Use of the multispecies freshwater biomonitor to assess behavioral changes of Corophium volutator (Pallas, 1766) (Crustacea, Amphipoda) in response to toxicant exposure in sediment

Automated sediment toxicity testing and biomonitoring has grown rapidly. This study tested the suitability of the marine amphipod Corophium volutator (Pallas, 1766) for sediment biomonitoring using the Multispecies Freshwater Biomonitor (MFB). Two experiments were undertaken to (1) characterize individual behaviors of C. volutator using the MFB and (2) examine behavioral changes in response to sediment spiked with the pesticide Bioban. Four behaviors were visually identified (walking, swimming, grooming and falling) and characterized in the MFB as different patterns of locomotor activity (0-2 Hz range). Ventilation was not visually observed but was detected by the MFB (2-8 Hz). No clear diel activity patterns were detected. The MFB detected an overall increase in C. volutator locomotor activity after Bioban addition to the sediments (56, 100, 121 mg kg(-1)). C. volutator was more active (both locomotion and ventilation) in the water column than the spiked sediment. C. volutator appears a sensitive and appropriate species for behavioral sediment toxicity assessment and biomonitoring. (c) 2005 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Habitat utilization by juvenile hawksbill turtles (Eretmochelys imbricata, Linnaeus, 1766) around a shallow water coral reef

Contemporary studies of sea turtle diving behaviour are generally based upon sophisticated techniques such as the attachment of time depth recorders. However, if the risks of misinterpretation are to be minimized, it is essential that electronic data are analysed in the light of first-hand observations. To this aim, we set out to make observations of juvenile hawksbill turtles (Eretmochelys imbricata , Linnaeus, 1766) foraging and resting in a shallow water coral reef habitat around the granitic Seychelles (4degrees'S, 55degrees'E). Data were collected from six study sites characterized by a shallow reef plateau (

Travelling Images, Images of Travel in Nicolas Bouvier's L'Usage du monde

Sketches and photographs are a familiar tool of the traveller-writer, who commonly draws on them when transforming experience into a textual narrative. The verbal thus displaces the visual — the latter retained, if at all, as mere illustration — in ways that echo James Heffernan's definition of ekphrasis as the ‘verbal description of visual representation’. Yet Nicolas Bouvier's 1963 travel narrative L'Usage du monde challenges conventional conceptions of ekphrasis. Juxtaposing the stark ink drawings of Thierry Vernet — Bouvier's travelling companion — with Bouvier's textual narrative, L'Usage du monde shifts representation away from a hierarchical relationship between verbal and visual; it offers instead an account of other cultures that is grounded in polyphony and exchange. This article applies Bouvier's own image of travel as a mosaic to the dual narrative form (or ‘iconotext’, to use Michael Nerlich's term) in order to consider a range of fluid relationships between Bouvier's text and Vernet's drawings. In examining these relationships of amplification, reduction, and absence, the article argues that the plurality of the narrative prompts a rethinking of conventional, binary paradigms of intercultural contact. Ultimately, the iconotextual nature of L'Usage du monde can be interpreted as a metaphor for the processes of cultural translation and transculturation that are central to Bouvier's travelling ethos.

Phototextual Journeys: Nicolas Bouvier in Asia

Travel literature's inherent intergenericity extends into the realm of the interaesthetic in Nicolas Bouvier's textual and photographic representations of Asia. Although produced as distinct narratives, successive editorial decisions and the layering of these two media in the mind of the reader have transformed Bouvier's already palimpsestic texts into fluid, phototextual constructs. This article will offer ‘contrapuntal’ readings of a selection of Bouvier's texts in relation to the photographs charting his intercultural encounters in China and Japan. Countering the relegation of these photographs to the conventional status of aide-mémoire, the article will consider the shifting relationships of complementarity, tension, or disjuncture between image and text. These relationships are characterised by slippage, subversion and paradox. Text does not ‘load’ image, and images do not illustrate text. Indeed, Bouvier's photographs frequently contest, modify, or debunk the textual narratives. Ultimately, the article will argue that Bouvier's representations of Asia, both textual and visual, offer a challenge to cultural essentialism, to self-other binaries, and to monolithic discourses of otherness.