Direct evidence of hybodont shark predation on Late Jurassic ammonites

Sharks are known to have been ammonoid predators, as indicated by analysis of bite marks or coprolite contents. However, body fossil associations attesting to this predator–prey relationship have never been described so far. Here, I report a unique finding from the Late Jurassic of western France: a complete specimen of the Kimmeridgian ammonite Orthaspidoceras bearing one tooth of the hybodont shark Planohybodus. Some possible tooth puncture marks are also observed. This is the first direct evidence of such a trophic link between these two major Mesozoic groups, allowing an accurate identification of both organisms. Although Planohybodus displays a tearing-type dentition generally assumed to have been especially adapted for large unshelled prey, our discovery clearly shows that this shark was also able to attack robust ammonites such as aspidoceratids. The direct evidence presented here provides new insights into the Mesozoic marine ecosystem food webs.     

Sex pheromone component ratios and mating isolation among three Lygus plant bug species of North America

The plant bugs Lygus hesperus, Lygus lineolaris, and Lygus elisus (Hemiptera: Miridae) are major pests of many agricultural crops in North America. Previous studies suggested that females release a sex pheromone attractive to males. Other studies showed that males and females contain microgram amounts of (E)-4-oxo-2-hexenal, hexyl butyrate, and (E)-2-hexenyl butyrate that are emitted as a defense against predators. Using gas chromatography–mass spectrometry, we found that female L. lineolaris and L. elisus have a 4:10 ratio of hexyl butyrate to (E)-2-hexenyl butyrate that is reversed from the 10:1 ratio in female L. hesperus (males of the three species have ~10:1 ratio). These reversed ratios among females of the species suggest a behavioral role. Because both sexes have nearly equal amounts of the major volatiles, females should release more to attract males. This expectation was supported because L. hesperus females released more hexyl butyrate (mean of 86 ng/h) during the night (1800–0700 hours) than did males (<1 ng/h). We used slow-rotating pairs of traps to test the attraction of species to blends of the volatiles with a subtractive method to detect synergism. Each species’ major butyrate ester was released at 3 μg/h, the minor butyrate according to its ratio, and (E)-4-oxo-2-hexenal at 2 μg/h. The resulting catches of only Lygus males suggest that (E)-4-oxo-2-hexenal is an essential sex pheromone component for all three species, (E)-2-hexenyl butyrate is essential for L. elisus and L. lineolaris, and hexyl butyrate is essential for L. hesperus. However, all three components are recognized by each species since ratios of the butyrate esters are critical for conspecific attraction and heterospecific avoidance by males and thus play a role in reproductive isolation among the three species. Because L. hesperus males and females are known to emit these major volatiles for repelling ant predators, our study links defensive allomones in Lygus bugs with an additional use as sex pheromones.     

Mapping the movement to achieve sustainable production and consumption in North America

The paper reviews some of the many initiatives and efforts to build networks and institute policies promoting sustainable production and consumption (SPAC) values and practices in North America since the 1992 UN Conference on Environment and Development. It analyzes a selection of SPAC initiatives in Canada and USA from the NASCA/CEC database, drawing also on interviews with representatives from government, businesess, consumer and environmental organizations on their experience and efforts to “take the lead” in influencing public opinion and behavior as well as government and corporate policy towards SPAC.     

Occurrence, profiles, and ecotoxicity of poly- and perfluoroalkyl substances and their alternatives in global apex predators: A critical review

Certain poly- and perfluoroalkyl substances (PFASs) exhibit significant bioaccumulation/biomagnification behaviors in ecosystems. PFASs, such as perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS), perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA), perfluorohexanesulfonic acid (PFHxS) and related precursors, have elicited attention from both public and national regulatory agencies, which has resulted in worldwide restrictions on their production and use. Apex predators occupy the top trophic positions in ecosystems and are most affected by the biomagnification behavior of PFASs. Meanwhile, the long lifespans of apex predators also lead to the high body burden of PFASs. The high body burden of PFASs might be linked to adverse health effects and even pose a potential threat to their reproduction. As seen in previous reviews of PFASs, knowledge is lacking between the current stage of the PFAS body burden and related effects in apex predators. This review summarized PFAS occurrence in global apex predators, including information on the geographic distribution, levels, profiles, and tissue distribution, and discussed the trophic transfer and ecotoxicity of PFASs. In the case where legacy PFASs were restricted under international convention, the occurrence of novel PFASs, such as 6:2 chlorinated polyfluorinated ether sulfonate (6:2 Cl-PFESA) and perfluoroethylcyclohexane sulfonate (PFECHS), in apex predators arose as an emerging issue. Future studies should develop an effective analytical method and focus on the toxicity and trophic transfer behavior of novel PFASs.     

