an effective MPA network, support for sustainable coastal tourism, and better inclusion of social science disciplines in understanding societal and political support for a Peruvian blue economy. In addition, the paper discusses the research requirements associated with these priorities. While not a comprehensive list, these priorities provide a starting point for future dialogue on a co-ordinated scientific platform supporting the blue growth agenda in Peru, and in other regions working towards a successful “blue economy”

Neoconservatism as Discourse:Virtue, Power and US Foreign Policy

Neoconservatism in US foreign policy is a hotly contested subject, yet most scholars broadly agree on what it is and where it comes from. From a consensus that it first emerged around the 1960s, these scholars view neoconservatism through what we call the &lsquo;3Ps&rsquo; approach, defining it as a particular group of people (&lsquo;neocons&rsquo;), an array of foreign policy preferences and/or an ideological commitment to a set of principles. While descriptively intuitive, this approach reifies neoconservatism in terms of its specific and often static &lsquo;symptoms&rsquo; rather than its dynamic constitutions. These reifications may reveal what is emblematic of neoconservatism in its particular historical and political context, but they fail to offer deeper insights into what is constitutive of neoconservatism. Addressing this neglected question, this article dislodges neoconservatism from itsperceived home in the &lsquo;3Ps&rsquo; and ontologically redefines it as a discourse. Adopting aFoucauldian approach of archaeological and genealogical discourse analysis, we trace itsdiscursive formations primarily to two powerful and historically enduring discourses ofthe American self &mdash; virtue and power &mdash; and illustrate how these discourses produce aparticular type of discursive fusion that is &lsquo;neoconservatism&rsquo;. We argue that to betterappreciate its continued effect on contemporary and future US foreign policy, we needto pay close attention to those seemingly innocuous yet deeply embedded discoursesabout the US and its place in the world, as well as to the people, policies and principlesconventionally associated with neoconservatism

Reporting bias in medical research - a narrative review

Reporting bias represents a major problem in the assessment of health care interventions. Several prominent cases have been described in the literature, for example, in the reporting of trials of antidepressants, Class I anti-arrhythmic drugs, and selective COX-2 inhibitors. The aim of this narrative review is to gain an overview of reporting bias in the medical literature, focussing on publication bias and selective outcome reporting. We explore whether these types of bias have been shown in areas beyond the well-known cases noted above, in order to gain an impression of how widespread the problem is. For this purpose, we screened relevant articles on reporting bias that had previously been obtained by the German Institute for Quality and Efficiency in Health Care in the context of its health technology assessment reports and other research work, together with the reference lists of these articles

Why we need easy access to all data from all clinical trials and how to accomplish it

International calls for registering all trials involving humans and for sharing the results, and sometimes also the raw data and the trial protocols, have increased in recent years. Such calls have come, for example, from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the World Health Organization (WHO), the US National Institutes of Heath, the US Congress, the European Commission, the European ombudsman, journal editors, The Cochrane Collaboration, and several funders, for example the UK Medical Research Council, the Wellcome Trust, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Hewlett Foundation