Report of the marine work at Hopkins Marine Station, Pacific Grove, California during the six-week period from June 25 to August 5, 1938

The primary objective in doing this work was to become acquainted with as many forms as possible of the marine fauna of the intertidal zone and if possible to determine some of the environmental relationships which exist in as many different types of habitats as possible. Due to limited amount of time spent in this study no very intensive work could be done and only a general survey was made of the more conspicuous forms of life which were encountered. Most of the work consisted of collecting and observing animals in the tide pools during periods of low tides. The animals collected were then taken to the laboratory and observed and determined as to species. Notes were taken as to place, time, and situation under which the animals were found. As many different types of habitats as possible were visited which included rocky intertidal areas of Mussel Point, Point Pinos, Lighthouse Point, Pescadero Point and Carmel Point just east of Carmel Beach. Sandy beaches were visited at Monterey Beach, Carmel Beach and Asilomar Beach. A marine estuary habitat was visited at Elkhorn Slough. More than two hundred species were identified and observed during this six-week period. A rather hasty population study was made of the eelgrass, Phyllospadix, of the intertidal zone at Mussel Point and of an algae, Gigartina caniculata, which grows at the level just above the eelgrass.

The importance of the pelagic larval phase of the wedge shell Donax trunculus (L.): implications for the management of the fishery

The wedge shell, Donax trunculus, inhabits high energy environment of exposed sandy beaches from the Atlantic coast of France to Senegal. Like all Donacidae, it is relative small, flat-shaped with elongated solid shells. It is a highly demanded and valuable species mainly in Algarve, with the dredge fleet increasing the pressure on species stocks. In 1986 the Portuguese Institute for the Ocean and Atmosphere (IPMA) initiated a bivalve survey program to evaluate the stock status of species with economical valuable but always on the adult population. Since then, several managing measures were implemented to guarantee bivalves’ sustainable exploitation. Despite the available information on the abundance and distribution of the wedge shell along the Algarve coast, no information on the larval planktonic phase is available. To fill in this gap, the present study aimed at obtaining, for the first time information on the broodstock condition and on the pelagic phase of the wedge shell in the Algarve coast.

Studies on the foraminifera of the south west coast of india

The present investigations confine to a study of the distribution of foraminifera in the estuarine environment and the interstial area of the sandy beaches of the south west coast of India with a view to correlate the distribution and the intensity of occurrence of the various species with hydrographic conditions and the substrate characteristics of the area. Studies on the foraminifera of the estuarine environment were carried out in the vembanad lake ,a major estuary in the south west coast of india extending for about 60km from cochin barmouth in the north to Alleppey in the south.Fortnightly collections of hydrographical data and grab samples of bottom deposit were made for a period of 2 years (july 1973 to june 1975) from fifteen stations chosen along the length of the lake.

Distribution and density of the hooded plover Thinornis rubricollis along a remote coastline in North West Tasmania

The Arthur-Pieman Conservation Area, on the north-west coast of Tasmania, provides many kilometres of ocean beach habitat for the vulnerable Hooded Plover Thinornis rubricollis. Hooded Plovers were surveyed along a 43.5 km section of coast which included both rocky shores and sandy beaches. They were absent from the rocky portion of the coastline (17.0 km), but 65 individuals were recorded along the sandy portion of coastline (26.5 km). The recorded population density of 2.45 birds/km compares favourably with reported mean densities for most parts of south-eastern Australia. Careful management and monitoring are required if the current numbers of the Hooded Plover in this area are to be maintained.

