Use of Fatty Acid Analysis to Determine Dispersal of Caspian Terns in the Columbia River Basin,U.S.A.

Abstract: Lethal control, which has been used to reduce local abundances of animals in conflict with humans or with endangered species, may not achieve management goals if animal movement is not considered. In populations with emigration and immigration, lethal control may induce compensatory immigration, if the source of attraction remains unchanged. Within the Columbia River Basin (Washington, U.S.A.), avian predators forage at dams because dams tend to reduce rates of emigration of juvenile salmonids (Oncorhynchus spp.), artificially concentrating these prey. We used differences in fatty acid profiles between Caspian Terns (Hydroprogne caspia) at coastal and inland breeding colonies and terns culled by a lethal control program at a mid‐Columbia River dam to infer dispersal patterns. We modeled the rate of loss of fatty acid biomarkers, which are fatty acids that can be traced to a single prey species or groups of species, to infer whether and when terns foraging at dams had emigrated from the coast. Nonmetric multidimensional scaling showed that coastal terns had high levels of C₂₀ and C₂₂ monounsaturated fatty acids, whereas fatty acids of inland breeders were high in C18:3n3, C20:4n6, and C22:5n3. Models of the rate of loss of fatty acid showed that approximately 60% of the terns collected at Rock Island Dam were unlikely to have bred successfully at local (inland) sites, suggesting that terns foraging at dams come from an extensive area. Fatty acid biomarkers may provide accurate information about patterns of dispersal in animal populations and may be extremely valuable in cases where populations differ demonstrably in prey base.     

Bayesian Decision Analysis for Evaluating Management Options to Promote Recovery of a Depleted Salmon Population

Abstract:  The endangered population of sockeye salmon (Oncorhynchus nerka) in Cultus Lake, British Columbia, Canada, migrates through commercial fishing areas along with other, much more abundant sockeye salmon populations, but it is not feasible to selectively harvest only the latter, abundant populations. This situation creates controversial trade-offs between recovery actions and economic revenue. We conducted a Bayesian decision analysis to evaluate options for recovery of Cultus Lake sockeye salmon. We used a stochastic population model that included 2 sources of uncertainty that are often omitted from such analyses: structural uncertainty in the magnitude of a potential Allee effect and implementation uncertainty (the deviation between targets and actual outcomes of management actions). Numerous state-dependent, time-independent management actions meet recovery objectives. These actions prescribe limitations on commercial harvest rates as a function of abundance of Cultus Lake sockeye salmon. We also quantified how much reduction in economic value of commercial harvests of the more abundant sockeye salmon populations would be expected for a given increase in the probability of recovery of the Cultus population. Such results illustrate how Bayesian decision analysis can rank options for dealing with conservation risks and can help inform trade-off discussions among decision makers and among groups that have competing objectives.     

Knowledge users’ perspectives and advice on how to improve knowledge exchange and mobilization in the case of a co-managed fishery

Environmental scientists have long been frustrated by the difficulties involved in transferring their research findings into policy-making, management, and public spheres. Despite increases in scientific knowledge about social-ecological systems, research has consistently shown that regulators and stakeholders draw on tacit, informal, and experiential knowledge far more than scientific knowledge in their decision-making. Social science research in the fields of knowledge exchange (KE) and knowledge mobilization (KMb) suggest that one of the major barriers to moving knowledge into practice is that scientists fail to align their communication strategies with the information-seeking behaviours and preferences of potential knowledge users. This article presents findings from in-depth qualitative research with government employees and stakeholders involved in co-managing Pacific salmon fisheries in Canada’s Fraser River. We investigate how members of these groups access, view, and use scientific information, finding both similarities and differences. Members of both groups express a strong interest in academic science, and self-report using scientific information regularly in their work and advocacy. However, the two groups engage in different information-seeking behaviours, and provide notably different advice to academic scientists about how to make research and communication more relevant to potential users. For example, government employees focus on the immediate applications of research to known problems, while stakeholders express greater concern for the political context and implications of scientific findings. We argue that scientists need to “go where the users are” in the behavioural and intellectual sense, and tailor their communications and engagement activities to match the habits, preferences, and expectations of multiple potential user groups. We conclude with recommendations on how this may be done.     

Combined Effects of Climate Change and Bank Stabilization on Shallow Water Habitats of Chinook Salmon

Significant challenges remain in the ability to estimate habitat change under the combined effects of natural variability, climate change, and human activity. We examined anticipated effects on shallow water over low‐sloped beaches to these combined effects in the lower Willamette River, Oregon, an area highly altered by development. A proposal to stabilize some shoreline with large rocks (riprap) would alter shallow water areas, an important habitat for threatened Chinook salmon (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha), and would be subject to U.S. Endangered Species Act‐mandated oversight. In the mainstem, subyearling Chinook salmon appear to preferentially occupy these areas, which fluctuate with river stages. We estimated effects with a geospatial model and projections of future river flows. Recent (1999–2009) median river stages during peak subyearling occupancy (April–June) maximized beach shallow water area in the lower mainstem. Upstream shallow water area was maximized at lower river stages than have occurred recently. Higher river stages in April–June, resulting from increased flows predicted for the 2080s, decreased beach shallow water area 17–32%. On the basis of projected 2080s flows, more than 15% of beach shallow water area was displaced by the riprap. Beach shallow water area lost to riprap represented up to 1.6% of the total from the mouth to 12.9 km upstream. Reductions in shallow water area could restrict salmon feeding, resting, and refuge from predators and potentially reduce opportunities for the expression of the full range of life‐history strategies. Although climate change analyses provided useful information, detailed analyses are prohibitive at the project scale for the multitude of small projects reviewed annually. The benefits of our approach to resource managers include a wider geographic context for reviewing similar small projects in concert with climate change, an approach to analyze cumulative effects of similar actions, and estimation of the actions’ long‐term effects. Efectos Combinados del Cambio Climático y la Estabilización de Bordes de Ríos Hábitats de Aguas Poco Profundas del Salmón Chinook     