北美耕地环境保护管理制度对我国的启示

美国、加拿大两国在耕地环境保护方面获得了举世瞩目的成果,这对土壤污染问题严峻的中国而言具有重要的借鉴意义。本研究针对美国、加拿大耕地保护法律法规、农药管理和污染整治的实践内容,探讨北美两国在耕地保护与土地管理方面的历史经验,与我国的实际情况相结合,分析这些经验带来的启示,为我国当前耕地改革提供借鉴。     

北美热带树线的400年年轮年代学

热带高海拔立地可能对气候的快速变化特别敏感.通过对树木线种群的样本分析,我进行了热带北美的首次长期(＞300年)年轮年代学研究.样地位于墨西哥新火山带西端的科利马(Nevado de Colima),研究树种为墨西哥山松(Pimus hartwegii).尽管该地区过去曾进行过采伐,但在现有树木线以下约300m,海拔3600～3700m处发现有300～500年生的老龄松树.科利马(Nevado de Colima)年轮年代从1600年至1997年.用科利马气候记录进行校准,表明夏季季风降雨为最明显的树木气候标志.大多数树木在1913年和1914年都表现出极端低生长,而这以前1913年1月科利马火山(Volcan de Colima)曾经突然爆发.由于P.hartwegii见于由墨西哥至瓜地马拉的高山山顶,所以有可能建成热带树木线年代学网络.     

西北太平洋冬季气溶胶中稳定碳同位素组成特征

随着全球经济的快速发展，海洋大气受到了人为污染物的严重影响，并引起了广泛的关注.碳组分是海洋大气气溶胶的重要组成，对全球气候变化和海洋碳循环有着重要的影响.由于采样困难，有关偏远海域海洋气溶胶中总碳（TC）在传输过程中发生的化学反应及其污染来源的研究相对较少.因此，本研究于2014年12月-2015年3月期间搭载西北太平洋观测航次收集海洋大气气溶胶样品，并测定总碳（TC）浓度及其稳定碳同位素组成（δ¹³C）.结果表明，海洋大气气溶胶TC平均浓度为（4.0±4.4）μg·m^-3，δ¹³C平均值为-26.6‰±0.8‰.近岸与远海的TC平均浓度分别为（6.0±6.8）、（3.1±2.7）μg·m^-3，δ¹³C平均值分别为-26.0‰±1.1‰、-26.9‰±0.4‰.根据后向轨迹分析结果可知，近岸与远海TC浓度和同位素的差异可能是由不同气团的来源导致，近岸总悬浮颗粒物（TSP）中TC主要来源于大陆的生物质燃烧和机动车尾气，而远海可能与二次有机气溶胶（SOA）的形成比例相对较高有关.     

Chlorinated organic compounds in the troposphere over the western North Atlantic Ocean measured by aircraft

Results of 32 individual flights during 1985, 1986 and 1988 using a King Air research aircraft over the western North Atlantic Ocean and the Adirondack Mountains are presented. Measurements were made for selected trace organic compounds including α- and γ-isomers of hexachlorocyclohexane (HCH), the summed isomers of α- and γ-chlordane, dieldrin and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs). The concentrations of compounds at altitudes of 300–10,000 ft indicate that these compounds were well mixed in the atmosphere and that for the most part, ground-level and higher-altitude concentrations were similar in magnitude. There was a high degree of variability due to time, meteorological events and location. Concentrations over the Adirondack Mountains in 1985 were the highest measured with means of 0.198 ng m⁻³ for HCB, 0.388 ng m⁻³ for α-HCH, 0.509 ng m⁻³ for γ-HCH, 0.340 ng m⁻³ for dieldrin, 0.480 ng m⁻³ for chlordane and 0.951 ng m⁻³ for total PCBs. Concentrations over the western North Atlantic south-east of Bermuda in summer 1988 wer lower, with means of 0.093 ng m⁻³ for HCB, 0.142 ng m⁻³ for α-HCH, 0.012 ng m⁻³ for γ-HCH, 0.016 ng m⁻³ for dieldrin 0.020 ng m⁻³ for chlordane and 0.600 ng m⁻³ for PCBs. During 1988 concentrations of most of the compounds were similar in the atmosphere of the coastal zone, 50–100 km off the U.S., to those measured near Bermuda. Chlordane, and to a lesser extent dieldrin, showed a decrease in concentration away from North America.     

