The Atlantic meets the Mediterranean: Transfluvia in Romeo Oriogun’s The Gathering of Bastards

ABSTRACTGovernment College, Umuahia is known as the alma mater of eight important Nigerian writers: Chinua Achebe, Elechi Amadi, Gabriel Okara, Chike Momah, I. N. C. Aniebo, Chukwuemeka Ike, Ken Saro-Wiwa and Christopher Okigbo. Many illustrious Nigerian scientists, intellectuals and public leaders passed through the college in its prime, and in West Africa the name of the school evokes an astounding range of success stories. But Umuahia's legend as ‘the Eton of the East’ and theprimus inter paresof Nigeria's elite colonial institutions obscures its present reality: nothing remains of its past but its extensive grounds, landmark buildings, and the glittering roll call of dignitaries who once studied within its walls. In 1979, prompted by the many signs of impending doom, a group of old boys joined hands in a historicizing venture,The Umuahian: a golden jubilee publication – the commemorative booklet compiled by the school's most famous alumnus, Chinua Achebe, to mark the college's golden jubilee. The booklet conjured up the school's founding ideals and glorious past in order to lay the ground for its rehabilitation. This introductory essay explains whyThe Umuahianis an indispensable source for the literary, cultural and educational history of West Africa, contextualizing its singular construction of colonial educational heritage. Sample and hitherto unpublished texts from the booklet by Achebe, his editorial toThe Umuahianand its coda, ‘Continuity and change in Nigerian education: a jubilee essay’, are included with the main article. While the contributors toThe Umuahianpertain to elite circles, and the volume had a world-class literary figure as its editor, the volume itself was produced for a local occasion and rarefied local audience, had a very limited distribution, and subsequently fell into obscurity. It is in the spirit of the historical and academic retrieval of such locally published and little-known materials by African thinkers and writers that this work appears in the Local Intellectuals strand.

Aim To investigate biogeographical patterns based on published dinoflagellate records from the Mediterranean and Black Seas, and to provide a tentative list of endemic and Indo‐Pacific dinoflagellates in the Mediterranean Sea.Location Mediterranean Sea, Black Sea.Methods Checklists of dinoflagellates of the Mediterranean and Black Seas were compared with worldwide literature records. Only species reported in the Indo‐Pacific Ocean or exclusively known in the Mediterranean Sea were selected for biogeographical analysis.Results Dinoflagellates in the Mediterranean Sea comprised c. 43% of the world marine species and c. 88% of the dinoflagellate genera. Species richness among the Mediterranean sub‐basins showed marked differences due to the less reliable records of unarmoured (athecate) and rare dinoflagellates. These differences disappeared when only the more easily identifiable taxa were considered. Of the 673 dinoflagellates cited in the Mediterranean, 87% were also reported in the Atlantic Ocean. Only 40 taxa (6% of the total) were considered to be potential Indo‐Pacific species. Most were reported from the Ligurian Sea (21), and only two species from the Levantine basin. The other 48 taxa (7% of total) were known exclusively from the Mediterranean Sea, mainly from the Ligurian Sea. Half of these taxa were reported by a single author.Main conclusions Substantial dinoflagellates species richness can be attributed, in part, to the historical tradition of taxonomic studies in the Mediterranean Sea. The list of species of both Indo‐Pacific and exclusively Mediterranean species included taxa of dubious taxonomic validity or that were insufficiently known. The exclusion of these questionable taxa revealed the near absence of endemic dinoflagellates in the Mediterranean Sea compared with macroscopic organisms. This could be related to: (1) continuous replenishment of the plankton populations by the inflow of Atlantic water through the Strait of Gibraltar, (2) the possibility that species introduced during the Pliocenic flooding after the Messinian salinity crisis have not had enough time to diverge from their Atlantic ancestors, and/or (3) the reliance on traditional taxonomy based on morphological characters, which precludes the detection of cryptic speciation.

The aim of this study was to compare the composition of two deep-sea viral communities obtained from the Romanche Fracture Zone in the Atlantic Ocean (collected at 5200 m depth) and the southwest Mediterranean Sea (from 2400 m depth) using a pyro-sequencing approach. The results are based on 18.7% and 6.9% of the sequences obtained from the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea, respectively, with hits to genomes in the non-redundant viral RefSeq database. The identifiable richness and relative abundance in both viromes were dominated by archaeal and bacterial viruses accounting for 92.3% of the relative abundance in the Atlantic Ocean and for 83.6% in the Mediterranean Sea. Despite characteristic differences in hydrographic features between the sampling sites in the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea, 440 virus genomes were found in both viromes. An additional 431 virus genomes were identified in the Atlantic Ocean and 75 virus genomes were only found in the Mediterranean Sea. The results indicate that the rather contrasting deep-sea environments of the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea share a common core set of virus types constituting the majority of both virus communities in terms of relative abundance (Atlantic Ocean: 81.4%; Mediterranean Sea: 88.7%).

