Lessons Learned from the 9/11 and WMD Commissions: IRTPA, CIA and the Intelligence Community

At the request of the CIA's Center for the Study of Intelligence, a team from the Bush School conducted an inquiry to determine how the CIA responded to the investigations of the 9/11 and WMD Commissions. The goal of the project, which involved interviews with several commissioners and numerous key staff members, was to identify what actions the D/CIA must take when confronted with future commissions to ensure that the most accurate picture of the Agency is presented, while preventing the formation of inaccurate negative impressions created by the manner in which Agency personnel interact with investigators. At the conclusion of the Capstone, the students prepared a report and orally briefed Agency supervisors on their findings and recommendations.Center for the Study of Intelligence, Central Intelligence Agenc

Carbonate compensation depth drives abyssal biogeography in the northeast Pacific

Abyssal seafloor communities cover more than 60% of Earth’s surface. Despite their great size, abyssal plains extend across modest environmental gradients compared to other marine ecosystems. However, little is known about the patterns and processes regulating biodiversity or potentially delimiting biogeographical boundaries at regional scales in the abyss. Improved macroecological understanding of remote abyssal environments is urgent as threats of widespread anthropogenic disturbance grow in the deep ocean. Here, we use a new, basin-scale dataset to show the existence of clear regional zonation in abyssal communities across the 5,000 km span of the Clarion–Clipperton Zone (northeast Pacific), an area targeted for deep-sea mining. We found two pronounced biogeographic provinces, deep and shallow-abyssal, separated by a transition zone between 4,300 and 4,800 m depth. Surprisingly, species richness was maintained across this boundary by phylum-level taxonomic replacements. These regional transitions are probably related to calcium carbonate saturation boundaries as taxa dependent on calcium carbonate structures, such as shelled molluscs, appear restricted to the shallower province. Our results suggest geochemical and climatic forcing on distributions of abyssal populations over large spatial scales and provide a potential paradigm for deep-sea macroecology, opening a new basis for regional-scale biodiversity research and conservation strategies in Earth’s largest biome.</p

Abyssal NE Pacific Seafloor Megafauna Dataset

Benthic megafauna (animals &amp;gt; 10 mm) observations from seabed imagery data across the NE Pacific abyss Data repository associated with the following manuscript: Simon-Lled&oacute;, E., Amon, D.J., Bribiesca&#x2010;Contreras, G., Cuvelier, D., Durden, J.M., Ramalho, S.P., Uhlenkott, K., Martinez Arbizu, P., Benoist, N., Copley, J., Dahlgren, T.G., Glover, A.G., Fleming, B., Horton, T., Ju, S-J., Mejia-Saenz, A., McQuaid, K., Pape, E., Park, C., Smith, C.R., and Jones, D.O.B. (in press). Carbonate compensation depth drives abyssal biogeography in the northeast Pacific. Nature Ecology &amp;amp; Evolution</span