The boll weevil in North America: Scientific conflicts over management of environmental resources

This paper is a historical and philosphical reconstruction of how U.S. entomologists attempted to mitigate the depradations of the boll weevil on cotton, the world's most important natural fiber. The boll weevil caused severe losses in the U.S. after 1892. Early control methods were based on altering the cultural practices of cotton growers. The discovery in 1917 that calcium arsenate was an effective insecticide for boll weevils eventually allowed some farmers to rely on chemical control. Development of synthetic, organic insecticides allowed many U.S. growers after 1945 to rely heavily on insecticides for boll weevils. By the 1960s, resistance of boll weevils to insecticides, induction of secondary pest outbreaks, and environmental health hazards threatened cotton production practices based on insecticides. U.S. entomologists devised two new strategies to rescue cotton production from its insecticide crisis: integrated pest management (IPM) and total population management (TPM). Eradication of key insect pests such as boll weevils was envisaged by TPM entomologists with adequate technology. E.F. Knipling, the USDA entomologist who designed TPM, gave 1968 as a target for possible boll weevil eradication. The pilot boll weevil eradication experiment (PBWEE) was conducted in 1971–1973. IPM entomologists argued the futility of attempting to eradicate the boll weevil from the U.S.A., but TPM adherents argued for a second test, which was held in Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina (1978–1980). A new controversy erupted over how to interpret the fact that a few boll weevils were found at the end of the second test. IPM and TPM entomologists were once again pitted against one another on three major issues: defining eradication; explaining secondary pest behavior; and drawing conclusions about the wisdom of a national boll weevil eradication program. Currently, entomologists have reached a stalemate over boll weevil eradication in the U.S. Some entomologists are attempting to synthesize opposing views in the hope of reaching a professional consensus on appropriate boll weevil suppression methods. Significant distinctions separate IPM and TPM and will make it difficult to achieve an agreement. Budgetary problems in the U.S.A. argue for a management rather than eradication stance against boll weevils. The split in the U.S. entomological profession could have adverse effects on efforts to develop insect-control science outside of the U.S.     

北美五大湖JSP管理模式及对我国河湖流域管理的启示

美国和加拿大为有效管理五大湖流域开展了大量卓有成效的合作。北美五大湖渔业管理协同战略计划(A Joint Strategic Plan for Management of Great Lakes Fisheries, JSP)就是其中的一个。JSP通过构筑扁平开放多中心流域管理网络、推进整合性战略、建立适应性动态管理机制和破解"集体行动困境"机制,合作共管渔业、生态等各项湖区事务,协同把零散工作整合到渔业管理中去,有效实现了五大湖流域管理目标。JSP模式对我国河湖流域管理具有重要的启示:建立合作伙伴关系,发挥政府、市场、社会组织和居民联动作用;破解"碎片化"瓶颈,实施整体性管理模式;建立流域管理共同体,推行适应性管理机制。     

Beyond the black box: Forest sector vulnerability assessments and adaptation to climate change in North America

In the wake of the failures to date of well-publicized multilateral and multi-sectoral mitigation efforts to control greenhouse gases, attention is now increasingly focused on the effectiveness and capacity of national and sub-national level sectoral plans, including forestry, to usher in a new era of adaptation efforts. In Canada, the government of British Columbia spent several years developing its Future Forest Ecosystems Initiative as part of a larger climate change response strategy in the forest sector. Similarly, in the United States, wildfire related events have led to climate change inspired efforts by individual states (e.g., Alaska, California) and the US Forest Service has recently undertaken plans to incorporate climate change considerations in national forest planning beginning with the National Road Map for Responding to Climate Change. This paper highlights a number of shortcomings with both these national and sub-national strategies with respect to the relationships existing between governance, forestry and climate change. It proposes incorporating considerations of governance mechanisms directly into forest sector planning and the need to assess not only natural system level changes but also the extent to which new problems can be dealt with by ‘old’ or ‘new’ governance arrangements.     

