Bering Strait Area Research Articles

Changes in gray whale phenology and distribution related to prey variability and ocean biophysics in the northern Bering and eastern Chukchi seas.

Changes in gray whale (Eschrichtius robustus) phenology and distribution are related to observed and hypothesized prey availability, bottom water temperature, salinity, sea ice persistence, integrated water column and sediment chlorophyll a, and patterns of wind-driven biophysical forcing in the northern Bering and eastern Chukchi seas. This portion of the Pacific Arctic includes four Distributed Biological Observatory (DBO) sampling regions. In the Bering Strait area, passive acoustic data showed marked declines in gray whale calling activity coincident with unprecedented wintertime sea ice loss there in 2017-2019, although some whales were seen there during DBO cruises in those years. In the northern Bering Sea, sightings during DBO cruises show changes in gray whale distribution coincident with a shrinking field of infaunal amphipods, with a significant decrease in prey abundance (r = -0.314, p<0.05) observed in the DBO 2 region over the 2010-2019 period. In the eastern Chukchi Sea, sightings during broad scale aerial surveys show that gray whale distribution is associated with localized areas of high infaunal crustacean abundance. Although infaunal crustacean prey abundance was unchanged in DBO regions 3, 4 and 5, a mid-decade shift in gray whale distribution corresponded to both: (i) a localized increase in infaunal prey abundance in DBO regions 4 and 5, and (ii) a correlation of whale relative abundance with wind patterns that can influence epi-benthic and pelagic prey availability. Specifically, in the northeastern Chukchi Sea, increased sighting rates (whales/km) associated with an ~110 km (60 nm) offshore shift in distribution was positively correlated with large scale and local wind patterns conducive to increased availability of krill. In the southern Chukchi Sea, gray whale distribution clustered in all years near an amphipod-krill 'hotspot' associated with a 50-60m deep trough. We discuss potential impacts of observed and inferred prey shifts on gray whale nutrition in the context of an ongoing unusual gray whale mortality event. To conclude, we use the conceptual Arctic Marine Pulses (AMP) model to frame hypotheses that may guide future research on whales in the Pacific Arctic marine ecosystem.

Eskimo Problem in the Light of New Data

Purpose. The problem of the origin of the Eskimos has received considerable attention, at the same time also providing insights about human presence in far Northeast Siberia and America. I review earlier studies and discuss some of the more exciting recent results emerging from ancient DNA data sets. I also highlight important features of genetic and archeological data and discuss key questions and future research directions. Results. The Paleo-Eskimos and Neo-Eskimos ancestors along the Q-NWT01 Y-DNA line lived in the Kolyma River basin at the turn of the Late Pleistocene and Early Holocene. The migration of the East Asian ancestors of the Paleo-Eskimos was associated with the representatives of the Neolithic cultures of Northeast Asia, which brought the ancestral haplotype for mtDNA haplogroup D2a to Alaska. The emergence of the Neo-Eskimo cultures took place in the Bering strait area on the basis of the local Paleo-Eskimo tradition and under the influence of the cultural traditions of Southwestern Alaska and Chukotka. The Ust'-Belaya culture of Chukotka could act as a genetic source for the development of the Neo-Eskimo cultures.Conclusion. Analysis of ancient DNA from human remains over the past decade has had a transformative effect on the study of the origin of the Eskimos. Data sets of ancient DNA have revealed an increasingly complex picture of human demographic history in North-East of Asia and America and development of Paleo-Eskimo and Neo-Eskimo traditions, suggesting multiple waves of migration over the Bering Strait and episodes of admixture of different groups of population, including Ancient Paleosiberian, East Asian, Paleo-Indian, Paleo-Eskimos, Neo-Eskimos and others.

Stratification in the northern Bering Sea in early summer of 2017 and 2018

We investigated spatial and interannual variation in the physical environment in the northern Bering Sea focusing on stratification, which is one factor affecting biological production in Arctic/subarctic regions. In particular, we analyzed in situ data obtained onboard the training ship Oshoro Maru in early summer in 2017 and 2018. We found that stratification in the areas just north of St. Lawrence Island (around 64.5°N and west of 168.5°W) and south/southwest of St. Lawrence Island was significantly weaker in 2018 than in 2017. These results are consistent with the extremely low sea-ice extent present in the winter of 2017/2018, which would have resulted in less freshwater being supplied to the surface layers and a warmer and less saline bottom water. Conversely, stratification was as strong in 2018 as in 2017 in the area close to the Alaska mainland, including the Bering Strait area, suggesting that the Alaskan Coastal Water dominates stratification in this area in early summer. Moreover, we found that the weakly stratified water column in the Bering Strait area stratified quickly shortly after the occurrence of strong northerly winds, likely because of the Ekman transport of warm and low-salinity Alaskan Coastal Water from the east.

