Simultaneous high-resolution pH and spectrophotometric recordings of oxygen binding in native blood microvolumes, link to supplementary material

Oxygen equilibrium curves have been widely used to understand oxygen transport in numerous organisms. A major challenge has been to monitor oxygen binding characteristics and concomitant pH changes as they occur in vivo, in limited sample volumes. Here we report a technique allowing highly resolved and simultaneous monitoring of pH and blood pigment saturation in minute blood volumes. We equipped a gas diffusion chamber with a broad range fibre optic spectrophotometer and a micro-pH optode and recorded changes of pigment oxygenation along PO2 and pH gradients to test the setup. Oxygen binding parameters derived from measurements in only 15 µl of haemolymph from the cephalopod Octopus vulgaris showed low instrumental error (0.93%) and good agreement with published data. Broad range spectra, each resolving 2048 data points, provided detailed insight into the complex absorbance characteristics of diverse blood types. After consideration of photobleaching and intrinsic fluorescence, pH optodes yielded accurate recordings and resolved a sigmoidal shift of 0.03 pH units in response to changing PO2 from 0-21 kPa. Highly resolved continuous recordings along pH gradients conformed to stepwise measurements at low rates of pH changes. In this study we showed that a diffusion chamber upgraded with a broad range spectrophotometer and an optical pH sensor accurately characterizes oxygen binding with minimal sample consumption and manipulation. We conclude that the modified diffusion chamber is highly suitable for experimental biologists who demand high flexibility, detailed insight into oxygen binding as well as experimental and biological accuracy combined in a single set up.

Small-scale Fisheries and the Global Economy: Understanding Common-pool Resource Governance in the Context of Market Pressures, Neoliberal Policies, and Transnational Institutions

The purpose of this dissertation is to contribute to a better understanding of how global seafood trade interacts with the governance of small-scale fisheries (SSFs). As global seafood trade expands, SSFs have the potential to experience significant economic, social, and political benefits from participation in export markets. At the same time, market connections that place increasing pressures on resources pose risks to both the ecological and social integrity of SSFs. This dissertation seeks to explore the factors that mediate between the potential benefits and risks of global seafood markets for SSFs, with the goal of developing hypotheses regarding these relationships.

The empirical investigation consists of a series of case studies from the Yucatan Peninsula, Mexico. This is a particularly rich context in which to study global market connections with SSFs because the SSFs in this region engage in a variety of market-oriented harvests, most notably for octopus, groupers and snappers, lobster, and sea cucumber. Variation in market forms and the institutional diversity of local-level governance arrangements allows the dissertation to explore a number of examples.

The analysis is guided primarily by common-pool resource (CPR) theory because of the insights it provides regarding the conditions that facilitate collective action and the factors that promote long-lasting resource governance arrangements. Theory from institutional economics and political ecology contribute to the elaboration of a multi-faceted conceptualization of markets for CPR theory, with the aim of facilitating the identification of mechanisms through which markets and CPR governance actually interact. This dissertation conceptualizes markets as sets of institutions that structure the exchange of property rights over fisheries resources, affect the material incentives to harvest resources, and transmit ideas and values about fisheries resources and governance.

The case studies explore four different mechanisms through which markets potentially influence resource governance: 1) Markets can contribute to costly resource governance activities by offsetting costs through profits, 2) markets can undermine resource governance by generating incentives for noncompliance and lead to overharvesting resources, 3) markets can increase the costs of resource governance, for example by augmenting monitoring and enforcement burdens, and 4) markets can alter values and norms underpinning resource governance by transmitting ideas between local resource users and a variety of market actors.

Data collected using participant observation, survey, informal and structured interviews contributed to the elaboration of the following hypotheses relevant to interactions between global seafood trade and SSFs governance. 1) Roll-back neoliberalization of fisheries policies has undermined cooperatives’ ability to achieve financial success through engagement with markets and thus their potential role as key actors in resource governance (chapter two). 2) Different relations of production influence whether local governance institutions will erode or strengthen when faced with market pressures. In particular, relations of production in which fishers own their own means of production and share the collective costs of governance are more likely to strengthen resource governance while relations of production in which a single entrepreneur controls capital and access to the fishery are more likely to contribute to the erosion of resource governance institutions in the face of market pressures (chapter three). 3) By serving as a new discursive framework within which to conceive of and talk about fisheries resources, markets can influence norms and values that shape and constitute governance arrangements.

In sum, the dissertation demonstrates that global seafood trade manifests in a diversity of local forms and effects. Whether SSFs moderate risks and take advantage of benefits depends on a variety of factors, and resource users themselves have the potential to influence the outcomes of seafood market connections through local forms of collective action.

