Big catch, little sharks: Insight into Peruvian small-scale longline fisheries.

PublishedJournal ArticleThis is the final version of the article. Available from Wiley Open Access via the DOI in this record.Shark take, driven by vast demand for meat and fins, is increasing. We set out to gain insights into the impact of small-scale longline fisheries in Peru. Onboard observers were used to document catch from 145 longline fishing trips (1668 fishing days) originating from Ilo, southern Peru. Fishing effort is divided into two seasons: targeting dolphinfish (Coryphaena hippurus; December to February) and sharks (March to November). A total of 16,610 sharks were observed caught, with 11,166 identified to species level. Of these, 70.6% were blue sharks (Prionace glauca), 28.4% short-fin mako sharks (Isurus oxyrinchus), and 1% were other species (including thresher (Alopias vulpinus), hammerhead (Sphyrna zygaena), porbeagle (Lamnus nasus), and other Carcharhinidae species (Carcharhinus brachyurus, Carcharhinus falciformis, Galeorhinus galeus). Mean ± SD catch per unit effort of 33.6 ± 10.9 sharks per 1000 hooks was calculated for the shark season and 1.9 ± 3.1 sharks per 1000 hooks were caught in the dolphinfish season. An average of 83.7% of sharks caught (74.7% blue sharks; 93.3% mako sharks) were deemed sexually immature and under the legal minimum landing size, which for species exhibiting k-selected life history traits can result in susceptibility to over exploitation. As these growing fisheries operate along the entire Peruvian coast and may catch millions of sharks per annum, we conclude that their continued expansion, along with ineffective legislative approaches resulting in removal of immature individuals, has the potential to threaten the sustainability of the fishery, its target species, and ecosystem. There is a need for additional monitoring and research to inform novel management strategies for sharks while maintaining fisher livelihoods.We would like to thank the members of the fishing communities who participated in this study, in particular the fishers who were willing to have an observer onboard. We acknowledge Pro Delphinus staff: Bernedo, Cuentas, Lopez, and Mamani, for their help in data collection. We are thankful also to Pro Delphinus staff Natalia Ortiz and Nadia Balducci for support in data entry. This study was conducted in conjunction with and funded by the Darwin Initiative Sustainable Artisanal Fisheries Initiative in Peru and an initial grant from the Oak Foundation through Duke University. MJW was funded by PRIMaRE. JAS and JCM received support from ORSAS and University of Exeter, respectively

Assessing the impact of introduced infrastructure at sea with cameras: A case study for spatial scale, time and statistical power

This is the Final version. Available on open access from Elsevier via the DOI in this recordDetecting the effects of introduced artificial structures on the marine environment relies upon research and monitoring programs that can provide baseline data and the necessary statistical power to detect biological and/or ecological change over relevant spatial and temporal scales. Here we report on, and assess the use of, Baited Remote Underwater Video (BRUV) systems as a technique to monitor diversity, abundance and assemblage composition data to evaluate the effects of marine renewable energy infrastructure on mobile epi-benthic species. The results from our five-year study at a wave energy development facility demonstrate how annual natural variation (time) and survey design (spatial scale and power) are important factors in the ability to robustly detect change in common ecological metrics of benthic and bentho-pelagic ecosystems of the northeast Atlantic. BRUV systems demonstrate their capacity for use in temperate, high energy marine environments, but also how weather, logistical and technical issues require increased sampling effort to ensure statistical power to detect relevant change is achieved. These factors require consideration within environmental impact assessments if such survey methods are to identify and contribute towards the management of potential positive or negative effects on benthic systems.Natural Environment Research CouncilEngineering and Physical Sciences Research CouncilIntelligent Energy Europe (IEE)European Regional Development Fund (ERDF

Using Cumulative Impact Mapping to Prioritize Marine Conservation Efforts in Equatorial Guinea

