BACKGROUND There seems to be a discrepancy between the available heat stress guidelines and the actual risk of heat-related illness among professional beach volleyball players competing under hot and humid conditions. OBJECTIVE To monitor heat stress and record cases of heat-related medical forfeits on the Swatch FIVB Beach Volleyball World Tour. METHODS The FIVB Heat Stress Monitoring Prot...

There is currently no established bacteriological beach quality monitoring (BQM) program in place in Malaysia. To initiate cost-effective, sustainable bacteriological BQM schemes for the ultimate goal of protecting public health, policy decision makers need to be provided robust, indigenous empirical findings that validate appropriate water quality parameters for inclusion in such monitoring pr...

BACKGROUND Earaches and outer ear infections are commonly associated with swimming. In this study, we estimated the excess risk and health burden of earaches due to swimming in natural fresh and marine waters using results from a survey of over 50,000 beachgoers at nine beaches across the United States. METHODS Prospective cohort studies were conducted at four freshwater and five marine sites...

The abundance of horseshoe crab eggs in the swash zone and remaining on the beach after tide levels fall was evaluated to identify how numbers of eggs available to shorebirds differ with fluctuations in spawning numbers of horseshoe crabs, wave energies and beach elevation changes. Field data were gathered 1e6 June 2004 at Slaughter Beach on the west side of Delaware Bay, USA. Counts of spawnin...

Foraging behaviors of bottlenose dolphins vary within and among populations, but few studies attempt to address the causes of individual variation in foraging behavior. We examined how ecological, social, and developmental factors relate to the use of a rare foraging tactic by wild bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops sp. Gervais, 1855) in Shark Bay, Western Australia. Beach hunting involves partial a...

Reproductive Isolation in Sockeye Salmon The study of speciation has recently undergone a revival, with much controversy centering on whether new species can originate quickly and within the geographic range of their ancestor. Hendry et al. (1) described a case of reproductive isolation arising between two sockeye salmon populations in only 13 generations. If true, this finding would deserve co...

Although shoreface nourishments are an increasingly interesting option for coastal managers to counteract coastal erosion, their design is often highly empirical. A better understanding of the way shoreface nourishments interact with the initial beach profile may help to reduce the degree of empiricism in nourishment design. Literature study has shown that numerical modelling is commonly used t...