Coast Of Mainland China Research Articles

Molecular phylogeny of venus clams (Mollusca, Bivalvia, Veneridae) with emphasis on the systematic position of taxa along the coast of mainland China

Chen, J., Li, Q., Kong, L. & Zheng, X. (2011). Molecular phylogeny of venus clams (Mollusca, Bivalvia, Veneridae) with emphasis on the systematic position of taxa along the coast of mainland China. —Zoologica Scripta, 40, 260–271.Veneridae is the most richly speciose family of heterodont bivalves with high ecological and economic value. Attention to the Veneridae systematics has been raised since traditional conchology‐based ideas on relationships among the venerids were challenged by recent studies using molecular makers and other new approaches and methods. Herein, DNA sequence information from fragments of two mitochondrial genes (COI and 16S) and one nuclear protein‐coding gene (H3) for 135 taxa (128 venerids, five nonvenerid veneroids and two other outgroups) are used to reconstruct the phylogenetic relationships of venus clams under maximum parsimony, maximum likelihood and Bayesian inference approaches. According to our molecular results, the traditional Veneridae is not recovered as monophyletic and most of the nominal subfamilies and genera formed para‐polyphyletic clades. The findings indicate that the current venerid classification cannot validly reflect a natural subdivision. In the present study, the classification of taxa along the coast of mainland China within this family are also revised based on their phylogenetic position and morphological characters. The synonymization of chionine genus Placamen with Clausinella is rejected. Chionine subgenera Anomalodiscus and Cryptonema are given full generic rank again and incorporated into Venerinae and Tapetinae, respectively. Tapetine Marcia hiantina, M. japonica and M. marmorata were distantly related to Katelysia spp., so assigning those three species into the genus Katelysia by some malacologists is rejected herein. Our results also evidence that the synonymization of the genus Tigammona and Periglypta might be inappropriate.

The carbonate system in the East China Sea in winter

Measurements of dissolved inorganic carbon (DIC), pH, total alkalinity (TA), and partial pressure of CO 2 (pCO 2) were conducted at a total of 25 stations along four cross shelf transects in the East China Sea (ECS) in January 2008. Results showed that their distributions in the surface water corresponded well to the general circulation pattern in the ECS. Low DIC and pCO 2 and high pH were found in the warm and saline Kuroshio Current water flowing northeastward along the shelf break, whereas high DIC and pCO 2 and low pH were mainly observed in the cold and less saline China Coastal Current water flowing southward along the coast of Mainland China. Difference between surface water and atmospheric pCO 2 (ΔpCO 2), ranging from ~ 0 to − 111 μatm, indicated that the entire ECS shelf acted as a CO 2 sink during winter with an average flux of CO 2 of −13.7 ± 5.7 (mmol C m − 2 day − 1 ), and is consistent with previous studies. However, pCO 2 was negatively correlated with temperature for surface waters lower than 20 °C, in contrast to the positive correlation found in the 1990s. Moreover, the wintertime ΔpCO 2 in the inner shelf near the Changjiang River estuary has appreciably decreased since the early 1990s, suggesting a decline of CO 2 sequestration capacity in this region. However, the actual causes for the observed relationship between these decadal changes and the increased eutrophication over recent decades are worth further study.