Transport and fate of 137Cs in the Mediterranean and Black Seas system during 1945–2020 period: A modelling study

A quest to collect live specimens of the well-known foraminifer Ammonia beccarii for sequencing has led to the recognition of five molecular species in Europe all related to it, but no live A. beccarii itself. The five molecular species all clump together in one clade (T3) of the Ammonia phylogenetic tree. All are characterized by large size, ornament on the umbilical side and a deep spiral, sutural fissure on the spiral side (beccarii morphogroup). All five molecular species can be discriminated based on distinct morphological differences as Ammonia batava (North Sea, northeast Atlantic, west Mediterranean Sea), A. corallinarum (northeast Atlantic, west Mediterranean Sea), A. pawlowskii n. sp. (Mediterranean Sea, west Indian Ocean), A. falsobeccarii (North Sea, east Atlantic seaboard, Mediterranean Sea, Persian Gulf), and A. neobeccarii (Mediterranean and Black seas). Using morphological characters, a further four species are recognized in the beccarii morphogroup for which no sequences are presently available: A. beccarii (Mediterranean Sea, northeast Atlantic), A. batava compacta (west Atlantic seaboard), A. debenayi n. sp. (west Indian Ocean), A. venecpeyreae n. sp. (west Mediterranean Sea, Gulf of Aden). One species, A. japonica (China, Japan, South Korea), for which sequences have been obtained, is included in the beccarii morphogroup based on morphological characteristics but differs genetically from the beccarii group. Another species, similar to A. falsobeccarii with secondary sutural openings on the spiral side but probably not part of the beccarii morphogroup because it lacks the spiral sutural canal typical of the group, is described as new – A. langeri (Indian Ocean, East Indies, south Australia). A growth series of A. beccarii topotypes from Rimini, north Adriatic Sea, is illustrated to aid in its recognition and a neotype designated and illustrated. Extinct fossil members of the beccarii morphogroup include A. ikebei, A. inflata, A. italica, A. nakazatoensis, A. punctatogranosa, A. reyi, A. togopiliensis, A. viennensis, and A. voorthuyseni.

European nations colonized most of the African societies and as a result had political and economic power and control over these nations. With the western domination, the colonists ruled the African nations and every other person was to obey their command. The colonizers introduced hegemonic educational system to Africans in which they were taught the European ethos without their studying African culture. Due to this hegemony, the European colonial masters imposed their culture on Africans and it succeeded in reshaping the cultural and political lives of Africans. Many Africans abandoned African customs and beliefs when they gained western education. Therefore due to this hegemony Africans lost their authentic/real selves and became adulterated. Their main concern becomes to create and recreate themselves through going back to their culture and origin. Through poststructuralist analysis of ‘Heavensgate’ and ‘Path Thunder’ in Labyrinths (1971), this paper explores how Christopher Okigbo, an African poet, embarked on a spiritual journey in quest of his primordial self and became an asserted poet. The paper aims at imploring Africans all over the world to follow the footprints of Okigbo in identifying their true selves for them to have meaningful lives.

North East Atlantic and the Mediterranean Sea fisheries are governed by the European Common Fisheries Policy (CFP). Despite the fact that both areas are managed under the same broad fishery management system, a large discrepancy in management performance occurs, with recent considerable improvement of stock status witnessed in the North East Atlantic and a rapidly deteriorating situation in the Mediterranean Sea. The control of fishing effort combined with specific technical measures, such as gear regulation, establishment of a minimum conservation reference size and selective closure of areas and seasons, is the main management strategy adopted by Mediterranean Sea EU countries. On the other hand TAC (Total Allowable Catches) is the major regulatory mechanisms in the North East Atlantic. Here we analysed all available stock assessment and effort data for the most important commercial species and fleets in the Mediterranean Sea since 2003. The analysis shows that there is no apparent relationship between nominal effort and fishing mortality for all species. Fishing mortality has remained stable during the last decade, for most species, with a significant decline observed only for red mullet and giant red shrimp but an increase for sardine stocks. Also, current F is larger or much larger than FMSY for all species. Despite catch advice are produced by STECF each year, the realised catches have usually been much larger than the scientific advice. A recent analysis argued that this dichotomy might be due to several factors, such as the better enforcement of monitoring control and surveillance in North East Atlantic, the more complex socio-economic situation and the less effective management governance in the Mediterranean Sea. Here we argue instead that major reasons for the alarming situation of Mediterranean Sea stocks can be found in the ineffectiveness of the current effort system to control F, the continuous non-adherence to the scientific advice and inadequacies of existing national management plans as a key management measure. It is therefore undoubted that alternatives management measures as a TAC based system are necessary if Europe is willing to achieve the objectives of the CFP before 2020 in the Mediterranean Sea.

