Cold-water coral reef frameworks, megafaunal communities and evidence for coral carbonate mounds on the Hatton Bank, north east Atlantic

Offshore banks and seamounts sustain diverse megafaunal communities, including framework reefs formed by cold-water corals. Few studies have quantified environmental effects on the alpha or beta diversity of these communities. We adopted an interdisciplinary approach that used historical geophysical data to identify topographic highs on Hatton Bank, which were surveyed visually. The resulting photographic data were used to examine relationships between megafaunal communities and macrohabitat, the latter defined into six categories (mud, sand, cobbles, coral rubble, coral framework, rock). The survey stations revealed considerable small-scale variability in macrohabitat from exposed Late Palaeocene lava flows to quiescent muddy habitats and coral-built carbonate mounds. The first reported evidence for coral carbonate mound development in UK waters is presented, which was most pronounced near present-day or former sites of topographic change, suggesting that local current acceleration favoured coral framework growth and mound initiation. Alpha diversity varied significantly across macrohabitats, but not between rock and coral rubble, or between smaller grain sized categories of cobbles, sand and mud. Community composition differed between most macrohabitats, and variation in beta diversity across Hatton Bank was largely explained by fine-scale substratum. Certain megafauna were clearly associated with particular macrohabitats, with stylasterid corals notably associated with cobble and rock habitats and coral habitats characterized by a diverse community of suspension-feeders. The visual surveys also produced novel images of deep-water megafauna including a new photographic record of the gorgonian coral Paragorgia arborea, a species not previously reported from Rockall Plateau. Further interdisciplinary studies are needed to interpret beta diversity across these and other environmental gradients on Hatton Bank. It is clear that efforts are also needed to improve our understanding of the genetic connectivity and biogeography of vulnerable deep-water ecosystems and to develop predictive models of their occurrence that can help inform future conservation measures

Large Scale Offshore Surveying for the Oil Industry

The increase in engineering work on the continental shelf over the past decade has been matched by the development and wider use of electronic positioning systems designed specially for survey work rather than navigation. This is just as well in view of the oil industry’s requirement for reliable survey plans at scales of 1/5 000 or 1/10 000 at distances of 300 kilometres or more from shore, and in depths of water which may exceed 200 metres. Part I discusses the determination of position in this context; Part II gives a brief description of the requirements of a drilling rig site survey

The influence of edge effects on evapotranspiration of fragmented woodlands. Der Einfluss von Randeffekten auf die Verdunstung fragmentierter Waldbestande

The water use of forests has been the subject of many studies in the past decades. They were mostly carried out in extensive areas of woodland and achieved consistent results. However, there is as yet a large uncertainty about the role of fragmented woodlands in the catchment water balance, since water losses from small patches of woodland have rarely been measured. In the framework of the "Lowland Catchment Research" (LOCAR) programme, a 7-months field measurement campaign has been carried out in southern England in order to measure the transpiration of a mixed deciduous forest in various distances from the forest edge by means of the sap flux techniqure. The annual transpiration per unit ground area near the forest edge equalled potential evaporation and was about 60% higher than in the forest interior and similar to the transpiration of hedgerows as determined in a corresponding study. Interception evaporation was not affected by the proximity to an edge. Based on these results it is shown that the edge effect dominates the water use of small forests (<10 ha) and becomes negligible only for woodlands larger than 100 ha

Lagrangian description of world-line deviations

We introduce a Lagrangian which can be varied to give both the equation of motion and world-line deviations of spinning particles simultaneously.Comment: to appear in IJT

A study of the physiology and genetics of rapid rooting traits in lettuce (Lactuca sativa)