On the Simulation of Shallow Water Tides in the Vicinity of the Taiwan Banks

The Taiwan Banks (Formosa Shoals), a large NE-SW oriented bathymetric feature near the southern end (23°N, 118-119°E) of the Taiwan Strait, is a region of extremely shallow water that exerts a profound effect on the propagation of tidal waves. As such waves propagate over the Taiwan Banks, they become distorted and asymmetric due to bottom friction and contribute to the generation of shallow water tides. The POM model was used in present study to simulate the tides in the Taiwan Strait region. Shallow water tidal dynamics in the area of Taiwan Banks are focused. The numerical model was validated against sea level observations from 34 tidal stations located on the coast of Mainland China and Taiwan. Trajectory records from two SVP drifters are used to be compared with the simulations using wavelet-based rotary spectral analysis. Numerical simulations show that the Taiwan Banks divide, separate and guide the southward propagating branch of an M2 tide along the western boundary of the Taiwan Strait as Kelvin Waves. The eastern branch which dissipates its energy by the bottom friction around the Taiwan Banks and the Penghu Islands gradually diminished along the south-eastern boundary of the Taiwan Strait. The northward propagating M2 dominates the tides in the waters east of the point 119.5°E, 22.8°N along the Penghu Channel instead. Moreover, the patterns of the standing waves of the 1/4 diurnal constituents are identified, it could be therefore hypothesized that the amplification of semi-diurnal tides in the Taiwan Strait is primarily due to the condition of two open ended channel co-oscillations. Co-oscillations are demonstrated by numerical simulations as well as an SVP drifter record which indicates that the Taiwan Banks act as the generator of the shallow water tides. The shallow water constituents are amplified and propagate southward to the South China Sea and diminish rapidly. From the SVP drifter data and short-time rotary spectral analysis, it is also interesting to note that the 1/5 diurnal constituent becomes significant compared to other shallow water constituents in the local vicinity of Taiwan Banks.

Evaluation of the effect of long-range transport of air pollutants on coastal atmospheric monitoring sites in and around Taiwan

Long-range transport of pollution outflow from Asian mainland has been noticed and expected to play a significant role in Pacific background. Since 1993 the Taiwanese Environmental Protection Administration (TEPA) is conducting ground-based observations of various particulate and gaseous pollutants at 74 monitoring stations in Taiwan. One of these stations, Heng-Chun at the south coast of Taiwan can be considered as a background station with only negligible amounts of local pollution, and another one, Wan-Li at the north coast, predominantly receives air that has not passed over Taiwan, so that background air can be analysed by means of sectorisation. In this work, the sectorised 13-year time series of measurements of CO, SO 2, O 3, NO x and PM 10, from the Wan-Li station are presen and compared to data from the Heng-Chun station and another TEPA background station off the coast of mainland China, Ma-Zu. The CO and O 3 measurements are also compared to data from the Yonaguni station, a Pacific island site, part of the Global Atmospheric Watch (GAW) network. The similarity of the sectorised data from the Wan-Li station with the data of the other station indicates that atmospheric measurements from the Wan-Li site can be used to make inferences about trends in western Pacific background air pollution and the effect of long-range transport of pollutants. The measurement time series from 1993 to 2006 do not indicate a significant trend in the monthly mean O 3 concentrations in accordance with other research about ozone in tropical latitudes. An increasing trend in CO concentrations of 2.8% per annum is observed between 1999 and 2006 for long-range transport to northern Taiwan, and a doubling of the SO 2 and NO x concentrations observed at the Wan-Li and Heng-Chun sites within the period 2001–2006. SO 2 concentrations are found to quadruple at Ma-Zu within the same period. The data suggest that pollution from the Asian mainland enhances significantly the background air pollution over the Pacific.

Modelling International Tourist Arrivals and Volatility: An Application to Taiwan

International tourism is a major source of export receipts for many countries worldwide. Although it is not yet one of the most important industries in Taiwan (or the Republic of China), an island in East Asia off the coast of mainland China (or the People's Republic of China), the leading tourism source countries for Taiwan are Japan, followed by USA, Republic of Korea, Malaysia, Singapore, UK, Germany and Australia. These countries reflect short, medium and long haul tourist destinations. Although the People's Republic of China and Hong Kong are large sources of tourism to Taiwan, the political situation is such that tourists from these two sources to Taiwan are reported as domestic tourists. Daily data from 1 January 1990 to 30 June 2007 are obtained from the National Immigration Agency of Taiwan. The Heterogeneous Autoregressive (HAR) model is used to capture long memory properties in the data. In comparison with the HAR(1) model, the estimated asymmetry coefficients for GJR(1,1) are not statistically significant for the HAR(1,7) and HAR(1,7,28) models, so that their respective GARCH(1,1) counterparts are to be preferred. These empirical results show that the conditional volatility estimates are sensitive to the long memory nature of the conditional mean specifications. Although asymmetry is observed for the HAR(1) model, there is no evidence of leverage. The QMLE for the GARCH(1,1), GJR(1,1) and EGARCH(1,1) models for international tourist arrivals to Taiwan are statistically adequate and have sensible interpretations. However, asymmetry (though not leverage) was found only for the HAR(1) model, and not for the HAR(1,7) and HAR(1,7,28) models.