BackgroundThe extent of genetic structure of a species is determined by the amount of current gene flow and the impact of historical and demographic factors. Most marine invertebrates have planktonic larvae and consequently wide potential dispersal, so that genetic uniformity should be common. However, phylogeographic investigations reveal that panmixia is rare in the marine realm. Phylogeographic patterns commonly coincide with geographic transitions acting as barriers to gene flow. In the Mediterranean Sea and adjoining areas, the best known barriers are the Atlantic-Mediterranean transition, the Siculo-Tunisian Strait and the boundary between Aegean and Black seas. Here, we perform the so far broadest phylogeographic analysis of the crab Pachygrapsus marmoratus, common across the north-eastern Atlantic Ocean, Mediterranean and Black seas. Previous studies revealed no or weak genetic structuring at meso-geographic scale based on mtDNA, while genetic heterogeneity at local scale was recorded with microsatellites, even if without clear geographic patterns. Continuing the search for phylogeographic signal, we here enlarge the mtDNA dataset including 51 populations and covering most of the species’ distribution range.ResultsThis enlarged dataset provides new evidence of three genetically separable groups, corresponding to the Portuguese Atlantic Ocean, Mediterranean Sea plus Canary Islands, and Black Sea. Surprisingly, hierarchical AMOVA and Principal Coordinates Analysis agree that our Canary Islands population is closer to western Mediterranean populations than to mainland Portugal and Azores populations. Within the Mediterranean Sea, we record genetic homogeneity, suggesting that population connectivity is unaffected by the transition between the western and eastern Mediterranean. The Mediterranean metapopulation seems to have experienced a relatively recent expansion around 100,000 years ago.ConclusionsOur results suggest that the phylogeographic pattern of P. marmoratus is shaped by the geological history of Mediterranean and adjacent seas, restricted current gene flow among different marginal seas, and incomplete lineage sorting. However, they also caution from exclusively testing well-known biogeographic barriers, thereby neglecting other possible phylogeographic patterns. Mostly, this study provides evidence that a geographically exhaustive dataset is necessary to detect shallow phylogeographic structure within widespread marine species with larval dispersal, questioning all studies where species have been categorized as panmictic based on numerically and geographically limited datasets.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12862-016-0720-2) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Distribution and transport of natural and anthropogenic CO2 in the Gulf of Cádiz

The Mediterranean Sea is in many ways a unique body of water. It is small, but deep compared to other bodies of water of its size, and for its size (0.82% in surface area of the world oceans and 0.32% in volume) it encompasses an impressive variety of ecosystems. From a biodiversity perspective, it can be considered relatively rich in species. Bianchi and Morri (2000) estimate that more than 8500 macroscopic marine species should live in the Mediterranean Sea, which is 4–18% of the world’s marine species (depending on different estimates of global diversity). This means that it has high species density for its size (Bianchi and Morri 2000). The body of water that is now the Mediterranean Sea went through dramatic changes in its biota through most of its existence. It is a vestige of the Tethys Ocean, meaning that in prehistoric times it was inhabited by tropical biota. After it was squeezed between Eurasia and Africa and cut off from the rest of the Indo-Pacific at the end of the Miocene (ca. 10 million years ago) it slowly lost its tropical characteristics. It was also cut off from the Atlantic Ocean several times throughout its history, eventually becoming a warm-temperate to subtropical body of water once the Straits of Gibraltar opened at the late Pleistocene (ca. 5 million years ago). These changes in its environmental conditions, that were followed by changes in its biota (as evident from its fossil record; Ruggieri 1967; Sorbini 1988; Zaccaria 1968), naturally occurred over timescales of thousands to millions of years. But lately the rate of biotic change has been increasing dramatically. The biodiversity in the Mediterranean Sea has been altering at an alarmingly high rate for the past two centuries due to human-mediated arrival of new species, with an apparent acceleration in the rate of recorded invasions in the last four decades of the twentieth century. In this chapter we review the current status of the invasion process in the Mediterranean, examine spatio-temporal patterns of species from three major taxonomic groups of invaders, and explore the ecological and conservation implications of some of the most infamous invasions. Special emphasis is given to the major vector of invasion into the Mediterranean Sea – the Suez Canal, and to lagoons as important hotspots of invasion in the western Mediterranean.