Dispersal of Hormosira banksii (phaeophyceae) via detached fragments : reproductive viability and longevity

Drifting, fertile thalli are well documented to be the primary long-distance dispersal vector for many marine macroalgae, but little information about reproductive viability of drift is known. This study examined the reproductive viability and longevity of floating fragments of the intertidal Australasian fucoid Hormosira banksii (Turner) Decne. Beach wrack surveys and field experiments were conducted to test the model that long-distance dispersal is achieved in H. banksii via floating, fertile fronds. High densities of beach wrack fragments were evident during summer compared to autumn. The majority of beach wrack occurred on sandy beaches rather than rocky shores. Both male and female fragments were present in the beach wrack. Detached fronds were capable of releasing gametes up to 8 weeks after detachment. Beach wrack produced high fertilization rates and recruited successfully onto artificial panels. Results suggest that detached fragments are reproductively viable and that floating, fertile fronds may be an important mechanism for facilitating long-distance dispersal in this species. Nevertheless, the frequency of fronds reaching a suitable habitat and contributing to gene flow between populations, or colonizing new populations, may not be proportional to the total density of beach wrack.

Dislodgment and attachment strength of the intertidal macroalga Hormosira banksii (Fucales, Phaeophyceae)

Hormosira banksii is a dominant intertidal alga characterised by limited dispersal of propagules, yet it has a broad distribution throughout temperate Australasia. However, the high abundance of beach wrack of H. banksii on sandy beaches along southwest Victoria, the frequency of frond dislodgment and the force required to break it from the substratum remain unknown. Dislodgment of macroalgae has been shown to influence dispersal processes; therefore, we tested the model that long-distance dispersal of H. banksii is facilitated by weak attachment to the substratum and frequent dislodgment of fertile fronds. We monitored the dislodgment of H. banksii individuals and conducted in situ pull tests to determine the attachment strength of fronds of H. banksii. We further tested whether thallus size or pull direction influenced attachment strength of H. banksii. We found that breakage of vesicles and fronds was a regular event during the survey period and that the mean attachment strength of fronds of H. banksii was weak compared to other intertidal algae. Furthermore, we found that thallus size did not influence the force required to break fronds of H.banksii from the substratum but that the direction that fronds were pulled from the substratum did. We suggest that fronds of H. banksii do drift frequently and that long-distance dispersal is likely to be an important mechanism for the distributional success of this species.

Re-framing values for a World Heritage future: what type of icon will K'gari-Fraser Island become?

K’gari-Fraser Island, the world's largest barrier sand island, is at the crossroads of World Heritage status, due to destructive environmental use in concert with climate change. Will K’gari-Fraser Island exemplify innovative, adaptive management or become just another degraded recreational facility? We synthesize the likely impact of human pressures and predicted consequences on the values of this island. World-renown natural beauty and ongoing biological and geological processes in coastal, wetland, heathland and rainforest environments, all contribute to its World Heritage status. The impact of hundreds of thousands of annual visitors is increasing on the island's biodiversity, cultural connections, ecological functions and environmental values. Maintaining World Heritage values will necessitate the re-framing of values to integrate socioeconomic factors in management and reduce extractive forms of tourism. Environmentally sound, systematic conservation planning that achieves social equity is urgently needed to rectify historical mistakes and update current management practices. Characterizing and sustaining biological refugia will be important to retain biodiversity in areas that are less visited. The development of a coherent approach to interpretation concerning history, access and values is required to encourage a more sympathetic use of this World Heritage environment. Alternatively, ongoing attrition of the islands values by increased levels of destructive use is inevitable.

Functional replacement across species pools of vertebrate scavengers separated at a continental scale maintains an ecosystem function

