The First Occurrence in the Fossil Record of an Aquatic Avian Twig-Nest with Phoenicopteriformes Eggs: Evolutionary Implication

14 p.

A 30-Year History of Tide and Current Measurements in Elkhorn Slough, California

Elkhorn Slough was first exposed to direct tidal forcing from the waters of Monterey Bay with the construction of Moss Landing Harbor in 1946. Elkhorn Slough is located mid-way between Santa Cruz and Monterey close to the head of Monterey Submarine Canyon. It follows a 10 km circuitous path inland from its entrance at Moss Landing Harbor. Today, Elkhorn Slough is a habitat and sanctuary for a wide variety of marine mammals, fish, and seabirds. The Slough also serves as a sink and pathway for various nutrients and pollutants. These attributes are directly or indirectly affected by its circulation and physical properties. Currents, tides and physical properties of Elkhorn Slough have been observed on an irregular basis since 1970. Based on these observations, the physical characteristics of Elkhorn Slough are examined and summarized. Elkhorn Slough is an ebb-dominated estuary and, as a result, the rise and fall of the tides is asymmetric. The fact that lower low water always follows higher high water and the tidal asymmetry produces ebb currents that are stronger than flooding currents. The presence of extensive mud flats and Salicornia marsh contribute to tidal distortion. Tidal distortion also produces several shallow water constituents including the M3, M4, and M6 overtides and the 2MK3 and MK3 compound tides. Tidal elevations and currents are approximately in quadrature; thus, the tides in Elkhorn Slough have some of the characters of a standing wave system. The temperature and salinity of lower Elkhorn Slough waters reflect, to a large extent, the influence of Monterey Bay waters, whereas the temperature and salinity of the waters of the upper Slough (>5 km from the mouth) are more sensitive to local processes. During the summer, temperature and salinity are higher in the upper slough due to local heating and evaporation. Maximum tidal currents in Elkhorn Slough have increased from approximately 75 to 120 cm/s over the past 30 years. This increase in current speed is primarily due to the change in tidal prism which has increased from approximately 2.5 to 6.2 x 106 m3 between 1956 and 1993. The increase in tidal prism is the result of both 3 rapid man-made changes to the Slough, and the continuing process of tidal erosion. Because of the increase in the tidal prism, the currents in Elkhorn Slough exhibit positive feedback, a process with uncertain consequences. [PDF contains 55 pages]

A scheme for multiple sequences alignment optimization-an improvement based on family representative mechanics features

As a basic tool of modern biology, sequence alignment can provide us useful information in fold, function, and active site of protein. For many cases, the increased quality of sequence alignment means a better performance. The motivation of present work is to increase ability of the existing scoring scheme/algorithm by considering residue–residue correlations better. Based on a coarse-grained approach, the hydrophobic force between each pair of residues is written out from protein sequence. It results in the construction of an intramolecular hydrophobic force network that describes the whole residue–residue interactions of each protein molecule, and characterizes protein's biological properties in the hydrophobic aspect. A former work has suggested that such network can characterize the top weighted feature regarding hydrophobicity. Moreover, for each homologous protein of a family, the corresponding network shares some common and representative family characters that eventually govern the conservation of biological properties during protein evolution. In present work, we score such family representative characters of a protein by the deviation of its intramolecular hydrophobic force network from that of background. Such score can assist the existing scoring schemes/algorithms, and boost up the ability of multiple sequences alignment, e.g. achieving a prominent increase (50%) in searching the structurally alike residue segments at a low identity level. As the theoretical basis is different, the present scheme can assist most existing algorithms, and improve their efficiency remarkably.

Generating artificial homologous proteins according to the representative family character in molecular mechanics properties - an attempt in validating an underlying rule of protein evolution

The molecular mechanics property is the foundation of many characters of proteins. Based on intramolecular hydrophobic force network, the representative family character underlying a protein’s mechanics property is described by a simple two-letter scheme. The tendency of a sequence to become a member of a protein family is scored according to this mathematical representation. Remote homologs of the WW-domain family could be easily designed using such a mechanistic signature of protein homology. Experimental validation showed that nearly all artificial homologs have the representative folding and bioactivity of their assigned family. Since the molecular mechanics property is the only consideration in this study, the results indicate its possible role in the generation of new members of a protein family during evolution.

Morphometric analysis of yellowfin tuna, Thunnus albacares, from the Eastern Pacific Ocean

ENGLISH: Morphometric data from yellowfin tuna, Thunnus albacares, were collected from various locations in the eastern Pacific Ocean during 1974 to 1976, to assess geographic and temporal variation of morphometric characters. The data were statistically adjusted, using allometric formulae to partition size. Discriminant analyses were applied to the adjusted morphometric characters. Yellowfin sampled from north of 15°N-20oN were different from those sampled from south of 15°N-20oN. The absence of any clinal relationships between morphometric characters and latitude or longitude suggests a pattern of somewhat distinct regional groups. These results clearly demonstrate geographic variation in morphometric characters of yellowfin in the eastern Pacific Ocean, which suggests differences between the life histories of the northern and southern groups. SPANISH: Entre 1974 Y1976 se tomaron datos morfométricos de atunes aleta amarilla, Thunmus albacares, de varios lugares en el Océano Pacífico oriental, a fin de evaluar la variación geográfica y temporal de los caracteres morfométricos. Se ajustaron los datos estadísticamente, usando fórmulas alométricas para eliminar los efectos del tamaño. Se aplicaron análisis discriminantes a los caracteres morfométricos ajustados. Aletas amarillas muestreados provenientes del norte de 15°N-20°N eran diferentes a aquellos muestreados del sur de 15°N -20°N. La falta de una relación clinal entre los caracteres morfométricos y latitud o longitud sugiere la existencia de grupos regionales algo distintos. Estos resultados demuestran claramente una variación geográfica en los caracteres morfométricos del aleta amarilla en el Océano Pacífico oriental, la cual sugiere diferencias en los ciclos vitales de los grupos del norte y del sur. (PDF contains 41 pages.)

Mujer y vino en la comedia griega

Presentado en las Jornadas sobre "Expresiones del humor desde la Antigüedad hasta nuestros días", organizadas por el Departamento de Estudios Clásicos y el Instituto de Ciencias de la Antigüedad de la UPV/EHU y celebradas en Vitoria-Gasteiz del 20 al 22 de octubre de 2009.

Humor y comicidad en el misántropo: la evolución del tipo desde el ámbito dramático (Menandro y Molière) hasta la narrativa (Villalonga, Moravia y Castellani)

Presentado en las Jornadas sobre "El humor (y los humores) en el mundo antiguo", organizado por el Departamento de Estudios Clásicos y el Instituto de Ciencias de la Antigüedad de la UPV y celebrado en Vitoria-Gasteiz los días 16 y 17 de octubre de 2007.