Continental Shores Research Articles

A new primate community from the earliest Oligocene of the Atlantic margin of Northwest Africa: Systematic, paleobiogeographic, and paleoenvironmental implications

We report a new Paleogene primate community discovered in the uppermost part of the Samlat Formation outcropping on the continental shore of the Rio de Oro, east of the Dakhla peninsula (in the south of Morocco, near the northern border of Mauritania). Fossils consist of isolated teeth, which were extracted by wet screening of estuarine sediments (DAK C2) dating from the earliest Oligocene (ca. 33.5 Ma). These dental remains testify to the presence of at least eight primate species, documenting distinct families, four of which are among the Anthropoidea (Oligopithecidae [Catopithecus aff. browni], Propliopithecidae [?Propliopithecus sp.], Parapithecidae [Abuqatrania cf. basiodontos], and Afrotarsiidae [Afrotarsius sp.]) and four in the Strepsirrhini (a Djebelemuridae [cf. ‘Anchomomys’ milleri], a Galagidae [Wadilemur cf. elegans], a possible lorisiform [Orogalago saintexuperyi gen. et sp. nov.], and a strepsirrhine of indeterminate affinities [Orolemur mermozi gen. et sp. nov.]). This record of various primates at Dakhla represents the first Oligocene primate community from Northwest Africa, especially from the Atlantic margin of that landmass. Considering primates plus rodents (especially hystricognaths), the taxonomic proximity at the generic (even specific) level between DAK C2 (Dakhla) and the famous Egyptian fossil-bearing localities of the Jebel Qatrani Formation (Fayum Depression), either dating from the latest Eocene (L-41) or from the early Oligocene, suggests the existence of an east–west ‘trans-North African’ environmental continuum during the latest Eocene–earliest Oligocene time interval. The particularly diverse mammal fauna from DAK C2, recorded within the time window of global climate deterioration characterizing the Eocene/Oligocene transition, suggests that this tropical region of northwest Africa was seemingly less affected, if at all, by the cooling and associated paleoenvironmental and biotic changes documented at that time or at least that the effects were delayed. The expected densely forested paleoenvironment bordering the western margin of North Africa at the beginning of the early Oligocene probably offered better tropical refugia than higher latitudes or more inland areas during the cooling episode.

From islands to territorial empire: The French colonial administration at Gorée and the environmental causes of continental expansion after the Seven Years War

This article explores the relationship between islands and the continental shore through the lens of the French colonial administration at Gorée after the Seven Years War. In this period, the French Ministry of the Marine deliberately sought to check French territorial expansion across the globe in order to favor France’s lucrative plantation complex in the Caribbean. As part of this official policy, Gorée was deemed critical for the protection of the French slave trade, but not seen as a point of departure for colonial empire on the African continent. Unreliable provisioning from the metropole, labor shortages, and environmental conditions at Gorée, however, pushed local French administrators to rely on the African mainland for resources, nourishing expansionist ambitions in the process. Focusing on the environmental, geo-political, and commercial dimensions of island-continental interaction at Gorée and the Senegambia’s coast, this article brings into view unaddressed tensions among official French imperial policy, colonial provisioning, and territorial expansion.

Shifting Shores and Stone Age Settlement: The Former Ventspils Lagoon Area, Latvia

ABSTRACT This article considers a newly developed model of Holocene shoreline displacement in the southern part of the former Ventspils Lagoon of the Baltic Sea basin (present-day western Latvia) in relation to data from previous and new archaeological research in the area, assessing the changing pattern of Stone Age settlement and resource utilisation during the Mesolithic and Neolithic. An extensive lagoon was formed at the time of the maximum level of the Ancylus Lake and once again during the Littorina Sea maximum. In the south of the lagoon, the former shores from the two separate phases of the lagoon’s existence lie at similar elevations, providing the conditions for site re-occupation. There were river mouth sites on the continental shore of the lagoon and island sites on the seaward side, whereas in the periods with a low water level, human settlement focused on the relict waterbodies and watercourses within the exposed low-lying terrain of the former lagoon bed. The water-level fluctuations and resulting landscape changes were much more rapid during the Ancylus stage, the loci of settlement and resource exploitation necessarily shifting at fairly short intervals. The two lagoon phases also represent rather different aquatic environments.

