Paleoenvironmental records from the Quelccaya ice cap, Peru and preliminary results from the Dunde ice cap, China [abstract]

EXTRACT (SEE PDF FOR FULL ABSTRACT): The 1000 year records of particulate deposition (soluble and insoluble), oxygen isotopic ratios, and net accumulation from the Quelccaya ice cap are presented. The net accumulation record from Quelccaya is shown to serve as a reasonable proxy for the water levels in Lake Titicaca. ... The ice core record from the Dunde ice cap offers the potential to reconstruct a very detailed history of environmental conditions on the Tibetan Plateau for the last 3000 years.

A comparison of size and age of red snapper (Lutjanus campechanus) with the age of artificial reefs in the northern Gulf of Mexico

Despite extensive study, it still is not clear whether artificial reefs produce new fish biomass or whether they only attract various species and make them more vulnerable to fishing mortality. To further evaluate this question, the size and age of red snapper (Lutjanus campechanus) were sampled from April to November 2010 at artificial reefs south of Mobile Bay off the coast of Alabama and compared with the age of the artificial reef at the site of capture. Red snapper were collected with hook and line and a fish trap and visually counted during scuba-diver surveys. In the laboratory, all captured red snapper were weighed and measured, and the otoliths were removed for aging. The mean age of red snapper differed significantly across reefs of different ages, with older reefs having older fish. The mean age of red snapper at a particular reef was not related to reef depth or distance to other reefs. The positive correlation between the mean age of red snapper and the age of the reef where they were found supports the contention that artificial reefs in the northern Gulf of Mexico enhance production of red snapper. The presence of fish older than the reef indicates that red snapper are also attracted to artificial reefs.

The use of large artificial reefs to enhance fish populations at different depths in the Florida Keys

This study showed that large prefabricated units and concrete rubble patch reefs, placed as artificial marine habitats on sand bottom, greatly enhance the abundance, diversity, and biomass of fish in an area. Densities of individuals and biomass were found considerably higher at artificial reefs than at nearby, natural, bank reefs, a result consistent with other studies. Location, depth, and vertical profile are important factors determining fish assemblages at artificial habitats in the Keys. Fishes were both produced at artificial reefs and attracted from the surrounding area. Fish assemblages at the Hawk Channel artificial reefs were considerably different from those on the offshore reef tract, particularly in terms of dominant species. Rescue of the original 1992 work in 2005 was funded by the South Florida Ecosystem Restoration Prediction and Modeling Program.

Initial global perspective of climate for the last thousand years: the ice core record

Climatic and environmental records from low, middle, and high latitude ice cores greatly increase our knowledge of the course of past events. This historical perspective is essential to predict climatic oscillations, dominated as they may be by increasing greenhouse gas concentrations. Forcing factors, internal and external, that have operated in the past will continue to influence the course of events.

The Little Ice Age: glacier variations and climate since AD 1250 [abstract]

EXTRACT (SEE PDF FOR FULL ABSTRACT): During the past hundred years, mountain glaciers throughout the world have retreated significantly from moraines built during the previous several centuries. In the 1930s, Francois Matthes of the U.S. Geological Survey concluded that the moraines represent the greatest advances of glaciers since the end of the last glacial age, some 10,000 years earlier, and informally referred to this late Holocene interval of expanded ice cover as the Little Ice Age.

Larval rearing of Macrobrachium rosenbergii (De Man) in artificial sea water

Larvae of Macrobrachium rosenbergii were successfully reared in artificial sea water prepared in fresh ground water. The water was circulated through a biological filter by means of air-lift pumps for a period of one week to remove the undissolved particles prior to use in the hatchery operation. The experiments were initiated during 1989 and the hatchery has been working on pilot scale since June, 1990. The larvae in all the experiments were fed with egg-custard, Mona and Artemia nauplii. The survival rate varied from 5 to 52% in the 12 experiments. These findings can add to the development of hatcheries in the inland areas which can further boost the popularization of giant freshwater prawn farming.