The vascular flora of Falmouth (Barnstable County) Massachusetts

With a few exceptions, the species on this list of Falmouth vascular plants are substantiated by herbarium sheets, most of which are in the MBLWHOI Library Herbarium (SPWH). We invite improvements to the list by the elimination of errors and by the collection of Falmouth species not yet found. About 880 taxa are listed here, which is about 60% of Barnstable County’s 1440 or so as shown by the County Checklist (Cullina et al. 2011). Barnstable County is a geographically diverse place and not all of its vascular plants are to be expected for any one of its towns, but it seems likely that some dozens of the County’s 560 taxa not yet recorded for Falmouth are to be found in that place. We hope interested field botanists will endeavor to find these “missing” plants, collecting material so that herbarium sheets can be made for deposit in SPWH and their names added to this list. There are also many plants that have not been collected in Falmouth for many years. Material for herbarium sheets is desired for these taxa as well

Benthic fauna of the Gulf of Maine sampled by R/V Gosnold Cruise 179 and DSRV Alvin Dives 329, 330, 331, and 404 : infaunal species list

Bottom samples were collected in the Gulf of Maine during July, 1971 and June, 1972 using DSRV ALVIN and RV GOSNOLD. The techniques and results are embodied in a paper entitled "Quantitative Biological Assessment of the Benthic Fauna in the Deep Basins of the Gulf of Maine" by G. T. Rowe, P. T. Polloni and R. L. Haedrich. Many of the conclusions made in that paper were based on summaries of the abundance of each benthic species of living invertebrate animal in each kind of sample, but those original data would not be accepted by the journal (JOURNAL OF THE FISHERIES RESEARCH BOARD OF CANADA) because the table was too long. The purpose of this technical report is to put those raw data in a form available(on request from the authors)to any interested ecologists.The work was supported by ONR Contract N00014 - 66 - C00284 and NSF Grant GA 31235X

Zonation and faunal composition of epibenthic populations on the continental slope south of New England

The epibenthic macrofauna, including demersal fishes, between 140 and 1900 m on the continental slope south of New England was found to be distributed in three zones: shallow (141-285 m), middle (393-1095 m), and deep (1270-1928 m). Fauna! boundaries were associated with the transition zones from shelf to upper continental slope and from upper to lower continental slope. The small Alvin Canyon was not faunally distinct. Fishes and echinoderms were the most abundant taxa, the former predominant in shallow and middle depths and the latter predominating deeper...

Food habits of Atlantic white-sided dolphins (Lagenorhynchus acutus) off the coast of New England

This paper is not subject to U.S. copyright. The definitive version was published in Fishery Bulletin 107 (2009): 384–394.Although the Atlantic white-sided dolphin (Lagenorhynchus acutus) is one of the most common dolphins off New England, little has been documented about its diet in the western North Atlantic Ocean. Current federal protection of marine mammals limits the supply of animals for investigation to those incidentally caught in the nets of commercial fishermen with observers aboard. Stomachs of 62 L. acutus were examined; of these 62 individuals, 28 of them were caught by net and 34 were animals stranded on Cape Cod. Most of the net-caught L. acutus were from the deeper waters of the Gulf of Maine. A single stomach was from the continental slope south of Georges Bank. At least twenty-six fish species and three cephalopod species were eaten. The predominant prey were silver hake (Merluccius bilinearis), spoonarm octopus (Bathypolypus bairdii), and haddock (Melanogrammus aeglefinus). The stomach from a net-caught L. acutus on the continental slope contained 7750 otoliths of the Madeira lanternfish (Ceratoscopelus maderensis). Sand lances (Ammodytes spp.) were the most abundant (541 otoliths) species in the stomachs of stranded L. acutus. Seasonal variation in diet was indicated; pelagic Atlantic herring (Clupea harengus) was the most important prey in summer, but was rare in winter. The average length of fish prey was approximately 200 mm, and the average mantle length of cephalopod prey was approximately 50 mm

Food habits of Sowerby's beaked whales (Mesoplodon bidens) taken in the pelagic drift gillnet fishery of the western North Atlantic

We describe the food habits of the Sowerby’s beaked whale (Mesoplodon bidens) from observations of 10 individuals taken as bycatch in the pelagic drift gillnet fishery for Swordfish (Xiphias gladius) in the western North Atlantic and 1 stranded individual from Kennebunk, Maine. The stomachs of 8 bycaught whales were intact and contained prey. The diet of these 8 whales was dominated by meso- and benthopelagic fishes that composed 98.5% of the prey items found in their stomachs and cephalopods that accounted for only 1.5% of the number of prey. Otoliths and jaws representing at least 31 fish taxa from 15 families were present in the stomach contents. Fishes, primarily from the families Moridae (37.9% of prey), Myctophidae (22.9%), Macrouridae (11.2%), and Phycidae (7.2%), were present in all 8 stomachs. Most prey were from 5 fish taxa: Shortbeard Codling (Laemonema barbatulum) accounted for 35.3% of otoliths, Cocco’s Lanternfish (Lobianchia gemellarii) contributed 12.9%, Marlin-spike (Nezumia bairdii) composed 10.8%, lanternfishes (Lampanyctus spp.) accounted for 8.4%; and Longfin Hake (Phycis chesteri) contributed 6.7%. The mean number of otoliths per stomach was 1196 (range: 327–3452). Most of the fish prey found in the stomachs was quite small, ranging in length from 4.0 to 27.7 cm. We conclude that the Sowerby’s beaked whales that we examined in this study fed on large numbers of relatively small meso- and benthopelagic fishes that are abundant along the slope and shelf break of the western North Atlantic

A Contribution to the Life History of a Small Rattail Fish, Coryphaenoides carapinus

The North Atlantic macrourid Coryphaenoides (Lionurus) carapinus lives between about 1200 and 2800 m off southern New England, with greatest abundance of about 2.4 individuals/ 1000 m- in the transition zone from slope to rise. Larger individuals, mostly female, tend to live at greater depths. Winter spawning is indicated, with 50,000 to 220,000 0.5-mm eggs being produced per female. Eighty-four of 108 stomachs examined contained food. Benthic invertebrates were most important in the diet, and there was little change in food with growth. The fish feeds selectively on the ophiuroid Ophiura ljungmuni. The subgenera Nematonurus, Chalinura, and Lionurus of Coryphaenoides seem to occupy overlapping yet distinct adaptive zones, with different prey and foraging area imporlant considerations