Role of suspended particulate material on growth and metal bioaccumulation in oysters (Crassostrea gigas) from a French coastal semi-enclosed production area, Arcachon Bay

Arcachon Bay is a prominent oyster production area on the coast of Western Europe, and is subject to chemical contamination including by trace metals. Recently, the national “mussel-watch” monitoring network – using local bivalves as semi-quantitative bioindicators of coastal chemical contamination – highlighted a significant increase in copper (Cu) concentrations in oysters from this bay. Here, we conducted a one-year multi-compartment and multi-parameter field study to investigate some aspects of the surrounding environment of oysters that could explain their metal bioaccumulation. Sediment, seawater (through punctual and passive sampling), particles (suspended particulate material of selected sizes, including trophic resources for oysters) and transplanted oysters were regularly collected at two contrasted sites of the bay (i.e. under continental versus more oceanic influence). These matrices were characterised for their total Cu, zinc (Zn), nickel (Ni), cadmium (Cd) and lead (Pb) concentrations. Several physico-chemical and biological parameters (e.g. salinity, particle loads, oyster growth rate and condition indices, carbon and nitrogen stable isotope compositions, etc.) were also analysed. Overall, sediment, particles and oysters from the outermost site had slightly lower δ 13 C values, confirming the more oceanic influence in this part of the bay. Among organic particles, although dinoflagellates tended to be more abundant at the outermost site while ciliates were more abundant at the innermost site of the bay, the two sites did not differ in mean total microphytoplankton and diatom densities. However, the variations observed for most of the other parameters studied show that oysters located near the continental shore are exposed to higher loads of particles in general, and to higher metal contents in the dissolved phase and “bulk” seawater (dissolved plus particulate phases) during the year. While fluvial inputs and continental/urban run-offs are suspected sources of anthropogenic metal inputs into the bay, (fine) sediment particle resuspension appears to be a likely major contributor to metal release and hence to the contamination of the bay including oysters. The decline of seagrass beds in the last two decades in the bay could also have decreased the potential of fine particle retention in the sedimentary stratum. Concomitantly, oysters presenting the highest metal concentrations were those with the lower growth rates and condition indices, which may be induced by physical constraints, high amounts of pseudo-faeces produced and/or reduced food and energy acquisition by oysters due to high particle loads in the water column. The findings of this study imply that using raw metal concentrations in bivalves to monitor marine coastal contamination can lead to misleading interpretations if potentially great spatial variations in bivalve growth rates or condition indices are not considered. Finally, peculiar trends were observed for Cu compared to other metals, highlighting the need of further studies to fully address the Cu contamination in this marine system (e.g. specific sources of contamination for this metal in the bay). This study more broadly raises the issue of potentially man-induced ecological changes (e.g. modification of natural habitats) and their consequences on metal transfer and physiological performance of marine biota. • A multi-compartment and multi-parameter study to unravel oyster metal contamination. • Higher contamination found in dissolved and particulate seawater phases inside the bay. • Contamination likely explained by river flows and tidal resuspension of sediments. • Higher particle loads observed with higher oyster metal concentrations and lower growth. • Differences in oyster bioaccumulation patterns for copper compared to other metals.