Procedimiento para obtener extracto de pulpo, el producto obtenido y su aplicación como suplemento para el cultivo y criopreservación de tejido y de células en suspensión de invertebrados marinos

Extracto de pulpo como suplemento para el cultivo y criopreservación de tejido y de células en suspensión de invertebrados marinos. La presente invención se refiere a un procedimiento para obtención de un suplemento para el cultivo in vitro y criopreservación de tejido y de células en suspensión de invertebrados marinos a base de extracto acuoso de pulpo homogeneizado y la utilización de dicho suplemento preparación de medios para la criopreservación de células en suspensión y de tejidos de organismos invertebrados marinos.

Céphalopodes des mers d'Indochine

During 1920-1921, Mr. Krempf, Director of the Fisheries and Oceanographic Service of Indochina, collected samples of cephalopods in different places along the coast of Indochina, especially on the island of Poulo-Condor, located about 100 miles east from Camau. The present paper deals with the description of Sepia harmeri, Loligo singhalensis, Sepioleuthis lessoniana, Sepioleuthis krempfi, Octopus fantonianus, Octopus dollfusi, Octopus tuberculatus.

Are deep-sea cephalopods really common preys for oceanic seabirds?

Uma análise de dados publicados sobre dietas de aves marinhas oceânicas mostra a predominância de cefalópodes musculares e de distribuição mais superficial nas camadas oceânicas, mas também são importantes as espécies gelatinosas e amoniacais restritas a camadas abaixo dos 300 m da superfície. A princípio, não deveria se esperar que cefalópodes de profundidade fossem considerados presas comuns de aves marinhas oceânicas como reportados por muitos autores. É proposto neste estudo que uma fonte indireta, importante e de fácil obtenção, surgiu com o início das atividades dos barcos atuneiros que operam com espinhel. O hábito de ingerir restos de vísceras de peixes capturados em barcos espinheleiros pode explicar as prováveis conclusões equivocadas de que cefalópodes de profundidade são presas naturais de aves marinhas oceânicas.

Feeding habits of the blue shark (Prionace glauca) off the coast of Brazil

Estômagos de 222 tubarões-azuis coletados ao longo da costa brasileira foram analisados, sendo 116 da região nordeste e 106 da região sul. Um total de 51 táxons de presas foram identificados. Os itens mais importantes na região sul foram baleias Mysticeti, teleósteos, o peixe gempilídeo Ruvettus pretiosus e o nomeídeo Arioma bondi. Cefalópodes foram mais diversos, com preferência pelas espécies migradoras verticais Histioteuthis spp., Cranchiidae e o polvo epipelágico Ocythoe tuberculata. Na região nordeste, o tubarão-azul consumiu principalmente teleósteos, incluindo o peixe alepisaurídeo Alepisaurus ferox e o gempilídeo Gempylus serpens. Entre os cefalópodes, Histioteuthis spp. e o polvo epipelágico Tremoctopus violaceus foram os itens principais. Predação sobre cardumes foi ocasional, como observada para Arioma bondi. Aves também foram consumidas em ambas as regiões. Puffinus gravis foi o quinto item mais freqüente na região nordeste. Durante o ciclo migratório reprodutivo, o tubarão-azul costuma predar nas adjacências da termoclina, que é mais profunda na região nordeste e mais perto da superfície na região sul.

Population structure and sexual maturity of the calico box crab Hepatus epheliticus Linnaeus (Brachyura, Hepatidae) from Yucatan Peninsula, Mexico

The calico box crab Hepatus epheliticus is an abundant species from shallow and continental shelf waters of the Atlantic coast of USA and Mexico. Information about population structure and sexual maturity is absent, even though this crab is caught to be used as bait for the octopus fishery in the Campeche Bank, Mexico. In order to achieve such information, a total of 768 individuals were collected from January to March 2010 through baited traps installed in the Yucatan Peninsula, Mexico. Our results showed that sex ratio is biased towards more males than females (1:0.55), contradicting to that reported in other brachyuran crabs. The absence of ovigerous females suggests that they did not enter into the traps during embryogenesis. Males reached a larger maximum size than females (64.0 +/- 6.15 and 58.4 +/- 5.60 mm carapace width, respectively). The general scheme of growth being positive allometric throughout ontogeny of both sexes. Males presented a transition phase from juveniles to adult corresponding to the puberty moult. The estimation of the onset of functional sexual maturity revealed a steady situation for the population, with 21.5 and 13.8% of males and females, respectively, morphologically immature at the time of catch. This study constitutes the first report on population structure and sexual maturity in a population of the calico box crab H. epheliticus.

