The remote and often ice-covered Amundsen Sea Embayment in Antarctica is important for transporting relatively warm modified Circumpolar Deep Water (mCDW) to the Western Antarctic Ice Sheet, potentially accelerating its thinning contribution sea level rise. To investigate potential pathways variability of mCDW, 3809 CTD profiles (instrumented seal ship-based data) are classified using a machine...

Standard NASA ocean color algorithm OC4 was developed on the basis of ocean optical data and while appropriate for Case 1 oceanic waters could not be adequately applied for the Black Sea waters due to its different bio-optical properties. OC4 algorithm is shown to overestimate chlorophyll concentration (Chl-a) in summer and underestimate Chl-a during early spring phytoplankton blooms in the Bla...

Lesser black-backed gulls Larus fuscus are considered to be mainly pelagic. We assessed the importance of different landscape elements (open sea, tidal flats and inland) by comparing marine and terrestrial foraging behaviours in lesser black-backed gulls breeding along the coast of the southern North Sea. We attached GPS data loggers to eight incubating birds and collected information on diet a...

A new species of cryptochirid crab, Fizesereneia panda van der Meij, is described and illustrated based on specimens collected from the scleractinian corals Lobophyllia cf. hemprichii and L. cf. corymbosa from the Farasan Banks, Farasan Islands, and the reefs off Thuwal in the Saudi Arabian Red Sea, and from Symphyllia recta from reefs in the Gulf of Oman. This is the second cryptochirid specie...

We describe the effect of gelatinous plankton – Aurelia aurita and invaders Mnemiopsis leidyi and Beroe ovata – on fish (eggs, larvae, feeding, and stocks) in the Black Sea and Sea of Azov, based on field data and the relevant literature. Representatives of three ecological groups of fish were chosen as examples: planktivorous anchovy typical of warm-water conditions, planktivorous sprat of tem...

While the existence of the trough effect is unquestioned, its theoretical significance is unknown. A multifaceted instrumental approach - spectrographic, cineradiographic, and vocal tract modeling - was used to document the trough effect in open (V.CV) and closed (VC.V) syllable forms using a symmetrical vowel context surrounding labial stops. Collectively, the results document the trough pheno...

BACKGROUND Vitamin D deficiency during pregnancy has been associated with increased risk of complications and adverse perinatal outcomes. We evaluated seasonal variation of 25-hydroxyvitamin D [25(OH)D] among pregnant women, focusing on patterns and determinants of variation. METHODS Data came from three cohort studies in the US that included 2583 non-Hispanic Black and White women having pre...

The last deglaciation, 20,000–10,000 years ago, was a period of global warming and rapidly shrinking ice sheets. It also climatically unstable retreats were interrupted by re-advances. Retreat rates timing relative to climatic changes have therefore been difficult establish. We here study suite 12 marine sediment cores from Storfjorden Trough, Svalbard. purpose is reconstruct retreat patterns h...

The efficiency of different types of traps for catching of the Caspian Sea crayfish, Astacus leptodactylus eichwaldi, was investigated from Mar. 2002 to Feb. 2003. Totally 56 traps of four most commonly used types, "Rectangular trap", "Round trap", "Opera house trap" in two colors of "black" and "blue", and "Fathoms plus" only in black...