Imposex of Mauritia arabica on the south-eastern coast of China

Imposex, the development of male sexual organs in female gastropods, is mainly induced by organotin compounds used as biocides in antifouling paints. As part of our continued efforts to report the occurrence of imposex gastropods along the coast of mainland China, this study investigates the imposex prevalence in Mauritia arabica (Mesogastropod: Cypraeidae). A total of 529 adults were collected from 11 sites in south-eastern China between March 2001 and June 2005. Of these, 303 were females and 226 were males. Imposex is classified into six stages representing the sequence from the initial appearance of the seminal groove or small penis (S1) to the point when this duct blocks the pallial oviduct and aborted egg capsules appear (S6). All six stages of imposex were found in M. arabica with three different types (a, b and c) of expression in stages 1 and 3, two types (a and b) in stage 2, and one type in stages 4, 5, and 6. Imposex development was also measured by various indices such as the vas deferens sequence index (VDS), female penis length (FPL), percentage of affected females (%I), the relative penis length (RPL), and relative penis size (RPS—the cubed form of RPL). Imposex individuals were found in all 11 sites with %I ranged from 26% to 100%. Excluding the data from site 3 (with only one female and one male), VDS scores ranged from 1.05 to 4.07, with an average of 2.86, and the RPL ranged from 0.9 to 56.8. High correlations were observed among VDS, FPL, %I, RPL, and the RPS. Our findings suggest that M. arabica is an ideal bioindicator for organotin pollution along the south-eastern coast of China, and can be used in conjunction with the rock shell, Thais clavigera, a well-established bioindicator of tributyltin and triphenyltin contamination. To our knowledge, this is the first detailed report of imposex in M. arabica.

Mitochondrial DNA‐inferred population structure and demographic history of the mitten crab (Eriocheir sensu stricto) found along the coast of mainland China

The mitten crab, Eriocheir sensu stricto, is economically important in East Asia, although it is an invasive species in Europe and North America. Little is known about its population structure and historical demography in its native range, especially along the Pacific coast of China. We collected mitochondrial cytochrome oxidase subunit II and cytochrome b sequences from 154 individuals distributed in the rivers along the Chinese coast and 15 individuals from Japan. Phylogenetic analysis resulted in three major monophyletic groups: northern China, southern China and Japan. Negligible migration was detected among those groups by coalescent analysis. Hence, we support the recognition of three species: Eriocheir hepuensis in southern China, Eriocheir sinensis in northern China and Eriocheir japonica in Japan. The populations in the middle (the Oujiang and Minjiang Rivers) possess a mixture of haplotypes similar to either the northern or the southern haplotypes. We believe that secondary intergradation as the most likely cause of the clinal variation based on examining the genetic variation in the latitudinal space. The estimated divergence time between E. sinensis and E. hepuensis is 2.24 million years ago (Ma), while the divergence time between E. japonica and E. sinensis is 1.83 Ma. Both are in the late Pliocene, suggesting that land bridges associated with low sea level during that time might have severed as vicariant barriers for speciation. The divergence of the northern population and the 'northern haplotypes' in the middle population was estimated at 0.12 Ma, while the time separating the southern population and the 'southern haplotypes' in the middle populations was estimated as 0.16 Ma, implicating possible secondary contact in the late Pleistocene.

Assimilated tidal results of tide gauge and TOPEX/POSEIDON data over the China seas using a variational adjoint approach with a nonlinear numerical model

