Variability of continental riverine freshwater and nutrient inputs into the North Sea for the years 1977-2000 and its consequences for the assessment of eutrophication

We determined the monthly and annual riverine freshwater, nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) loading into the North Sea from Belgium, The Netherlands, and Germany for the years 1977-2000. An average of 133 km3 yr-1 of the 309 km3 yr-1 precipitation into the watershed is carried by the rivers into the sea. Total freshwater discharge fluctuates with a strong 6-7 yr periodicity, is strongly correlated with precipitation, and exhibits a slight long-term decrease. The temporal changes of regional patterns of precipitation lead to changing ratios of annual discharge of the western rivers compared to the eastern rivers, varying between 2.2 and 3.5. The long-term oscillations in discharge were more pronounced as discharge increased. The annual means of total and dissolved inorganic N and P loads were estimated to be 722 and 582 kt N yr-1 and 48 and 26 kt P yr-1, respectively. The monthly N loads were much more strongly correlated with discharge, compared to the monthly P loads. Total N and P as well as dissolved inorganic N also demonstrated a 6-7 yr periodicity. The annual N loads decreased by about 17 kt N yr-1 from 1977 to 2000. The total phosphorus and phosphate loads decreased from about 80 and 50 kt P yr-1 in the 1980s to 25 and 12 kt P yr, respectively, in the 1990s. The western rivers contributed the major part of the nutrient loads. The long-term oscillations in their nutrient loads were much more pronounced, compared to the eastern rivers. The area-specific loading rates estimated for all rivers are comparable to earlier estimates using shorter data records, smaller sample sizes, and a less complete watershed monitoring program. The monthly and annual average N:P ratios and their variability increased considerably for individual rivers during the study interval. These results confirm that the water quality of European continental rivers is strongly influenced by intense land use. They demonstrate the necessity for using long time series monitoring results to assess change and evaluate the effects of climate change on the North Sea coastal ecosystems, using ecosystem models on decadal time scales

Future observational and modelling needs identified on the basis of the existing shelf data

NOWESP has compiled a vast quantity of existing data from the North-West European Shelf. Such a focused task is without precedence. It is now highly recommended that one, or a few national and international data centres or agencies should be chosen and properly supported by the EU, where all available observational data, including the NOWESP data, are collected, stored, regularly updated by the providers of the data, and made available to the researchers. International agreement must be reached on the quality control procedures and quality standards for data to be stored in these data bases. Proper arrangements should be made to preserve the economic value of the data for their "owners" without compromising use of the data by researchers or duplicating data collecting efforts. The continental shelf data needed are concentration fields of temperature, salinity, nutrients, suspended matter and chlorophyll, which can be called "climatological" fields. For this purpose at least one monthly survey on the whole European shelf is needed at least during five years, with a proper spatial resolution e.g. 1 degree by 1 degree, and at least in those areas where climatological data are now totally lacking. From the modelling point of view an alternative would be the availability of data from sufficiently representative fixed stations on the shelf, with weekly sampling for several years

Annual variability in the seasonal cycles of chlorophyll, nutrients and zooplankton on the North-West European continental shelf

Seasonal cycles of salinity, nutrients, chlorophyll and zooplankton at 8 locations on the West-European shelf were analysed with respect to their timing and magnitude in the period 1980-1984. A late spring bloom with low chlorophyll values (2-4 mg.m-³) is observed in the Irish Sea, off the Scottish east coast and the Channel entrance. An early spring bloom and relatively high chlorophyll values (7-12 mg.m-³) are found in the southern Bight and the Skagerrak, whereas a late spring bloom with high chlorophyll concentrations (24 mg.m-³) is found along the Dutch and Belgian coast. In contrast to the other regions, the peak of the phytoplankton cycle in the German Bight (Helgoland) occurs in the summer period instead of the spring period. The peak in the yearly abundance of copepods shifts from May-June in the south to July-August in the north of the shelf. In the Irish Sea and the Channel entrance two seasonal copepods peaks are observed. The January nitrate values in Irish Sea, the southern Bight and the Skagerrak are about 20 % higher than those in the Atlantic input signal in the Channel entrance and east off Scotland. The January DIP values in these regions are comparable to those of the input signal, but the Irish Sea forms an exception here the level is increased by 10-20%. If compared with the Atlantic input signal the January values for nitrate and DIP at the Dutch and Belgium coast are about 10 and 4, and in the German Bight (Helgoland) 4 and 3 times higher, respectively. At most sites changes in the seasonal cycles of chorophyll coincide with changes in nutrient concentrations, wheras the maximum level of the seasonal signal is related to the nutrient levels

The effects of changes in the order of verbal labels and numerical values on children's scores on attitude and rating scales

Research with adults has shown that variations in verbal labels and numerical scale values on rating scales can affect the responses given. However, few studies have been conducted with children. The study aimed to examine potential differences in children’s responses to Likert-type rating scales according to their anchor points and scale direction, and to see whether or not such differences were stable over time. 130 British children, aged 9 to 11, completed six sets of Likert-type rating scales, presented in four different ways varying the position of positive labels and numerical values. The results showed, both initially and 8-12 weeks later, that presenting a positive label or a high score on the left of a scale led to significantly higher mean scores than did the other variations. These findings indicate that different arrangements of rating scales can produce different results which has clear implications for the administration of scales with children

Phytoplankton competition in deep biomass maximum

Resource competition in heterogeneous environments is still an unresolved problem of theoretical ecology. In this article I analyze competition between two phytoplankton species in a deep water column, where the distributions of main resources (light and a limiting nutrient) have opposing gradients and co-limitation by both resources causes a deep biomass maximum. Assuming that the species have a trade-off in resource requirements and the water column is weakly mixed, I apply the invasion threshold analysis (Ryabov and Blasius 2011) to determine relations between environmental conditions and phytoplankton composition. Although species deplete resources in the interior of the water column, the resource levels at the bottom and surface remain high. As a result, the slope of resources gradients becomes a new crucial factor which, rather than the local resource values, determines the outcome of competition. The value of resource gradients nonlinearly depend on the density of consumers. This leads to complex relationships between environmental parameters and species composition. In particular, it is shown that an increase of both the incident light intensity or bottom nutrient concentrations favors the best light competitors, while an increase of the turbulent mixing or background turbidity favors the best nutrient competitors. These results might be important for prediction of species composition in deep ocean.Comment: 13 pages, 7 figures; Theoretical Ecology 201

Parafoveal preview effects from word N+1 and word N+2 during reading: A critical review and Bayesian meta-analysis

The use of gaze-contingent display techniques to study reading has shown that readers attend not only to the currently fixated word, but also to the word to the right of the current fixation. However, a critical look at the literature shows that there are a number of questions that cannot be readily answered from the available literature reviews on the topic. First, there is no consensus on whether readers also attend to the second word to the right of fixation. Second, it is not clear whether parafoveal processing is more efficient in languages such as Chinese. Third, it is not well understood whether the measured effects are confounded by the properties of the parafoveal mask. The present study addressed these issues by performing a Bayesian meta-analysis of 93 experiments that used the boundary paradigm (Rayner, 1975). There were three main findings: 1) the advantage of previewing the second word to the right is modest in size and likely not centred on zero; 2) Chinese readers seem to make a more efficient use of parafoveal processing, but this is mostly evident in gaze duration; 3) there are interference effects associated with using different parafoveal masks that roughly increase when the mask is less word-like