Summary: The composition of species pools can vary in space and time. While many studies are focused on understanding which factors influence the make-up of species pools, the question to which degree biogeographic variation in species composition propagates to biogeographic variation in ecological function is rarely examined. If different local species assemblages operate in ways that maintain specific ecological processes across continents, they can be regarded as functionally equivalent. Alternatively, variation in species assemblages might result in the loss of ecological function if different species fulfil different functions, and thereby fail to maintain the ecological process. Here, we test whether ecological function is affected by differences in the composition of species pools across a continental scale, comparing a tropical with a temperate pool. The model systems are assemblages of vertebrates foraging on ocean beaches, and the ecological function of interest is the consumption of wave-cast carrion, a pivotal process in sandy shore ecosystems. We placed fish carcasses (n = 179) at the beach-dune interface, monitored by motion-triggered cameras to record scavengers and quantify the detection and removal of carrion. Scavenging function was measured on sandy beaches in two distinct biogeographic regions of Australia: tropical north Queensland and temperate Victoria. The composition of scavenging assemblages on sandy beaches varied significantly across the study domain. Raptors dominated in the tropics, while invasive red foxes were prominent in temperate assemblages. Notwithstanding the significant biogeographic change in species composition, ecological function - as indexed by carcass detection and removal - was maintained, suggesting strong functional replacement at the continental scale. Species pools of vertebrate scavengers that are assembled from taxonomically distinct groups (birds vs. mammals) and located in distinct climatic regions (temperate vs. tropical) can maintain an ecological process via replacement of species with comparable functional traits.

Monitoramento da morfologia costeira em setores da bacia potiguar sob influência da indústria petrolífera utilizando geodésia de alta precisão e laser escâner terrestre

The objective of this Doctoral Thesis was monitoring, in trimestral scale, the coastal morphology of the Northeastern coast sections of Rio Grande do Norte State, in Brazil, which is an area of Potiguar Basin influenced by the oil industry activities. The studied sections compose coastal areas with intense sedimentary erosion and high environmental sensitivity to the oil spill. In order to achieve the general objective of this study, the work has been systematized in four steps. The first one refers to the evaluation of the geomorphological data acquisition methodologies used on Digital Elevation Model (DEM) of sandy beaches. The data has been obtained from Soledade beach, located on the Northeastern coast of Rio Grande Norte. The second step has been centered on the increasing of the reference geodetic infrastructure to accomplish the geodetic survey of the studied area by implanting a station in Corta Cachorro Barrier Island and by conducting monitoring geodetic surveys to understand the beach system based on the Coastline (CL) and on DEM multitemporal analysis. The third phase has been related to the usage of the methodology developed by Santos; Amaro (2011) and Santos et al. (2012) for the surveying, processing, representation, integration and analysis of Coastlines from sandy coast, which have been obtained through geodetic techniques of positioning, morphological change analysis and sediment transport. The fourth stage represents the innovation of surveys in coastal environment by using the Terrestrial Laser Scanning (TLS), based on Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR), to evaluate a highly eroded section on Soledade beach where the oil industry structures are located. The evaluation has been achieved through high-precision DEM and accuracy during the modeling of the coast morphology changes. The result analysis of the integrated study about the spatial and temporal interrelations of the intense coastal processes in areas of building cycles and destruction of beaches has allowed identifying the causes and consequences of the intense coastal erosion in exposed beach sections and in barrier islands

Análise hidrodinâmica e morfodinâmica do complexo estuarino do Rio Piranhas-Açu/RN, Nordeste do Brasil

