Assessing the physiological responses of the gastropod Crepidula fornicata to predicted ocean acidification and warming

Organisms inhabiting coastal waters naturally experience diel and seasonal physico-chemical variations. According to various assumptions, coastal species are either considered to be highly tolerant to environmental changes or, conversely, living at the thresholds of their physiological performance. Therefore, these species are either more resistant or more sensitive, respectively, to ocean acidification and warming. Here, we focused on Crepidula fornicata, an invasive gastropod that colonized bays and estuaries on northwestern European coasts during the 20th century. Small (<3 cm in length) and large (>4.5 cm in length), sexually mature individuals of C. fornicata were raised for 6 months in three different pCO2 conditions (390 µatm, 750 µatm, and 1400 µatm) at four successive temperature levels (10°C, 13°C, 16°C, and 19°C). At each temperature level and in each pCO2 condition, we assessed the physiological rates of respiration, ammonia excretion, filtration and calcification on small and large individuals. Results show that, in general, temperature positively influenced respiration, excretion and filtration rates in both small and large individuals. Conversely, increasing pCO2 negatively affected calcification rates, leading to net dissolution in the most drastic pCO2 condition (1400 µatm) but did not affect the other physiological rates. Overall, our results indicate that C. fornicata can tolerate ocean acidification, particularly in the intermediate pCO2 scenario. Moreover, in this eurythermal species, moderate warming may play a buffering role in the future responses of organisms to ocean acidification.

Chapter 4 A Review of the Availability of and Studies on Spatial Economic Data in Laos

Spatial data are being increasingly used in a wide range of disciplines, a fact that is clearly reflected in the recent trend to add spatial dimensions to the conventional social sciences. Economics is by no means an exception. On one hand, spatial data are indispensable to many branches of economics such as economic geography, new economic geography, or spatial economics. On the other hand, macroeconomic data are becoming available at more and more micro levels, so that academics and analysts take it for granted that they are available not only for an entire country, but also for more detailed levels (e.g. state, province, and even city). The term ‘spatial economics data’ as used in this report refers to any economic data that has spatial information attached. This spatial information can be the coordinates of a location at best or a less precise place name as is used to describe administrative units. Obviously, the latter cannot be used without a map of corresponding administrative units. Maps are therefore indispensible to the analysis of spatial economic data without absolute coordinates. The aim of this report is to review the availability of spatial economic data that pertains specifically to Laos and academic studies conducted on such data up to the present. In regards to the availability of spatial economic data, efforts have been made to identify not only data that has been made available as geographic information systems (GIS) data, but also those with sufficient place labels attached. The rest of the report is organized as follows. Section 2 reviews the maps available for Laos, both in hard copy and editable electronic formats. Section 3 summarizes the spatial economic data available for Laos at the present time, and Section 4 reviews and categorizes the many economic studies utilizing these spatial data. Section 5 give examples of some of the spatial industrial data collected for this research. Section 6 provides a summary of the findings and gives some indication of the direction of the final report due for completion in fiscal 2010.