This is the final version. Available on open access from Frontiers Media via the DOI in this recordData Availability Statement Ensemble ecological niche models (EENMs) and threat maps (anthropogenic footprint, cumulative impact, and cumulative utilization and impact) for each species (Atlantic humpback dolphin Sousa teuszii; bottlenose dolphin Tursiops truncatus; humpback whale Megaptera novaeangliae; leatherback Dermochelys coriacea; and olive ridley sea turtle Lepidochelys olivacea) are available from the Dryad Digital Repository doi: 10.5061/dryad.v6wwpzgr9 (Trew et al., 2019).Marine biodiversity is under extreme pressure from anthropogenic activity globally, leading to calls to protect at least 10% of the world’s oceans within marine protected areas (MPAs) and other effective area-based conservation measures. Fulfilling such commitments, however, requires a detailed understanding of the distribution of potentially detrimental human activities, and their predicted impacts. One such approach that is being increasingly used to strengthen our understanding of human impacts is cumulative impact mapping; as it can help identify economic sectors with the greatest potential impact on species and ecosystems in order to prioritize conservation management strategies, providing clear direction for intervention. In this paper, we present the first local cumulative utilization impact mapping exercise for the Bioko-Corisco-Continental area of Equatorial Guinea’s Exclusive Economic Zone – situated in the Gulf of Guinea, one of the most important and least studied marine regions in the Eastern Central Atlantic. This study examines the potential impact of ten direct anthropogenic activities on a suite of key marine megafauna species and reveals that the most suitable habitats for these species, located on the continental shelf, are subject to the highest threat scores. However, in some coastal areas, the persistence of highly suitable habitat subject to lower threat scores suggests that there are still several strategic areas that are less impacted by human activity that may be suitable sites for protected area expansion. Highlighting both the areas with potentially the highest impact, and those with lower impact levels, as well as particularly damaging activities can inform the direction of future conservation initiatives in the region.Waitt FoundationWildlife Conservation SocietyDarwin InitiativeDepartment for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra)Waterloo FoundationNatural Environment Research Council (NERC)Marine Turtle Conservation Fund (United States Fish and Wildlife Service, United States Department of the Interior)Vaalco EnergyHarvest Natural ResourcesSea World and Busch Gardens Conservation FundTullow OilOld Dominion UniversityWWFWildlife Conservation SocietyUniversity of Exete

Owning an overweight or underweight body: distinguishing the physical, experienced and virtual body

Our bodies are the most intimately familiar objects we encounter in our perceptual environment. Virtual reality provides a unique method to allow us to experience having a very different body from our own, thereby providing a valuable method to explore the plasticity of body representation. In this paper, we show that women can experience ownership over a whole virtual body that is considerably smaller or larger than their physical body. In order to gain a better understanding of the mechanisms underlying body ownership, we use an embodiment questionnaire, and introduce two new behavioral response measures: an affordance estimation task (indirect measure of body size) and a body size estimation task (direct measure of body size). Interestingly, after viewing the virtual body from first person perspective, both the affordance and the body size estimation tasks indicate a change in the perception of the size of the participant’s experienced body. The change is biased by the size of the virtual body (overweight or underweight). Another novel aspect of our study is that we distinguish between the physical, experienced and virtual bodies, by asking participants to provide affordance and body size estimations for each of the three bodies separately. This methodological point is important for virtual reality experiments investigating body ownership of a virtual body, because it offers a better understanding of which cues (e.g. visual, proprioceptive, memory, or a combination thereof) influence body perception, and whether the impact of these cues can vary between different setups

Speech therapy for compensatory articulations and velopharyngeal function: a case report

The objective of this study was to describe the process of intensive speech therapy for a 6-year-old child using compensatory articulations while presenting with velopharyngeal insufficiency (VPI) and a history of cleft lip and palate. The correction of VPI was temporarily done with a pharyngeal obturator since the child presented with very little movement of the pharyngeal walls during speech, compromising the outcome of a possible pharyngeal flap procedure (pharyngoplasty). The program of intensive speech therapy involved 3 phases, each for duration of 2 weeks incorporating 2 daily sessions of 50 minutes of therapy. A total of 60 sessions of intervention were done with the initial goal of eliminating the use of compensatory articulations. Evaluation before the program indicated the use of co-productions (coarticulations) of voiceless plosive and fricative sounds with glottal stops (simultaneous production of 2 places of productions), along with weak intraoral pressure and hypernasality, all compromising speech intelligibility. To address place of articulation, strategies to increase intraoral air pressure were used along with visual, auditory and tactile feedback, emphasizing the therapy target and the air pressure and airflow during plosive and fricative sound productions. After the first two phases of the program, oral place of articulation of the targets were achieved consistently. During the third phase, velopharyngeal closure during speech was systematically addressed using a bulb reduction program with the objective of achieving velopharyngeal closure during speech consistently. After the intensive speech therapy program involving the use of a pharyngeal obturator, we observed absence of hypernasality and compensatory articulation with improved speech intelligibility

In Search of the Optimal Surgical Treatment for Velopharyngeal Dysfunction in 22q11.2 Deletion Syndrome: A Systematic Review