Anglo-Russian Rivalry in the American Arctic, Eighteenth to Mid-Nineteenth Centuries

First published advance online September 30, 2019Attempts to penetrate into the Arctic coast of the North American continent were made from the west and from the east beginning in the eighteenth century. From the east the main role was played by the British, from the west by the Russians. The tsarist government and the Siberian authorities sent several research expeditions to the Bering Strait area, where the southern border of the Arctic lies. The First Kamchatka Expedition of Vitus Bering, which in 1728 passed through the strait between Asia and America, was the most famous. The British showed interest in this region much later. The first explorer to do so was the eminent British seafarer James Cook who passed through Bering Strait in 1778, causing considerable alarm in St. Petersburg, which feared British penetration into the “backyard” of the Russian Empire. However, after the Cook expedition the British did not appear in the Arctic waters of Alaska for several decades for various economic and political reasons. Anglo-Russian rivalry only resumed in the American Arctic in the 1820s, when several exploratory maritime expeditions were sent to the Bering and Chukchi Sea areas. These were replaced after the second half of the 1830s by land expeditions that were sent to the Arctic territories of Alaska by competing fur-trading companies: the Russian-American Company (RAC), which operated in Alaska from 1799, and the British Hudson’s Bay Company (HBC) from neighbouring Canada. Subsequently, up until the sale of Alaska to the United States in 1867, Anglo-Russian rivalry was embodied in the form of trade competition between RAC and HBC agents.

Languages and identities in the bering strait area in the first half of the 20th century

Languages and identities in the bering strait area in the first half of the 20th century

Sea-ice cover timing in the Pacific Arctic: The present and projections to mid-century by selected CMIP5 models

With the sea-ice cover in the Arctic fast declining, changes to the timing of sea-ice break-up and freeze-up is an urgent economic, social, and scientific concern. Based on daily sea-ice concentration data we assess three variables: the dates of sea-ice break-up and freeze-up, and the annual sea-ice duration in the Pacific Arctic. The simulation results from the coupled Atmosphere-Ocean General Circulation Models from phase 5 of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP5) are the source for this study. Compared with observations, CMIP5 models simulate all three variables well. The length of sea-ice duration is shrinking, with the strongest trend occurring for the period 1990–2014; this downward trend is projected to continue at least through mid-century by the CMIP5 models. Comparisons made at eight Chukchi Sea mooring sites and eight Distributed Biological Observatory (DBO) regions show consistent results. The 30-year averaged trend for annual sea-ice duration in the southern Chukchi Sea is projected to be −0.68 (−0.74) days/year to −1.20 (−1.17) days/year for 2015–2044 under RCP8.5 (RCP4.5) emissions scenarios. This is equivalent to a reduction of 20–36 days in the annual sea-ice duration. A similar negative trend is also found at all eight DBO regions. The reduction in annual sea-ice duration will include both earlier break-up dates and later freeze-up dates. However, models project that a later freeze-up contributes more than earlier break-up to the overall shortening of annual sea-ice duration. Around the Bering Strait area, future changes are the smallest, with less than 20 days change in duration during the next 30 years. In contrast, up to a 60-day reduction of the sea-ice duration in the East Siberian, Chukchi and Beaufort Seas is projected near the middle of the 21st century, when averaged over the period of 2030–2044.

Siberian Yupik Names for Birds: What Can Bird Names Tell Us about Language and Knowledge Transitions?