In this paper, the imagery of rivers and their semantic significance in Joe Ushie’s ‘Bekwang River’ and Gabriel Okara’s ‘The Call of the River Nun’ were investigated. The study is necessitated by the assumption that given the geographic commonalities between Ushie and Okara, there are bound to be corresponding continuities in their topographical verses, specifically in terms of how they depict the bodies of water in their immediate environs. The paper adopts the eclectic approach; drawing critical tools from ‘postcolonial formalism’ as its conceptual framework in combination with the ideas and concepts drawn from the intertextual theories of Mikhail Bakhtin, Roland Barthes and Julia Kristeva, in an attempt to establish the intertextual practices – possible convergences and divergences – in the poem/s of Ushie and Okara. The analysis of the selected poems, Okara’s ‘The Call of the River Nun’ and Ushie’s ‘Bekwang River’, reveals that the river motif, which is strongly present in the poems of Ushie and Okara, does not only serve as a poetic representation of the state of their physical landscapes but is also used to make important poetic commentaries that touch on human nature and the political circumstances of their milieu. The poetics of Ushie and Okara also intertextualise at the level of tropes, as can be seen in the personification and metaphorisation of rivers in the poems analysed, which are deployed to make major statements on the flow of time and its implications on human actions. The study then is indicative of poetry and poets’ place in society as the watchers of the times, preservers of traditional norms and values, pathfinders in a directionless universe, prophets who warn and exhort the people, and the defenders of the oppressed.

The Mediterranean Sea (Figure 12.1) is the largest of the European regional seas, covering an approximate area of 2.5 million km2 (Suárez de Vivero and Rodríguez Mateos 2015). It is situated between three continents: Europe to the north, Africa to the south, and Asia to the east and is bordered by more than 20 coastal states, with 11 countries in Europe, 5 in Africa, and 5 in Asia. This is the largest number of coastal countries among European seas (Suárez de Vivero and Rodríguez Mateos 2015). The Mediterranean has an average depth of 1,500 m, with a maximum depth of 5,150 m along the southern coast of Greece. Its coastline is ca. 45,000 km long in total including more than 5,000 islands and islets, with Greece, Italy, Croatia and Turkey accounting for 75% of this length. This semi-enclosed sea has only two communication waterways with outside oceans: the 14 km wide and 300 m deep Strait of Gibraltar to the west and the few-meter wide artificial Suez Canal to the south-east. As a result, water turnover time is estimated to be very low, about one century (Robinson et al. 2001). The main source of replenishment is the continuous inflow of surface water from the Atlantic Ocean through the Strait of Gibraltar. The scarce inflow and low precipitation, coupled with high evaporation, makes the Mediterranean more saline than the Atlantic Ocean. Figure 12.1 Mediterranean and Black Sea Basin. https://s3-euw1-ap-pe-df-pch-content-public-p.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/9781003337430/3e8bb51e-2cde-4d3b-8f54-d9f08e1850a3/content/fig12_1.tif" xmlns:xlink="https://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"/>

Abstract. This work aims at characterising the seamount physiography and biology in the OSPAR Convention limits (north-east Atlantic Ocean) and Mediterranean Sea. We first inferred potential abundance, location and morphological characteristics of seamounts, and secondly, summarized the existing biological, geological and oceanographic in situ research, identifying examples of well-studied seamounts. Our study showed that the seamount population in the OSPAR area (north-east Atlantic) and in the Mediterranean Sea is large with around 557 and 101 seamount-like features, respectively. Similarly, seamounts occupy large areas of about 616 000 km2 in the OSPAR region and of about 89 500 km2 in the Mediterranean Sea. The presence of seamounts in the north-east Atlantic has been known since the late 19th century, but overall knowledge regarding seamount ecology and geology is still relatively poor. Only 37 seamounts in the OSPAR area (3.5% of all seamounts in the region), 22 in the Mediterranean Sea (9.2% of all seamounts in the region) and 25 in the north-east Atlantic south of the OSPAR area have in situ information. Seamounts mapped in both areas are in general very heterogeneous, showing diverse geophysical characteristics. These differences will likely affect the biological diversity and production of resident and associated organisms.

This study traces the process of decolonization in the poetry of two West African poets; Kofi Awoonor from Ghana and Christopher Okigbo from Nigeria. The chosen poets represent two distinct models toward decolonization. Decolonization is chosen as the topic of this study for its powerful presence in and effect on the literature of West Africa. In the process of decolonization, Awoonor and Okigbo seek to underscore the importance of Africans' returning to their roots as a means of reshaping their identities which the colonizers were determined to obliterate. They undertake, as their responsibility, to resist the literary manifestations of imperialism and direct their peoples towards forming an indigenous cultural identity. They succeed to incorporate the imagery of West African myth and folklore to revive the past and connect it with the present hoping to reconstruct a bright future for their people. Many critics have tackled decolonization in their critical writings; among them were Frantz Fanon, Ngugi Wa Thiongo, Edward Said and Bill Ashcroft. The study makes use of some of these views with special reference to Fanon and Nugugi

Water mass variation in the Mediterranean and Black Seas