Pisaster ochraceus were collected at Post Point, Bellingham, Washington, USA, in 1980. Total protease and tryptic specific activities were measured in pyloric caecal tissues and pyloric duct fluids of fed and starved individuals. Feeding resulted in increased levels of total protease and tryptic activities, and led to an increase in the ratio of total protease to tryptic specific activity in pyloric caecal tissue and a decrease in that ratio in pyloric duct fluid, indicating a release of trypsin into the duct with feeding. Trypsin activity showed little variability in fed seastars, but was quite variable in starving individuals. Total proteolytic acitivity, unlike that of tryptic activity, was always present in both fed and starved seastars. This way indicate a much broader role of generalized proteases in the cells of the pyloric caecum (e.g. as lysosomal enzymes of absorptive cells) in comparison to tryptic enzymes.Please address all correspondence and requests for reprints to Dr. D. C. Williams at the Department of Biology 相似文献
Trichechus manatus ) in Puerto Rico is mortality due to human activities. We assessed 90 cases of manatee strandings in Puerto Rico based on
historical data and a coordinated carcass salvage effort from 1990 through 1995. We determined patterns of mortality, including
type of event, condition of carcasses, spatial and temporal distribution, gender, size/age class, and the cause of death.
The spatial distribution of stranding events was not uniform, with the north, northeast, and south coasts having the highest
numbers. Six clusters representing the highest incidence included the areas of Fajardo and Ceiba, Bahía de Jobos, Toa Baja,
Guayanilla, Cabo Rojo, and Rio Grande to Luquillo. The number of reported cases has increased at an average rate of 9.6%/yr
since 1990. The seasonality of stranding events showed a bimodal pattern, from February through April and in August and September.
Most identified causes of death were due to human interaction, especially captures and watercraft collisions. Natural causes
usually involved dependent calves. From 1990 through 1995, most deaths were attributed to watercraft collisions. A reduction
in anthropogenic mortality of this endangered species can be accomplished only through education and a proactive management
and conservation plan that includes law enforcement, mortality assessment, scientific research, rescue and rehabilitation,
and inter- and intraagency cooperation. 相似文献
ABSTRACT: The relationship between chlorophyll u, total phosphorus, secchi disk depth, and trophic state were examined using data on U.S. lakes collected by U.S. EPA's National Eutrophication Survey. By comparing predicted secchi disk depths with observed summer secchi disk depths in 757 lakes, it was determined that in many lakes non-chlorophyll related light attenuation is important in controlling the amount of chlorophyll u produced per unit of total phosphorus. Ranking of 44 lakes by 18 different trophic state measurements and single and multivariable indices were compared with rankings provided by mean summer ambient total phosphorus and chlorophyll u. The trophic state measurements and indices were much more successful in ranking the lakes against total phosphorus than chlorophyll u, indicating that there are differences in the relative trophic rankings of many of the lakes depending upon whether primary nutrients or biological manifestations are used as the ranking mechanism. If the manifestations of nutrients rather than their absolute levels are the primary criteria for beneficial use of lakes, the use of many of the commonly employed trophic state measurements, which assume or imply that there is a constant relationship between total phosphorus or secchi disk and chlorophyll, can lead to erroneous conclusions and unnecessary costly management controls. Secchi disk measurements may be more useful as a predictor of ambient lake total phosphorus concentrations than of chlorophyll. 相似文献
Fuelled by terrorist attacks on urban areas, emergency planning responses to manmade disasters is a growing area of critical debate within the field of urban management. The response of a major British city--Manchester--to the 1996 bombing of its commercial core, is examined in this paper. It focuses on the transformation of the emergency planning response from dealing with the immediate crisis during the first week, to a stage of controlled recovery that still continues. The response to the devastation caused by the bomb was co-ordinated by the city council, which developed a range of short- and long-term initiatives, but the re-opening of the city centre could not have happened so quickly had the council not worked in collaboration with other key organisations and agencies. Working partnerships were crucial to the immediate response and subsequent recovery, with such capacity for organisational learning built upon existing co-operative arrangements within the city, which had developed over the previous decade. 相似文献