This article analyzes the list of Siberian Yupik names for birds from Chukotka, Russia, from the unpublished “Dictionary of Traditional Subsistence Terminology of the Asiatic Yupik Eskimo” (n.d., [2010]), produced by the late Russian biologist Lyudmila Bogoslovskaya and Yupik language expert Lyudmila Ainana. It compares Bogoslovskaya and Ainana’s list against other lists of Indigenous bird names compiled in Chukotka and among the nearby Native Alaskan groups in the Bering Strait area, and biological (Linnaean) bird nomenclatures for the same region. The sequence of collected Yupik bird name lists from the 1930s to the early 2000s reveals a strong correlation to the advancing language and knowledge shift, as the Chukotka Yupik were increasingly driven to bilingualism by the Russian-dominated speech environment, media, and school system. By the time ornithologists and linguists compiled the first Native lists of bird names, the Yupik in Chukotka had already lost certain layers of their traditional bird taxonomy, but some of its elements may be construed. As the loss of traditional names for birds continues, the Yupik actively borrow Russian terms (or English, in Alaska) to describe many bird species they encounter in their environment.

Правовой режим Берингова пролива и безопасность мореплавания

Objective: to establish the legal regime and security of navigation in the Bering Strait. Methods: formal logical method, systemic method, comparative legal method, statistical method. Results: in the recent years, specialized publications contain numerous publications on the problems of development of Arctic shipping and the future intensification of the use of the Northern Sea Route. Whatever Arctic routes may be chosen by the skippers, the vessels will have to overcome the narrowness of the Bering Strait. If the existing estimates are reasonable, and the navigation of the North-West Sea Passage will increase, it is appropriate to ask whether the legal regime and security means are adapted to the possible increase of commercial shipping and military navigation. In this respect, the author formulates the legal measures aimed at ensuring security in the Bering Strait area with the account of growing cargo traffic. Scientific novelty: for the first time the article proves the necessity to include into the Bering Strait area the territories, bounded from the north by the east and west passages formed by the Diomede Islands and continental coasts of the Russian Federation and the United States and from the south – by the passages between the Cape of Chukotka and Cape Sevuokuk of St. Lawrence Island, Cape Sivuka and the mainland of Alaska, in order to protect the sea natural landscape and to ensure the maritime safety. The opinion is substantiated about the necessity to equip the marine passages, forming the waters of the Bering Strait, with a security system. The proposed legal regime of ensuring the safety of navigation in the Bering Strait, which includes the common navigation rules, establishing the areas of the vessel traffic separation, designation of areas of marine reserves and organizational-legal means for damping the dangerous situations. Practical significance: the findings and conclusions of the article can be used in scientific, educational and law enforcement practice in the consideration of the issue of the legal regime of the Bering Strait and the safety of navigation.

Mitochondrial genome diversity at the Bering Strait area highlights prehistoric human migrations from Siberia to northern North America

The patterns of prehistoric migrations across the Bering Land Bridge are far from being completely understood: there still exists a significant gap in our knowledge of the population history of former Beringia. Here, through comprehensive survey of mitochondrial DNA genomes retained in 'relic' populations, the Maritime Chukchi, Siberian Eskimos, and Commander Aleuts, we explore genetic contribution of prehistoric Siberians/Asians to northwestern Native Americans. Overall, 201 complete mitochondrial sequences (52 new and 149 published) were selected in the reconstruction of trees encompassing mtDNA lineages that are restricted to Coastal Chukotka and Alaska, the Canadian Arctic, Greenland, and the Aleutian chain. Phylogeography of the resulting mtDNA genomes (mitogenomes) considerably extends the range and intrinsic diversity of haplogroups (eg, A2a, A2b, D2a, and D4b1a2a1) that emerged and diversified in postglacial central Beringia, defining independent origins of Neo-Eskimos versus Paleo-Eskimos, Aleuts, and Tlingit (Na-Dene). Specifically, Neo-Eskimos, ancestral to modern Inuit, not only appear to be of the High Arctic origin but also to harbor Altai/Sayan-related ancestry. The occurrence of the haplogroup D2a1b haplotypes in Chukotka (Sireniki) introduces the possibility that the traces of Paleo-Eskimos have not been fully erased by spread of the Neo-Eskimos or their descendants. Our findings are consistent with the recurrent gene flow model of multiple streams of expansions to northern North America from northeastern Eurasia in late Pleistocene-early Holocene.