Lettuce is usually germinated and grown for a short period in nurseries before planting (transplanted) in the field in the UK and Europe.Plants that are transplanted are more uniform in maturity due to more uniform germination, avoid early environmental stresses and usually mature earlier than direct sown crops. Lettuce transplants need to establish quickly in the field to optimise growth and uniformity and can be exposed to stresses that include mild initial drought,variable soil and environmental conditions and root pruning. These stresses are only likely to be exacerbated with increasing pressures on growers to reduce inputs. Identification of phenotypic and genotypic variation for a “rapid rooting”trait in the lettuce gene pool therefore may enable faster establishment and has the potential to improve the performance of lettuce transplants if integrated into a marker assisted breeding programme for lettuce varieties.The following work optimised a 2D high-throughput assay to screen 14-dayold seedlings of a lettuce diversity fixed foundation set (DFFS)and identified phenotypic variation for key rapid rooting traits that could prove important for future breeding programmes. Phenotypic variation was also observedwithin the DFFS fordeeper rooting potential of lateral rootsandfor root hair traits.The 2D assay was also utilised to identify 16 significant quantitative trait loci (QTL) associated withthe rapid rooting phenotype, of which six were associated with increased primary root growth, three with increased lateral root growth, two were associated with lateral root length density, three with lateral root number density and two with mean lateral root length. Atargeted transcriptomic analysis utilising extreme lines identifiednine candidate genes located under five of the reported QTL for the “rapid rooting” phenotype. The genes coded for proteins involved in various pathways involved with root growth including cell proliferation, cell expansion, cell wall synthesis and ABA synthesis. Thesegenes mayoffer a promising approach for the improvement of lettuce establishment in a commercial breeding programme.The extreme lines were then analysed in a 3D transplant sand assay to assess the effect of altering the root:shoot ratio through controlled root pruninghad on the rapid rooting phenotype and identified that although some ofthelines behaved differently some of the lines maintain a rapid rooting phenotype at transplant maturity and recovered a larger proportion of the root:shootratio compared to the slower rooting lines and commercial controls

Localization of Quaternary slip rates in an active rift in 10(5) years: an example from central Greece constrained by U-234-Th-230 coral dates from uplifted paleoshorelines

Mapping, dating, and modeling of paleoshorelines uplifted in the footwall of the 1981 Gulf of Corinth earthquake fault, Greece (Ms 6.9–6.7), are used to assess its slip rate history relative to other normal faults in the area and study strain localization. The 234U-230Th coral ages from Cladocora caespitosa date uplifted shoreface sediments, and paleoshorelines from glacioeustatic sea level highstands at 76, (possibly) 100, 125, 175, 200, 216, 240, and 340 ka. Uplifted Quaternary and Holocene paleoshorelines decrease in elevation toward the western tip of the fault, exhibiting larger tilt angles with age, showing that uplift is due to progressive fault slip. Since 125 ka, uplift rates varied from 0.25 to 0.52 mm/yr over a distance of 5 km away from the fault tip. Tilting was also occurring prior to 125 ka, but uplift rates were lower because the 125 ka paleoshoreline is at 77% of the elevation of the 240 ka paleoshoreline despite being nearly half its age. Comparison of paleoshoreline elevations and sedimentology with the Quaternary sea level curve shows that slip rates increased by a factor of 3.2 ± 0.2 at 175 ± 75 ka, synchronous with cessation of activity on a neighboring normal fault at 382–112 ka. We suggest that the rapid localization of up to 10–15 mm/yr of extension into the narrow gulf (∼30 km wide) resulted from synchronous fault activity on neighboring faults followed by localization rather than sequential faulting, with consequences for the mechanism controlling localization of extension

Australian national birthweight percentiles by sex and gestational age, 1998-2007

Objective: To present updated national birthweight percentiles by gestational age for male and female singleton infants born in Australia. Design and setting: Cross-sectional population-based study of 2.53 million singleton live births in Australia between 1998 and 2007. Main outcome measures: Birthweight percentiles by gestational age and sex. Results: Between 1998 and 2007, women in Australia gave birth to 2 539 237 live singleton infants. Of these, 2 537 627 had a gestational age between 20 and 44 weeks, and sex and birthweight data were available. Birthweight percentiles are presented by sex and gestational age for a total of 2 528 641 births, after excluding 8986 infants with outlying birthweights. Since the publication of the previous Australian birthweight percentiles in 1999, median birthweight for term babies has increased between 0 and 25 g for boys and between 5 g and 45 g for girls. Conclusions: There has been only a small increase in birthweight percentiles for babies of both sexes and most gestational ages since 1991-1994. These national percentiles provide a current Australian reference for clinicians and researchers assessing weight at birth