Evaluación de bancos naturales de invertebrados marinos comerciales, Región La Libertad-Perú, 2012

En la Región la Libertad, la mayor producción pesquera artesanal descansa en tres pesquerías del ámbito costero: cangrejo violáceo, caracol negro y pulpo. La pesca de altura de la pota, es importante por los volúmenes que aporta a la pesquería. La evaluación, se realizó en el litoral de la Región La Libertad, desde Chérrepe (7°9’35,4”S – 79°41’8,2”W) hasta isla Corcovado (8°56’25,8”S - 78°41’49,4”W), del 8 al 28 de octubre 2012. El trabajo se efectuó en dos etapas: 16 días por mar y 5 días por mar somero, y comprendió los diversos tipos de muestreos en las estaciones, tanto biológicas como oceanográficas. El estudio se efectuó en treinta y nueve bancos de invertebrados marinos: siete de caracol negro, cuatro de pulpo, dos de concha de abanico, dos de almeja, dos de muy muy, cuatro de pepino de mar, y dieciocho de cangrejo violáceo.

Evaluación de bancos naturales de invertebrados marinos comerciales, Región La Libertad-Perú, 2011

La evaluación de los bancos naturales, se realizó entre 07°10’27”S, 79°41’18”W (Punta Chérrepe) y 08°45’44,9”S, 78°47’42,2”W (Isla Chao), del 13 al 24 de diciembre 2011. Se evaluó ocho especies de invertebrados de importancia comercial en 15 bancos naturales. Las especies fueron: Platyxanthus orbignyi cangrejo violáceo, Stramonita chocolata caracol negro, Octopus mimus pulpo, Argopecten purpuratus concha de abanico, Semele sp. almeja, Emerita analoga muy muy, Pattalus molli pepino de mar, Donax sp. palabritas.

First record of Anachis aliceae (Mollusca: Gastropoda: Columbellidae) in the Algarve, south coast of Portugal

The marine gastropod Anachis aliceae (Pallary, 1900) is reported with certainty for the first time from the Algarve, south coast of Portugal from species-rich rocky priority biotope. Several live specimens of this species belonging to the Columbellidae family were collected and identified from by-catch samples, recovered from octopus traps set at depths between 50 and 70 m off Ponta da Piedade. Taxonomic validation of the newly recorded species is based on the comparison to other related species within the genus.

Etapas de cambio comportamental frente al consumo de drogas ilegales, tabaco y alcohol en escolares de 9 a 17 años de Bogotá – Colombia

Objetivo: El propósito del estudio fue describir estadísticamente las etapas de cambio comportamental frente al consumo de sustancias psicoactivas –SPA– (alcohol, tabaco y drogas ilegales) en escolares entre 9 y 17 años de Bogotá- Colombia, pertenecientes al estudio FUPRECOL. Método: Se trata de un estudio descriptivo y transversal en 6.965 niños y adolescentes entre 9 y 17 años, pertenecientes a 24 instituciones educativas oficiales de Bogotá - Colombia. La medición de los procesos de cambio propuestos por el Modelo Transteórico (MTT), aplicados al consumo de drogas, tabaco y alcohol se aplicaron de manera auto-diligenciada mediante un cuestionario estructurado. Resultados: De la muestra evaluada, el 58,4% fueron mujeres con un promedio de edad 12,74 ± 2.38 años. En la población en general, frente al consumo de drogas, el 6% de los escolares se encontraban en etapa de pre-contemplación, 44 % en contemplación; 30% en preparación/acción, 20% en mantenimiento. Con relación al consumo de alcohol, el 5% de los niños y adolescentes se encontraban en etapa de pre-contemplación, 36 % en contemplación; 12% en preparación/acción, 46% en mantenimiento. Frente al tabaco, el 4% de los niños y adolescentes se encontraban en etapa de pre-contemplación, 33 % en contemplación; 12% en preparación/acción, 51% en mantenimiento. Conclusiones: En los escolares evaluados, un importante porcentaje se ubica en la etapa de mantenimiento frente a la intención de consumo de tabaco y alcohol. Frente al consumo de drogas ilegales los niños y adolescentes están en la etapa de contemplación. Se requieren esfuerzos mayores para fomentar programas preventivos que enseñen sobre el riesgo del abuso/dependencia de este tipo de sustancias psicoactiva sobre la salud; dándole prioridad en las agendas y políticas públicas dentro del ámbito escolar.