<div><h3>Background</h3><p>Patients with the 22q11.2 deletion syndrome (22qDS) and velopharyngeal dysfunction (VPD) tend to have residual VPD following surgery. This systematic review seeks to determine whether a particular surgical procedure results in superior speech outcome or less morbidity.</p> <h3>Methodology/ Principal Findings</h3><p>A combined computerized and hand-search yielded 70 studies, of which 27 were deemed relevant for this review, reporting on a total of 525 patients with 22qDS and VPD undergoing surgery for VPD. All studies were levels 2c or 4 evidence. The methodological quality of these studies was assessed using criteria based on the Cochrane Collaboration's tool for assessing risk of bias. Heterogeneous groups of patients were reported on in the studies. The surgical procedure was often tailored to findings on preoperative imaging. Overall, 50% of patients attained normal resonance, 48% attained normal nasal emissions scores, and 83% had understandable speech postoperatively. However, 5% became hyponasal, 1% had obstructive sleep apnea (OSA), and 17% required further surgery. There were no significant differences in speech outcome between patients who underwent a fat injection, Furlow or intravelar veloplasty, pharyngeal flap pharyngoplasty, Honig pharyngoplasty, or sphincter pharyngoplasty or Hynes procedures. There was a trend that a lower percentage of patients attained normal resonance after a fat injection or palatoplasty than after the more obstructive pharyngoplasties (11–18% versus 44–62%, p = 0.08). Only patients who underwent pharyngeal flaps or sphincter pharyngoplasties incurred OSA, yet this was not statistically significantly more often than after other procedures (p = 0.25). More patients who underwent a palatoplasty needed further surgery than those who underwent a pharyngoplasty (50% versus 7–13%, p = 0.03).</p> <h3>Conclusions/ Significance</h3><p>In the heterogeneous group of patients with 22qDS and VPD, a grade C recommendation can be made to minimize the morbidity of further surgery by choosing to perform a pharyngoplasty directly instead of only a palatoplasty.</p> </div

A randomised trial and economic evaluation of the effect of response mode on response rate, response bias, and item non-response in a survey of doctors

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Surveys of doctors are an important data collection method in health services research. Ways to improve response rates, minimise survey response bias and item non-response, within a given budget, have not previously been addressed in the same study. The aim of this paper is to compare the effects and costs of three different modes of survey administration in a national survey of doctors.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>A stratified random sample of 4.9% (2,702/54,160) of doctors undertaking clinical practice was drawn from a national directory of all doctors in Australia. Stratification was by four doctor types: general practitioners, specialists, specialists-in-training, and hospital non-specialists, and by six rural/remote categories. A three-arm parallel trial design with equal randomisation across arms was used. Doctors were randomly allocated to: online questionnaire (902); simultaneous mixed mode (a paper questionnaire and login details sent together) (900); or, sequential mixed mode (online followed by a paper questionnaire with the reminder) (900). Analysis was by intention to treat, as within each primary mode, doctors could choose either paper or online. Primary outcome measures were response rate, survey response bias, item non-response, and cost.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The online mode had a response rate 12.95%, followed by the simultaneous mixed mode with 19.7%, and the sequential mixed mode with 20.7%. After adjusting for observed differences between the groups, the online mode had a 7 percentage point lower response rate compared to the simultaneous mixed mode, and a 7.7 percentage point lower response rate compared to sequential mixed mode. The difference in response rate between the sequential and simultaneous modes was not statistically significant. Both mixed modes showed evidence of response bias, whilst the characteristics of online respondents were similar to the population. However, the online mode had a higher rate of item non-response compared to both mixed modes. The total cost of the online survey was 38% lower than simultaneous mixed mode and 22% lower than sequential mixed mode. The cost of the sequential mixed mode was 14% lower than simultaneous mixed mode. Compared to the online mode, the sequential mixed mode was the most cost-effective, although exhibiting some evidence of response bias.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Decisions on which survey mode to use depend on response rates, response bias, item non-response and costs. The sequential mixed mode appears to be the most cost-effective mode of survey administration for surveys of the population of doctors, if one is prepared to accept a degree of response bias. Online surveys are not yet suitable to be used exclusively for surveys of the doctor population.</p

Reaction mechanism for the replacement of calcite by dolomite and siderite: Implications for geochemistry, microstructure and porosity evolution during hydrothermal mineralisation

Carbonate reactions are common in mineral deposits due to CO2-rich mineralising fluids. This study presents the first in-depth, integrated analysis of microstructure and microchemistry of fluid-mediated carbonate reaction textures at hydrothermal conditions. In doing so, we describe the mechanisms by which carbonate phases replace one another, and the implications for the evolution of geochemistry, rock microstructures and porosity. The sample from the 1.95 Moz Junction gold deposit, Western Australia, contains calcite derived from carbonation of a metamorphic amphibole—plagioclase assemblage that has further altered to siderite and dolomite. The calcite is porous and contains iron-rich calcite blebs interpreted to have resulted from fluid-mediated replacement of compositionally heterogeneous amphiboles. The siderite is polycrystalline but nucleates topotactically on the calcite. As a result, the boundaries between adjacent grains are low-angle boundaries (<10°), which are geometrically similar to those formed by crystal–plastic deformation and recovery. Growth zoning within individual siderite grains shows that the low-angle boundaries are growth features and not due to deformation. Low-angle boundaries develop due to the propagation of defects at grain faces and zone boundaries and by impingement of grains that nucleated with small misorientations relative to each other during grain growth.The cores of siderite grains are aligned with the twin planes in the parent calcite crystal showing that the reactant Fe entered the crystal along the twin boundaries. Dolomite grains, many of which appear to in-fill space generated by the siderite replacement, also show alignment of cores along the calcite twin planes, suggesting that they did not grow into space but replaced the calcite. Where dolomite is seen directly replacing calcite, it nucleates on the Fe-rich calcite due to the increased compatibility of the Fe-bearing calcite lattice relative to the pure calcite. Both reactions are interpreted as fluid-mediated replacement reactions which use the crystallography and elemental chemistry of the calcite. Experiments of fluid-mediated replacement reactions show that they proceed much faster than diffusion-based reactions. This is important when considering the rates of reactions relative to fluid flow in mineralising systems

