Kouraev et al. 2003: Polar Research 22(1), 43–50 A stable and strong ice cover forms during winter months in the Aral Sea and northern part of the Caspian Sea. The presence of ice cover negatively affects navigation and fi shery condi tions and endangers facilities located on the coast as well as on the shelf, such as oil rigs that have recently been installed in the northern Caspian by Russia ...

Persistent organic pollutants including organochlorine pesticides, PCBs, and PCDDs/DFs were determined in the blubber of Caspian seals, which died during an outbreak of canine distemper virus in 2000 and 2001. DDTs were the predominant contaminants that ranged from 3.1 to 560 microg/g lipid. A negative correlation was observed between concentration of contaminants and blubber thickness. During ...

We developed and tested eight polymorphic microsatellite loci for Ponto-Caspian 'neogobiin' gobies, many of which are invasive in Eurasia and North America, whose study will aid understanding of the population genetics underlying their success. We tested samples from one to two locations from 12 taxa in the recently revised genera Babka, Benthophilus, Mesogobius, Neogobius = Apollonia, Ponticol...

Tides are the main type of sea level variability in the world oceans. However, oceanic tides penetrate weakly, or do not penetrate at all, into enclosed basins such as the Baltic, Black, and Caspian seas. Consequently, only directly forced tides are formed in these basins. Long observation time series (up to 123 years in the Baltic Sea and 38 years in the Black and Caspian seas) at numerous sta...

The objective of the current study was determined chemical composition (including protein, lipid, ash and moisture) and content of minerals (Zn, Mn, Fe, Cu, Cr, Ca, Na, Mg, Mo, P, Se, K, I and F) in five fish species from the South Caspian Sea. The chemical analysis revealed that the protein content of common kilka, Caspian kutum, common carp, pike perch and golden grey mullet was 18.35%, 21.39...

Ponto-Caspian gobies are a flock of five invasive fish species that have colonized freshwaters and brackish waters in Europe and North America. One of them, the round goby Neogobius melanostomus, figures among the 100 worst invaders in Europe. Current methods to detect the presence of Ponto-Caspian gobies involve catching or sighting the fish. These approaches are labor intense and not very sen...

The Ponto-Caspian (Black and Caspian seas) brackish-water fauna represents a special case of the endemic diversification in world's ancient lakes; it also involves a hotspot of continental diversity in the predominantly marine mysid crustaceans. We explored the origins and history of the mysid diversification in a phylogenetic analysis of some 20 endemic Ponto-Caspian species mainly of the genu...

Political scientists often use natural experiments to estimate causal effects. We explore how variation in geography can be exploited as a natural experiment and review the assumptions that must hold for geographic natural experiments to yield valid causal estimates. In particular, we focus on cases where a geographic or administrative boundary splits units into treated and control areas, and i...

In the present investigation flocculation of dissolved Cu, Zn, Pb, Ni and Mn in a series of mixtures with salinities ranging from 1.5 to 9.5% during mixing of Talar river water with the Caspian Sea water was studied. The flocculation trend of Zn (87.22%) >Mn (45.31%) >Pb (39.09%) >Cu (36.58%)>Ni (12.70%) indicates that Cu, Zn, Pb and Mn have non-conservative behavior and Ni has relatively conse...