Estimation of seasonal and long-term variability of oceanological conditions in the Bering Strait

Carried out is analysis of variations of temperature, salinity, and currents in the Bering Strait area based on the data of American and Russian-American studies of the Bering Strait during the period from 1992 to 2010. Major attention is paid to the analysis of the long-term variability of water dynamics using the data of observations at the autonomous buoy stations in the Russian and American parts of the Bering Strait. Revealed are the trends towards the increase in the velocity of the Pacific water transport to the Chukchi Sea and Arctic Ocean, as well as the absence of the significant trend towards the changes in the temperature and salinity of deep waters in the Bering Strait. Estimated is the seasonal variability of hydrophysical conditions.

Climate change effects on Arctic fjord and coastal macrobenthic diversity—observations and predictions

The pattern of occurrence and recent changes in the distribution of macrobenthic organisms in fjordic and coastal (nearshore) Arctic waters are reviewed and future changes are hypothesized. The biodiversity patterns observed are demonstrated to be contextual, depending on the specific region of the Arctic or habitat type. Two major areas of biotic advection are indicated (the North Atlantic Current along Scandinavia to Svalbard and the Bering Strait area) where larvae and adult animals are transported from the species-rich sub-Arctic areas to species-poor Arctic areas. In those Arctic areas, increased temperature associated with increased advection in recent decades brings more boreal-subarctic species, increasing the local biodiversity when local cold-water species may be suppressed. Two other large coastal areas are little influenced by advected waters; the Siberian shores and the coasts of the Canadian Archipelago. There, local Arctic fauna are exposed to increasing ocean temperature, decreasing salinity and a reduction in ice cover with unpredictable effect for biodiversity. One the one hand, benthic species in Arctic fjords are exposed to increased siltation (from glacial meltwater) and salinity decreases, which together may lead to habitat homogenization and a subsequent decrease in biodiversity. On the other hand, the innermost basins of Arctic fjords are able to maintain pockets of very cold, dense, saline water and thus may act as refugia for cold-water species.

Prevalence and Phylogeny of Coronaviruses in Wild Birds from the Bering Strait Area (Beringia)

Coronaviruses (CoVs) can cause mild to severe disease in humans and animals, their host range and environmental spread seem to have been largely underestimated, and they are currently being investigated for their potential medical relevance. Infectious bronchitis virus (IBV) belongs to gamma-coronaviruses and causes a costly respiratory viral disease in chickens. The role of wild birds in the epidemiology of IBV is poorly understood. In the present study, we examined 1,002 cloacal and faecal samples collected from 26 wild bird species in the Beringia area for the presence of CoVs, and then we performed statistical and phylogenetic analyses. We detected diverse CoVs by RT-PCR in wild birds in the Beringia area. Sequence analysis showed that the detected viruses are gamma-coronaviruses related to IBV. These findings suggest that wild birds are able to carry gamma-coronaviruses asymptomatically. We concluded that CoVs are widespread among wild birds in Beringia, and their geographic spread and frequency is higher than previously realised. Thus, Avian CoV can be efficiently disseminated over large distances and could be a genetic reservoir for future emerging pathogenic CoVs. Considering the great animal health and economic impact of IBV as well as the recent emergence of novel coronaviruses such as SARS-coronavirus, it is important to investigate the role of wildlife reservoirs in CoV infection biology and epidemiology.

Climate and New World periosteal reaction patterns: implications for migration routes into the Western Hemisphere

The presence of the diseases yaws and bejel are indicated by periosteal reaction patterns. The distributions of these two diseases in ancient North American human populations show evidence of climatic influence. Those ancient populations lacking either yaws or bejel (the null periosteal reaction pattern) can be found in the coldest parts of the Cold Winter Regions. Those populations with yaws (the poly-ostotic periosteal reaction) can be found in the milder portions of the Cold Winter Regions. The populations with bejel (the pauci-ostotic periosteal reaction) are found either outside of or marginal to Cold Winter Regions. The Bering Strait area is considered to be the gateway to the ancient New World. The cold climates present in this area should have influenced the routes available for the diseases to spread from population to population or by migration of infected populations into the Western Hemisphere. It is suggested that the coastal route with its milder maritime climate was the route taken by yaws when it entered the New World. The presence of bejel in ancient North America presents a conundrum. The climate would have blocked the spread of the disease from Siberia to Alaska in either Late Glacial or Holocene times. This suggests that our present view of migration routes is incomplete.

