Compelling arguments for preserving large habitat 'islands' have been made for a number of animal groups, but most commonly for terrestrial birds. We argue that, for many species of waterbirds nesting in coastal estuaries, maintaining numerous small islands may be a more effective management strategy than maintaining larger islands or reserves. In this study, the number of great white heron Ard...

We provide a short overview of the bottom-up, non-governmental organisation (NGO)-driven conservation efforts that go long way towards implementing Ramsar Convention on ground in Prespa basin Balkans. Encompassing two lakes, transboundary is covered by three sites. The lakes host significant endemism and internationally important breeding wintering waterbirds. For over 30 years, Society for Pro...

A memristor is a kind of nonlinear electronic component. Parameter identification for memristive chaotic systems multi-dimensional variable optimization problem. It one the key issues in control and synchronization. To identify unknown parameters accurately quickly, we introduce, this paper, modified Pelican Optimization Algorithm (POA) called fractional-order Pareto (FPPOA). First, pelican pop...

Subsidence and accelerated sea level rise impact nesting area availability flood probabilities of breeding islands for colonial waterbirds. In 2017 2018, we monitored 855 nests four species waterbirds on Rabbit Island, LA, to determine factors affecting nest chick success. Based logistic exposure models nests, tricolored herons had the greatest likelihood survival hatch (mean (95% confidence in...

Traditional wisdom holds that biotic recovery from the end-Permian extinction was slow and gradual, and was not complete until the Middle Triassic. Here, we report that the evolution of marine predator feeding guilds, and their trophic structure, proceeded faster. Marine reptile lineages with unique feeding adaptations emerged during the Early Triassic (about 248 million years ago), including t...

Gliding flight is a postural activity which requires the wings to be held in a horizontal position to support the weight of the body. Postural behaviors typically utilize isometric contractions in which no change in length takes place. Due to longer actin-myosin interactions, slow contracting muscle fibers represent an economical means for this type of contraction. In specialized soaring birds,...

Microsoft’s Pelican storage rack uses a new class of hard disk drive (HDD), known by vendors as archival class HDD. These HDDs are explicitly designed to store cooler and archival data, differing from existing HDDs by trading performance for cost. Our early Pelican experiences have helped some vendors define the particular characteristics of this class of drive. During the last twelve or so mon...