The aim of this study was the seasonal characterization of the morphology, sedimentology and hydrodynamic of the Açu, Cavalos and Conchas estuaries. These estuaries are inserted in a semi-arid climate area and form the mouth of the hydrographic basin of the Piranhas-Açu river, that represent the discharge of the largest watershed in the state. They are embedded in an environment consisting of a fluvial-marine floodplain, mangrove ecosystem, sandbanks, fields of dunes, spits and sandy beaches. Adjacent to the natural units are the main local socioeconomic activities (oil industry, salt industry, shrimp farming, fishing and tourism) are dependent on this river and its conservation. The environmental monitoring is necessary because it is an area under constant action of coastal processes and at high risk of oil spill. The acquisition and interpretation of hydrodynamic, sonographic and sediment data was conducted in two campaigns, dry season (2010) and rainy season (2011), using respectively the current profiler ADCP Doppler effect, the side-scan sonar and Van Veen sampler. In these estuaries: Açu, Cavalos and Conchas were identified the following types of bedforms: flatbed and Dunes 2-D and 3-D (small to medium size), generated at lower flow regime (Froude number <1). Structures such as ripples were observed in the Açu estuary mouth. The higher values of flow discharge and velocity were recorded in the Açu estuary (434,992 m³.s-¹ and 0,554 m.s-¹). In rainy season, despite the record of highest values of discharge and flow velocities at the mouth, the energy rates upstream did not differ much from the data of the dry season. However, in all estuaries were recorded an increase in speed and flow, with reservation to the flow in the Açu estuary and flow at the mouth of the Conchas estuary. Sediment grain sizes tend to increase towards the mouth of the estuary and these ranged from very fine sand to very coarse sand, medium sand fraction being the most recurrent. Based on the data acquired and analyzed, the estuaries Açu, Cavalos and Conchas are classified as mixed , dominated by waves and tides. According to their morphology, they are classified as estuaries constructed by bar and according to the classification by salinity, estuaries Conchas and Cavalos were ranked as hypersaline estuaries, and Açu as hypersaline and vertically well mixed type C

Activity and habitat use of two species of stingrays (Myliobatiformes: Potamotrygonidae) in the upper Paraná River basin, Southeastern Brazil

Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)

O uso de praias arenosas com diferentes concentrações humanas por espécies de aves limícolas (Charadriidae e Scolopacidae) neárticas no sudeste do Brasil

As aves migratórias podem reconhecer humanos e animais domésticos como possíveis predadores, alterando seus padrões de abundância e comportamento de formação de bandos. O objetivo do presente estudo foi comparar a abundância de aves migratórias neárticas, a freqüência de bandos e o número médio de aves por bando em áreas com alta e baixa concentração humana em uma região costeira de praia arenosa no sudeste do Brasil. As aves, pessoas e cães foram contados mensalmente entre novembro de 2006 a abril de 2007. Foram registradas seis espécies de aves (Arenaria interpres, Calidris alba, Calidris canutus, Calidris pusilla, Charadrius semipalmatus, Pluvialis dominica) nas duas áreas, no entanto somente C. canutus foi registrado exclusivamente na área com baixa concentração humana. Houve diferença significativa no número médio de pessoas e cães entre as áreas, mas não no número médio de aves. Não houve correlação entre o número de humanos e aves, e entre cães e aves. Adicionalmente, não houve diferença significativa na freqüência de bandos e número de indivíduos por bando entre as áreas. Os resultados deste estudo destacaram a sensibilidade de C. canutus na área com alta concentração humana e a necessidade de futuras investigações que determinem os limites máximos de concentração de pessoas e cães domésticos que as aves migratórias neárticas podem tolerar para a tomada de ações de proteção em áreas costeiras com ocupação humana.

Fungus-growing ants (Hymenoptera: Formicidae) on Santa Catarina Island, Brazil: patterns of occurrence

A taxonomic survey on fungus-growing ants (Attini) was made at 14 beaches on Santa Catarina Island (SC), Brazil. The samplings were manual, in soil or litterfall, in the following habitats: sandy beach, herbaceous vegetation and shrubby vegetation. From 12 species of Attini (ten of Acromyrmex Mayr and two of Cyphomyrmex Mayr), the most frequent were Cyphomyrmex morschi Emery and Acromyrmex crassispinus Forel, collected, respectively, on eight and ten of the monitored beaches. Altogether, Sorensen's similarity coefficients were high (range: 0.59-0.80), in spite of the lower numbers of ant species on sandy beaches.

Mapeamento de sensibilidade a derramamentos de petróleo do Parque Estadual da Ilha do Cardoso - PEIC e áreas do entorno

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)

Densidade e resistência a antimicrobianos de Enterococcus sp e Escherichia coli isoladas de águas, areias e algas do gênero Sargassum de praias recreacionais do Litoral Norte do Estado de São Paulo

Pós-graduação em Ciências Biológicas (Microbiologia Aplicada) - IBRC