Gene Segment Reassortment Between American and Asian Lineages of Avian Influenza Virus from Waterfowl in the Beringia Area

Since prehistoric times, the Bering Strait area (Beringia) has served as an avenue of dispersal between the Old and the New Worlds. On a field expedition to this area, we collected fecal samples from dabbling ducks, geese, shorebirds, and gulls on the Chukchi Peninsula, Siberia, and Pt. Barrow, Alaska, and characterized the subtypes of avian influenza virus present in them. Four of 202 samples (2%) from Alaska were positive for influenza A virus RNA in two independent polymerase chain reaction (PCR)-based screening assays, while all shorebird samples from the Chukchi Peninsula were negative. Subtypes H3N8 and H6N1 were recorded once, while subtype H8N4 was found in two samples. Full-length sequences were obtained from the three unique isolates, and phylogenetic analysis with representative sequences for the Eurasian and North American lineages of influenza A virus showed that one HA gene clustered with the Eurasian rather than the North American lineage. However, the closest relative to this sequence was a North American isolate from Delaware described in 2002, indicating that a H6 spillover from Asia has established itself in North America.

Possible causes of decreasing cloud cover in the Arctic winter, 1982–2000

Satellite and reanalysis datasets show a decrease in wintertime (Dec., Jan., Feb.) cloud cover over most of the Arctic Ocean from 1982 to 2000. Concurrently, wintertime moisture convergence has decreased significantly over the Nansen Basin and parts of the Barents and Kara Seas (NBK; 75–90°N, 45–90°E). Over this region, correlation coefficients between monthly anomalies in the satellite‐derived cloud cover and moisture convergence in the cold season are large and statistically significant. This reduction in moisture convergence results in a decrease in cloud formation due to weakening cyclone activity over the NBK region. Reduced cloud amount over this area leads to decreased cloud cover over the entire central Arctic because less cloud is advected to other regions. The same mechanism has been observed over northeastern Russia and the Bering Strait area (RBS; 65–75°N, 150–200°E) and is therefore an additional, and perhaps more important, control over cloud cover in the Chukchi/Beaufort Seas and the Laptev Sea region.

Wie verzweifelnd die Indianer pflegen": American Indians in Chamisso's Poetry

The outstanding success of Peter Schlemihls wundersame Geschichte (1814), his best known work, has obscured the fact that in his lifetime Adelbert von Chamisso was one of the most prolific and respected lyric poets writing in German. Peter Schlemihl, whose eponymous fairy-tale hero becomes in the end a globe-trotting natural scientist by means of a pair of Seven League Boots, has frequently been regarded as a literary prefiguration of its author's life after 1815. In this year Chamisso embarked on a three-year voyage as naturalist on board the Russian brig Runk, visiting and exploring in particular the South Sea islands, the Pacific seaboard of No rth and South America, and the Bering Strait area, and circumnavigating the globe from east to west by returning to Europe via the Cape of Good Hope. On this voyage he acquired first-hand knowledge of many peoples who had only recently become known to Europeans through the discoveries of explorer-navigators such as Bougainville, Cook, Vancouver, and La Perouse. Chamisso observed the lives, customs, and languages particularly of South Sea islanders, Chilean and Californian Indians, and Aleuts, enlarged his knowledge of them through reading, and set down his views on them in his twopart account of his voyage, Reise um die Welt – comprising his Bemerkungen

Geographic and Molecular Epidemiology of Primate T Lymphotropic Retroviruses: HTLV-I, HTLV-II, STLV-I, STLV-PP, and PTLV-L

This chapter presents the main geographic and molecular epidemiological characteristics of primate T lymphotropic (onco)retroviruses (PTLVs) exhibiting common features, including a characteristic and peculiar micro-epidemiology with a puzzling distribution throughout the world, similar modes of transmission, mainly through breast feeding and sexual contact, and a high genetic stability over time, which can be used as a molecular means to follow migrations of infected populations in the recent or distant past. The high stability of the HTLV-1/11 genomes, their integration, and their lifelong latency make the subtle mutations observed unique molecular markers for tracing the geographic path of evolution of such viruses, paralleling the migration of the carriers. The present world repartition of the HTLV-I/STLV-I genotypes is the result of at least three independent events: interspecies transmission from simian to human, evolution in some remote populations, and migration of infected populations. In regard to HTLV-11, its presence in isolated Amerindian populations disseminated throughout the Americas and its apparent absence elsewhere had led some authors to the speculation that this virus was exclusively a “New World virus” endemic in native Amerindians over centuries or millennia. The virus is supposed to have been introduced to the Americas through the successive waves of migrations that occurred from Siberia through the Bering strait area millennia ago.