We evaluate the available palaeontological and geochemical proxy data from bivalves, bryozoans, silicoflagellates, diatoms and cetaceans for sea surface temperature (SST) regimes around the nearshore Antarctic coast during the late Neogene. These fossils can be found in a number of shallow marine sedimentary settings from three regions of the Antarctic continent, the northern Antarctic Peninsula, the Prydz Bay region and the western Ross Sea. Many of the proxies suggest maximum spring–summer SSTs that are warmer than present by up to 5 °C, which would result in reduced seasonal sea ice. The evidence suggests that the summers on the Antarctic shelf during the late Neogene experienced most of the warming, while winter SSTs were little changed from present. Feedbacks from changes in summer sea ice cover may have driven much of the late Neogene ocean warming seen in stratigraphic records. Synthesized late Neogene and earliest Quaternary Antarctic shelf proxy data are compared to the multi-model SST estimates of the Pliocene Model Intercomparison Project (PlioMIP) Experiment 2. Despite the fragmentary geographical and temporal context for the SST data, comparisons between the SST warming in each of the three regions represented in the marine palaeontological record of the Antarctic shelf and the PlioMIP climate simulations show a good concordance. 相似文献
Evaluation of adaptive management options is very crucial for successfully dealing with negative climate change impacts. Research objectives of this study were (1) to determine the proper N application rate for current practice, (2) to select a range of synthetic wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) cultivars to expand the existing wheat cultivar pool for adaptation purpose, (3) to quantify the potential impacts of climate change on wheat grain yield and (4) to evaluate the effectiveness of three common management options such as early sowing, changing N application rate and use of different wheat cultivars derived in (2) and given in the APSIM-Wheat model package in dealing with the projected negative impacts for Keith, South Australia. The APSIM-Wheat model was used to achieve these objectives. It was found that 75 kg ha?1 N application at sowing for current situation is appropriate for the study location. This provided a non-limiting N supply condition for climate change impact and adaptation evaluation. Negative impacts of climate change on wheat grain yield were projected under both high (?15%) and low (?10%) plant available water capacity conditions. Neither changes in N application level nor in wheat cultivar alone nor their synergistic effects could offset the negative climate change impact. It was found that early sowing is an effective adaptation strategy when initial soil water was reset at 25 mm at sowing but this may be hard to realise especially since a drier environment is projected. 相似文献
The honeybee has been the most important insect species for study of social behavior. The recently released draft genomic
sequence for the bee will accelerate honeybee behavioral genetics. Although we lack sufficient tools to manipulate this genome
easily, quantitative trait loci (QTLs) that influence natural variation in behavior have been identified and tested for their
effects on correlated behavioral traits. We review what is known about the genetics and physiology of two behavioral traits
in honeybees, foraging specialization (pollen versus nectar), and defensive behavior, and present evidence that map-based
cloning of genes is more feasible in the bee than in other metazoans. We also present bioinformatic analyses of candidate
genes within QTL confidence intervals (CIs). The high recombination rate of the bee made it possible to narrow the search
to regions containing only 17–61 predicted peptides for each QTL, although CIs covered large genetic distances. Knowledge
of correlated behavioral traits, comparative bioinformatics, and expression assays facilitated evaluation of candidate genes.
An overrepresentation of genes involved in ovarian development and insulin-like signaling components within pollen foraging
QTL regions suggests that an ancestral reproductive gene network was co-opted during the evolution of foraging specialization.
The major QTL influencing defensive/aggressive behavior contains orthologs of genes involved in central nervous system activity
and neurogenesis. Candidates at the other two defensive-behavior QTLs include modulators of sensory signaling (Am5HT7 serotonin receptor, AmArr4 arrestin, and GABA-B-R1 receptor). These studies are the first step in linking natural variation in honeybee social behavior
to the identification of underlying genes. 相似文献