多拷贝表达转鲑鱼降钙素基因酵母的急性、亚急性毒性

口服转鲑鱼降钙素基因酵母为鲑鱼降钙素的应用开辟了一条新的途径.为评价转鲑鱼降钙素基因酵母的安全性,将转基因酵母分别灌胃昆明种小鼠和Wistar大鼠进行急性毒性实验(7 d)、亚急性毒性实验(8周).急性毒性实验结果表明灌喂转基因酵母对小鼠无致死效应(LD50>10 000 mg/kg);亚急性毒性实验中高(2.0 g/kg)、低(0.5 g/kg)剂量组动物的一般状况、体重、主要脏器系数、血液学指标及血液生化指标与各对照组比较,均未见明显差异(P>0.05),组织病理切片检查未发现病理性变化.实验结果说明转鲑鱼降钙素基因酵母不会对实验动物造成不良影响,是安全无毒的.图3表3参16     

重庆近48年来高温天气气候特征及其环流形势

利用重庆23个气象观测站1960~2007年逐日最高气温观测资料，NCEP/NCAR再分析数据集中的高度场格点资料，运用EOF、REOF等方法，探讨重庆高温日数的空间分布特征，并对多高温天气的2006年和少高温天气年7~8月的环流特征进行了分析。结果表明：重庆高温天气主要出现在7~8月份，高温日数具有显著的年代际和区域性差异，20世纪70年代最多，80年代最少，沿长江、乌江为高温多发带。一致性异常分布是重庆高温日数的最主要空间模态；高温日数的异常空间分布可分为以下3个关键区：重庆中西部、重庆东南部、重庆东北部。乌拉尔山至鄂霍次克海地区阻塞高压偏弱，东亚大槽偏浅；100 hPa 高空南亚高压偏东,500 hPa 高空副高偏北偏西，形成一种上高下高的叠加形势是重庆7~8月出现多高温天气的主要原因。     

Fiji, land of tropical cyclones and hurricanes: A case study of agricultural rehabilitation

Tropical cyclones and hurricanes have a severe impact on the social and economic activities of affected communities. For small island nations in the Pacific region, the effects can be devastating because of their smallness. FQi and several other countries in the region are vulnerable to such disasters as they are situated in the zone where cyclones occur frequently.
During the last decade, the frequency of natural disasters and their adverse impact on die economic and social development of small nations like Fiji, has aroused awareness mat relief efforts must go beyond immediate "mopping up" operations to those which contribute to attaining longer term benefits through reconstruction and rehabilitation.
The paper outlines the 1985 agricultural rehabilitation program and discusses related issues and problems.     

Nontraditional settlement patterns and typhoon hazard on contemporary Majuro atoll,Republic of the Marshall Islands

Low-lying islands and atolls are particularly prone to storm surges created by tropical depressions and typhoons. This paper presents a case study of traditional and contemporary settlement patterns of Majuro, the capital of the Republic of the Marshall Islands, and discusses its vulnerability to such storm surges. The paper shows that the application of traditional knowledge extends to the realm of urban planning and that, in fact, ignoring this traditional knowledge as expressed in pre-World War II settlement patterns, exposes urban development to increased flood hazards, a risk which may exact a price too high in life and property.     

The remaining islands with primary rain forest: A global resource

Islands with large tracts of primary rain forest constitute a distinct complex of terrestrial and marine ecosystems with global significance because of high levels of biological richness or, in the case of oceanic islands, the evolutionary distinctiveness of the organisms that they support. The myriad of small habitat units makes these settings particularly prone to fragmentation and thus problematic for the conservation of biological diversity. Most of the remaining examples of islands with primary rain forest are in the Pacific Rim, particularly in Indonesia, and there are threats from intensive timber harvesting, mining, tourism, and dismemberment of traditional convervation systems. Prospects for inventorying, monitoring, and protecting the remaining islands with relatively pristine successional mosaics of humid forest and shallow marine habitats within a framework global monitoring are explored. Recommendations are made for a program of expanded use of the biosphere reserve designation for rain forest islands and adjacent marine areas.     

COLUMBIA RIVER FLOW AND DROUGHT SINCE 17501

ABSTRACT: A network of 32 drought sensitive tree‐ring chronologies is used to reconstruct mean water year flow on the Columbia River at The Dalles, Oregon, since 1750. The reconstruction explains 30 percent of the variability in mean water year (October to September) flow, with a large portion of unexplained variance caused by underestimates of the most severe low flow events. Residual statistics from the tree‐ring reconstruction, as well as an identically specified instrumental reconstruction, exhibit positive trends over time. This finding suggests that the relationship between drought and streamflow has changed over time, supporting results from hydrologic models, which suggest that changes in land cover over the 20th Century have had measurable impacts on runoff production. Low pass filtering the flow record suggests that persistent low flows during the 1840s were probably the most severe of the past 250 years, but that flows during the 1930s were nearly as extreme. The period from 1950 to 1987 is anomalous in the context of this record for having no notable multiyear drought events. A comparison of the flow reconstruction to paleorecords of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) and El Nino/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) support a strong 20th Century link between large scale circulation and streamflow, but suggests that this link is very weak prior to 1900.