Offshore spawning of <Emphasis Type="Italic">Conger myriaster</Emphasis> in the western North Pacific: evidence for convergent migration strategies of anguilliform eels in the Atlantic and Pacific

The spawning area of the common Japanese conger, Conger myriaster, had remained unknown because spawning adults or its newly hatched larvae were never collected. Using genetic identification, we determined that C. myriaster spawns far offshore in the western North Pacific, just west of the spawning area of the Japanese eel, Anguilla japonica. In June 2008, six newly hatched C. myriaster larvae, 5.6–6.9 mm, were collected at the eastern edge of where many small unidentified Conger leptocephali (7–20 mm) were collected previously. The offshore spawning location of C. myriaster is analogous to that of the American conger eel, Conger oceanicus, and the American eel, Anguilla rostrata, in the Sargasso Sea, suggesting that convergent evolution of large-scale reproductive migration strategies in both anguillid and conger eels has occurred in the north Atlantic and Pacific subtropical gyres. The realization that two anguillids, A. rostrata and A. japonica, and two congers, C. oceanicus and C. myriaster, have evolved almost identical migration strategies in widely separated ocean basins suggests that natural selection for larval survival and recruitment success has resulted in long offshore spawning migrations in two phylogenetically distant taxa of anguilliform eels.     

A new dromaeosaurid (Dinosauria: Theropoda) with Asian affinities from the latest Cretaceous of North America

Dromaeosaurids from the Maastrichtian of North America have a poor fossil record and are known largely from isolated teeth, which have typically been referred to taxa based on more complete material from earlier Campanian strata. An almost complete maxilla with well-preserved dentition and an associated dentary from the Hell Creek Formation of Montana are used to establish a new dromaeosaurid taxon in the latest Maastrichtian, immediately prior to the end-Cretaceous extinction event. Acheroraptor temertyorum gen. et sp. nov. is differentiated from other dromaeosaurids on the basis of a hypertrophied postantral wall that projects posteriorly into the antorbital fenestra, a maxillary fenestra positioned low in the antorbital fossa and directly posterior to the promaxillary fenestra, and distinctive dentition with marked apicobasal ridges. The new material allows a dromaeosaurid from the Maastrichtian of North America to be placed within a phylogenetic framework for the first time. Phylogenetic analysis suggests Acheroraptor is a velociraptorine that is more closely related to Asian dromaeosaurids, including Tsaagan and Velociraptor, than it is to Dromaeosaurus, Saurornitholestes, or any other taxon from North America. As part of the Lancian Tyrannosaurus–Triceratops fauna, A. temertyorum is the latest occurring dromaeosaurid. Its relationships and occurrence suggest a complex historical biogeographic scenario that involved multiple, bi-directional faunal interchanges between Asia and North America during the Late Cretaceous.     

Late Variscan exhumation histories of the southern Rhenohercynian Zone and western Mid-German Crystalline Rise: results from thermal modeling

Thermal modeling techniques constrained by published petrological and thermo-chronometric data were applied to examine late orogenic burial and exhumation at a Variscan suture zone in Central Europe. The suture separates the southern Rhenohercynian zone from the Mid-German Crystalline Rise and traces the former site of a small oceanic basin. Closure of this basin during Variscan subduction and subsequent collision of continental units were responsible for different tectono-metamorphic evolutions in the suture's footwall and hanging wall. Relative convergence rates between the southern Rhenohercynian zone and western Mid-German Crystalline Rise can be inferred from the pressure-temperature-time evolution of the Northern Phyllite Zone. During Late Viséan-Early Namurian times, horizontal thrusting velocities were at least 20 mm/a. Thermal modeling suggests that exhumation of the Mid-German Crystalline Rise occurred temporarily at rates of more than 3 mm/a. Such rapid exhumation cannot be produced by erosion only, but requires a substantial contribution of extensional strain. Exhumation by upper crustal extension occurred contemporaneously with convergence and is explained by continuous underplating of crustal slices and thrusting along faults with ramp-flat geometry. Finally, implications for the tectono-metamorphic history of the study area and the thermal state of the crust during late Variscan exhumation are discussed.     

Direct evidence for maternal inheritance of bacterial symbionts in small deep-sea clams (Bivalvia: Vesicomyidae)

Bacterial symbiont transmission is a key step in the renewal of the symbiotic interaction at each host generation, and different modes of transmission can be distinguished. Vesicomyidae are chemosynthetic bivalves from reducing habitats that rely on symbiosis with sulfur-oxidizing bacteria, in which two studies suggesting vertical transmission of symbionts have been published, both limited by the imaging techniques used. Using fluorescence in situ hybridization and transmission electron microscopy, we demonstrate that bacterial symbionts of Isorropodon bigoti, a gonochoristic Vesicomyidae from the Guiness cold seep site, occur intracellularly within female gametes at all stages of gametogenesis from germ cells to mature oocytes and in early postlarval stage. Symbionts are completely absent from the male gonad and gametes. This study confirms the transovarial transmission of symbionts in Vesicomyidae and extends it to the smaller species for which no data were previously available.