A novel approach to estimate the distribution, density and at-sea risks of a centrally-placed mobile marine vertebrate

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Elsevier via the DOI in this record.Formulating management strategies for mobile marine species is challenging, as knowledge is required of distribution, density, and overlap with putative threats. As a step towards assimilating knowledge, ecological niche models may identify likely suitable habitats for species, but lack the ability to enumerate species densities. Traditionally, this has been catered for by sightings-based distance sampling methods that may have practical and logistical limitations. Here we describe a novel method to estimate at-sea distribution and densities of a marine vertebrate, using historic aerial surveys of Gabonese leatherback turtle (Dermochelys coriacea) nesting beaches and satellite telemetry data of females at sea. We contextualise modelled patterns of distribution with putative threat layers of boat traffic, including fishing vessels and large ship movements, using Vessel Monitoring System (VMS) and Automatic Identification System (AIS) data. We identify key at-sea areas in which protection for inter-nesting leatherback turtles could be considered within the coastal zone of Gabonese Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ). Our approach offers a holistic technique that merges multiple datasets and methodologies to build a deeper and insightful knowledge base with which to manage known activities at sea. As such, the methodologies presented in this study could be applied to other species of sea turtles for cumulative assessments; and with adaptation, may have utility in defining critical habitats for other central-place foragers such as pinnipeds, or sea bird species. Although our analysis focuses on a single species, we suggest that putative threats identified within this study (fisheries, seismic activity, general shipping) likely apply to other mobile marine vertebrates of conservation concern within Gabonese and central African coastal waters, such as olive ridley sea turtles (Lepidochelys olivacea), humpback dolphins (Sousa teuszii) and humpback whales (Megaptera novaeangliae).We thank the following for support and funding: CARPE (Central African Regional Program for the Environment, Darwin Initiative, EAZA ShellShock Campaign, Gabon Sea Turtle Partnership with funding from the Marine Turtle Conservation Fund (United States Fish and Wildlife Service, U.S. Department of the Interior), Harvest Energy, Large Pelagics Research Centre at the University of Massachusetts (Boston), NERC, Vaalco Energy and the Wildlife Conservation Society. We are sincerely grateful to the field teams and logistics staff who assisted in the aerial and ground surveys and with field-site assistance. BJG and MJW receive funding from the Natural Environment Research Council (NE/J012319/1), the European Union and the Darwin Initiative

Informing Marine Protected Area Designation and Management for Nesting Olive Ridley Sea Turtles Using Satellite Tracking

This is the final version. Available from Frontiers Media via the DOI in this record. Understanding the horizontal and vertical habitat of olive ridley sea turtles (Lepidochelys olivacea), a threatened species, is critical for determining regions for protection and relevant gear modifications that may effectively reduce bycatch, the largest threat to this species. Satellite transmitters were used to determine the movement and dive behavior of 21 female olive ridley turtles tagged in Pongara National Park, Gabon during the 2012, 2013, and 2015 nesting seasons. A switching state-space model was used to filter the tracking data and categorize the internesting and post-nesting movements. Gridded utilization distribution (UD) home range analysis of tracking data revealed that the entire core habitat occurred in the Komo Estuary during the internesting period. Within the Komo Estuary, 58% of this core UD occurred in shipping lanes. Dive data from the 2015 tagging season revealed that during the internesting period, turtles spent the majority of their time resting on the estuary seabed. Approximately 20% of all dive time was spent on the bottom and all maximum dive depths corresponded to the depth of the seabed, indicating that bottom set gear during the internesting period may pose the greatest potential for fisheries interactions. National parks currently protect many of the nesting sites and the Gabon Bleu initiative has formally designated 10 new marine parks and a network of community and industrial fishing zones; this data was a layer used in determining the park and zone boundaries. Shared use of the estuary by fisheries, shipping, and olive ridley turtles creates a need for management measures to reduce interactions. Thus, the results from this study can further provide detailed information that can be used to support the development of evidence-based management plans