Eiman Zargaran, MD, MHSc, Lauren Adolph, Nadine Schuurman, PhD, Larissa Roux, MD, PhD, Damon Ramsey, MD, Richard Simons, MB, BChir, Richard Spence, MD, Andrew J. Nicol, MD, PhD, Pradeep Navsaria, MD, Juan Carlos Puyana, MD, Neil Parry, MD, Lynne Moore, PhD, Michel Aboutanos, MD, MPH, Natalie Yanchar, MD, Tarek Razek, MD, Chad G. Ball, MD, MSc, and S. Morad Hameed, MD, MPH, for the Trauma Associ...

Marine biology is a hybrid subject that combines aspects of organismal function, ecological interaction and the study of marine biodiversity.[1] The earliest studies of marine biology can be traced back to the Phoenicians and the Greeks who are known as the initial explorers of the oceans and their composition.[2] However, it was Aristotle (384-322 BC) who was the first to record any observatio...

Understanding the effects of climatic variability on marine mammals is challenging due to the complexity of ecological interactions. We used general linear models to analyze a 15-year database documenting marine mammal strandings (1994-2008; n = 1,193) and nine environmental parameters known to affect marine mammal survival, from regional (sea ice) to continental scales (North Atlantic Oscillat...

Cerebral language lateralization can be assessed in several ways. In healthy subjects, functional MRI (fMRI) during performance of a language task has evolved to be the most frequently applied method. Functional transcranial Doppler (fTCD) may provide a valid alternative, but has been used rarely. Both techniques have their own strengths and weaknesses and as a result may be applied in differen...

Biotic indices, which reflect the quality of the environment, are widely used in the marine realm. Sometimes, key species or ecosystem engineers are selected for this purpose. This is the case of the Mediterranean seagrass Posidonia oceanica, widely used as a biological quality element in the context of the European Union Water Framework Directive (WFD). The good quality of a water body and the...

The Vibrionaceae (Vibrio) are a ubiquitous group of metabolically flexible marine bacteria that play important roles in biogeochemical cycling in the ocean. Despite this versatility, little is known about Vibrio diversity and abundances in upwelling regions. The seasonal dynamics of Vibrio populations was examined by analysis of 16S rRNA genes in Monterey Bay (MB), California from April 2006-Ap...

The feeding diversity of macroinvertebrates from the estuary of Mondego was estimated with Shannon–Wiener complementary evenness following the methodology presented in Gamito and Furtado (2009. Ecological Indicators, 9: 1009-1019). Results were compared with those from BAT (Benthic Assessment Tool; Teixeira et al., 2009. Marine Pollution Bulletin, 58: 1477-1786) applied to the same data set, ob...

In recent decades, marine reserves have been established either to protect ecosystem structure and biological diversity or to serve as management tools to counter the overexploitation of fish stocks. The Cape Roux marine protected area (MPA), in the Mediterranean Sea, was established in December 2003 for the management of artisanal fisheries and enhancement target fish stocks. Monitoring of lit...

Future impacts of climate change on marine fisheries have the potential to negatively influence a wide range of socio-economic factors, including food security, livelihoods and public health, and even to reshape development trajectories and spark transboundary conflict. Yet there is considerable variability in the vulnerability of countries around the world to these effects. We calculate a vuln...

Background—Fish and -3 fatty acid consumption reduce risk of cardiac death, but mechanisms are not well established. Heart rate variability (HRV) predicts cardiac death and reflects specific electrophysiological pathways and influences. We hypothesized that habitual consumption of fish and marine -3 fatty acids would be associated with more favorable HRV, elucidating electrophysiological influe...