In order to obtain an accurate tide description in the China Seas, the 2-dimensional nonlinear numerical Princeton Ocean Model (POM) is employed to incorporate in situ tidal measurements both from tide gauges and TOPEX/POSEIDON (T/P) derived datasets by means of the variational adjoint approach in such a way that unknown internal model parameters, bottom topography, friction coefficients and open boundary conditions, for example, are adjusted during the process. The numerical model is used as a forward model. After the along-track T/P data are processed, two classical methods, i.e. harmonic and response analysis, are implemented to estimate the tide from such datasets with a domain covering the model area extending from 0° to 41°N in latitude and from 99°E to 142°E in longitude. And the results of these two methods are compared and interpreted. The numerical simulation is performed for 16 major constituents. In the data assimilation experiments, three types of unknown parameters (water depth, bottom friction and tidal open boundary conditions in the model equations) are chosen as control variables. Among the various types of data assimilation experiments, the calibration of water depth brings the most promising results. By comparing the results with selected tide gauge data, the average absolute errors are decreased from 7.9 cm to 6.8 cm for amplitude and from 13.0° to 9.0° for phase with respect to the semidiurnal tide M 2 constituent, which is the largest tidal constituent in the model area. After the data assimilation experiment is performed, the comparison between model results and tide gauge observation for water levels shows that the RMS errors decrease by 9 cm for a total of 14 stations, mostly selected along the coast of Mainland China, when a one-month period is considered, and the correlation coefficients improve for most tidal stations among these stations.

Kaolin Minerals from Chinmen Island (Quemoy)

AbstractChinmen Island is located in the west of the Taiwan Strait, 15 km from the coast of mainland China. Mesozoic granitic gneiss forms the basement rocks of the island. High-defect kaolin deposits, both major sedimentary and minor residual types of clays, have been mined for ceramic uses for many years. The objectives of this study were to characterize the kaolin deposits and to discuss the genesis of kaolin minerals on the island. The kaolin samples were characterized by X-ray diffraction and transmission and scanning electron microscopy. In general, the particle-size distribution of the sedimentary kaolin was 0.5–5.0% sand, 15–55% silt and 30–85% clay. In the clay fraction, the ratio of kaolinite to illite ranged from 9:1 to 3:1. The sedimentary kaolin materials were originally transported by river from mainland China. Kaolinite occurred generally as pseudo-hexagonal platelets of ∼1 µm in diameter. The residual kaolin minerals resulted from the argillization of granitoid rocks by in situ weathering which possibly occurred during the Pleistocene. The residual kaolin contained more tubular halloysite.

Upper-ocean currents around Taiwan

Abstract Current velocity, measured by Shipboard Acoustic Doppler Current Profiler (Sb-ADCP) during 1991–2000, was used to study the upper-ocean ( The composite and moored currents revealed a branch of the Kuroshio that intruded steadily and persistently into the South China Sea. Part of the intruded Kuroshio flowed out of the South China Sea through the northern Luzon Strait and re-united with the main stream Kuroshio. The Kuroshio had two velocity maximum cores southeast of Taiwan, but gradually combined into one as the Kuroshio flowed north. The Kuroshio was deflected by the I-Lan Ridge east of Taiwan and the zonal-running shelf break northeast of Taiwan. At the shelf break, the Kuroshio split, with one branch intruding onto the shelf. West of the Luzon Strait, the Kuroshio intruded into the South China Sea. Some water flowed northward into the Taiwan Strait and re-joined the Kuroshio. Currents in the Taiwan Strait flowed primarily in a northward direction, except for the southward current near the coast of Mainland China. North of the Taiwan Strait, a branch of the northward flow followed the northern coast of Taiwan to join the Kuroshio. The composite current varied consistently from season to season. There was generally poor correlation between currents and local winds, especially in the deep-water regime. Remote forces were important in the currents around Taiwan.

Business Networks and Dyad Studies: Theory and Practice in Southeast Asia

There has been in recent years a growing interest in business networks as an alternative to the organizational capabilities traditionally reposed in formal, large scale organisations, and there are important aspects of Far Eastern business, its structures and success which can usefully draw on these theories. This paper reviews the literature on this topic, and surveys a series of research projects, conducted in the period 1988 to 1994, and covering Indochina, the China Rim and the Special Economic Zones along the mainland China coast. It then speculates upon arrangements for further studies into the network-dyad exchange relationships of the fief and clannish organisations to be found within the strategic trading space of Southeast Asia.

A STUDY IN FERTILITY CONTROL.

It is widely recognized that in many parts of the world there is a “population problem”: the high rate of increase in population makes social and economic development difficult if not impossible. Can anything be done about the problem? Practical means of fertility control are available to individual couples, but can the control of fertility actually be implemented on a large scale in the developing areas? This article will describe an experiment designed to find out what can be done in one of the world’s most densely populated places: the island of Taiwan off the coast of mainland China.