Monitoring Open Water and Sea Ice in the Bering Strait by Radar

Observations made at the Bering Strait show the utility of employing radar systems providing both moving-target-identification (MTI) and short-time-constant video signals for monitoring sea-surface areas containing open water and sea ice. MTI video signals tend to emphasize returns from areas of open water and loose pack ice. Short-time-constant or differentiated video signals tend to emphasize returns from boundaries between water and ice and record echoes from stationary as well as moving targets. Large polynyas (areas of open water) south of projecting points and islands in the Bering Strait area in May are vividly displayed by the combination of MTI and short-time-constant signals. The use of the two types of signals constitutes a simple form of processing in the Doppler frequency domain. The results indicate that the use of MTI systems, or more sophisticated pulse-Doppler systems, could be advantageous for monitoring restricted areas of water in which ice may occur and present a limitation or hazard to navigation by boats and ships.

The Economic-Geographic Basis for Soviet-American Economic Cooperation

AbstractEconomic cooperation between the Soviet Union and the United States would seem to be favored by several aspects of economic geography, including large dimensions, populations and economic potential of the two countries, a certain complementarity of the resource base, the differences between coastal and inland regions in the two countries, and particularly their mutual economic-geographic situation. Distances between the two countries tend to be of the same order of magnitude, and in some cases shorter, than distances between the extreme western and eastern regions within each country. Active interchange is made possible on a broad front across both the Atlantic and the Pacific. Advances in transportation technology may facilitate very long-distance hauls of bulk commodities from Soviet inland resource centers across oceans to inland localities in the United States. The proximity of the two countries in the Bering Strait area may assume significance over the long term as the region is further devel...

Systematics and Zoogeography of Sorex in the Bering Strait Area

Shrew populations on the islands in the Bering Strait region (Sorex pribilofensis, S. jacksoni, S. hydrodromus) were regarded as related to Sorex arcticus of the Alaskan mainland. Our data indicate that S. pribilofensis and S. jacksoni are members of the S. (Otiosorex) cinereus group, which occurs both in Alaska and eastern Siberia. Sorex hydrodromus apparently does not exist on Unalaska Island, and is a synonym of S. pribilofensis. The Holarctic evolution of the S. cinereus and S. arcticus-S. araneus groups, and their occurrence on the Bering land connection in the late Pleistocene, is discussed. Changes in sea-level in the Bering Strait area during the Cenozoic, and particularly the Pleistocene, from time to time produced a broad land connection between northeastern Siberia and Alaska (Fig. 1), whose importance to mammal distribution has been appreciated for some time (Gilmore, 1943, 1946; Simpson, 1947). The extent of this land connection directly varied with the amount of water withdrawn from the world ocean by glaciers, and was greater in the Riss (Illinoian) glaciation than in the last glacial episode, the Wurm (Wisconsin), which followed it (Hopkins, 1959; Saidova, 1961). The Riss (Illinoian) land connection existed about 100,000 years ago; the Wurm (Wisconsin) dates from 70,000 to 10,000 years ago (Pewe, et al., 1965). The connection was broken, and Bering Strait most recently formed, to the west of St. Lawrence Island about 12,000 years ago (Creager and McManus, 1965). The land connection was continuous with adjacent unglaciated areas in eastern Siberia and the Alaska-Yukon, but was isolated from other unglaciated areas of North America by continental and Cordilleran ice-sheets (Fig. 1), and semi-isolated from the unglaciated areas of Siberia by extensive montane glaciers on the eastern Siberian mountain ranges (Moreau, 1955; Rand, 1954). This ice-free refugium has been called Beringia (Hulten, 1.937) or Amerasia (Gilmore, 1943). The environment of the land-bridge portion of Beringia during the last two glacial periods was one of tundra (Colinvaux, 1964); hence only species adapted to, or tolerant of, tundra or to other cold open habitats such as loess steppe, could occupy the land connection. Thus, only such species might be expected to occur on both the Eurasian and North American sides of Bering Strait. LATE-WISCONSIN AND POST-PLEISTOCENE