A New Language of the Future: A Conversation with Himali Singh Soin

A New Language of the Future:A Conversation with Himali Singh Soin Clara Wilch (bio) Himali Singh Soin is a London- and Delhi-based artist whose performance and poetry rove across media. Soin carefully realizes a project's ideal form over time and through a wide range of creative modalities, including performance, poetry, film, digital media, art books, and printmaking. Her already prolific artistic career has generated international renown, including winning the Frieze Artist Award 2019. As a scholar of performance and ecology, I encountered her work while researching Arctic icescapes and was mesmerized by her multimedia series we are opposite like that (2017–22). In this project, Soin endeavors to take the perspective of ice as a bearer of ancient stories by interweaving film footage of performances in the Arctic and the Antarctic with poetry, collaborative musical compositions, and Victorian-era texts and illustrations. Soin draws audiences into regions of the poles devoid of Indigenous human inhabitants—places whose stories have been predominately rendered through the structures of climate science—and creates new histories for them. Meanwhile, Soin's collaborative and multimodal static range (2020–ongoing) focuses upon the Himalayan mountain Nanda Devi and a nuclear-powered surveillance device abandoned there by the CIA. Her series speak to how certain environmental catastrophes and (neo) colonialism are inextricably tangled and to how performance can contribute to human understandings of changing landscapes. Soin's skills and vision are singular, but her creative methodology is also exemplary of a way of making art and meaning during this time—a proposed geological epoch [End Page E-9] variously called "the Anthropocene," "the Capitalocene," or "the Plantationocene"1 (among other names)—when hierarchical systemic forces, including Euro-Western notions of "Man," extractive capitalism, settler-colonialism, the transatlantic slave trade, and technophilic progressivism have indelibly altered the earth's ecosystems on a planetary scale. The following conversation focuses on Soin's praxes, offering insights into how to create art that "does something" to benefit others at a time of proliferating socioenvironmental urgencies and highlighting the importance of place-based art that consciously exceeds the confines of a single narrative. Soin incorporates the animacy of other artists, audiences, land, nonhuman life, and technologies into her work, telling stories of contemporary ecologies through some of the complex relationships that compose those ecologies (fig. 1). As she puts it in our conversation: "If we're in the practice of listening to different voices as the ultimate aim of the work, then can the means be that, too?" Cultivating extra-human friendships as a medium, Soin shows climate change in its spatial and temporal vastness: from centuries-old roots of capitalist industry, racialization, and militarism to the dynamic developments of the present, where H2O molecules are shifting phases in the icy veins of ancient glaciers and becoming the seas that climb other continental shores. Soin's methodology also works to place many epistemologies—poetic, performatic, natural scientific, historic, intuitive, navigational—on a "flat ontological plane." She incorporates the instruments and languages of various sciences and arts into an amalgam, playing with multiple tools of observation outside of their usual repertoires, and so notices new stories, neglected resonances, and surprising parallels. I have found that this sort of translational effort and interdisciplinary play is also essential to productively grappling with climate change in scholarship. Soin says that we—artists, academics, concerned inhabitants of a challenging epoch—must create "a new language of the future." Allowing curiosity to transgress disciplinary boundaries, we come to know better the phenomenon called climate change and to inhabit our present more fully, learning to both grieve and act in response to a great planetary reckoning that will not be deferred. Visit Soin's website at https://www.himalisinghsoin.com/. Himali Singh Soin spoke with me from her home in London via Zoom on August 13, 2021. This transcription has been edited for length and clarity. Clara Wilch (CW): How would you describe what you do within the arts, broadly speaking? Himali Singh Soin (HSS): I always say that I start with the written word, and then it transforms—into immersive environments, into moving image, into performance, into being...

Measuring zero at sea: on the delocalization and abstraction of the geodetic framework

Starting from the issue of how mean sea level has come to represent, since the early nineteenth century, the most commonly adopted vertical datum, this paper reviews the inherent biases and limitations of attempting to measure the sea from individual locations tucked away in bays and inlets along the coast. It then delves into a history of the attempts made to move measurements away from continental shores, including efforts to collect water height data from the bottom of the sea and from remote islands. Finally, it provides a history of the shift from attempting to measure the level of water at coastal locations to estimating, instead, where water ought to be. To achieve this, the article focuses on early developments in gravimetry at sea as a tool to map more precisely the geoid and, thus, the oceans’ topography. The idea behind these developments was to obtain more accurate results and a more trustworthy geodetic framework by getting rid of the variability caused by relative movement of land and sea and by contextual topographical challenges. It was also an attempt to delocalize the data collection endeavour in order to focus on inferring and estimating average values. It was thought that increasing the degree of abstraction would enable an improved representation of the planet and its oceans.

Results of Magnetic-Variation Sounding of the Tatar Strait at Two Points on Its Opposite Shores

Abstract —Results of magnetic-variation sounding on the opposite shores of the Tatar Strait are presented. The resulting frequency dependences of tippers serve as a basis for 3D inversion carried out using the ModEM software. The inversion yields horizontal and vertical sections of the Tatar Strait in a 400×400×400 km area along the x, y, and z axes, respectively. A conductive zone is revealed near the continental shore, and its central part has an electric resistivity of 0.5 Ohm∙m at a depth of 5–7 km. The zone reaches 20–40 km across and vanishes in the lower crust. Along the shore, an anomaly begins north of the Datta Village and extends to the area south of the town of Sovetskaya Gavan. There is a similar anomaly that is isometric in the horizontal plane and less contrasting, which exists near Sakhalin Island at depths of 8–12 km, where the crust resistivity is 15 Ohm∙m. The position of the anomaly matches the nearby zone of local М = 4–6 earthquakes in the upper crust. At depths greater than 10 km beneath the strait, these anomalies merge and the electrical resistivity increases. In the lower crust and in the upper mantle beneath the strait, the section is characterized by a resistivity of 30–60 Ohm∙m. At depths greater than 100 km, there is a conductive layer submerging beneath the Tatar Strait from the Sea of Okhotsk, with conductive branches running from it beneath the Tatar Strait south and north of the Datta Village. The possible causes of near-shore conductive anomalies are discussed.

Tristes Tropique in Jacqueline Bishop's Patchwork Aesthetics

Tristes Tropique in Jacqueline Bishop's Patchwork Aesthetics

The evolutionary history of the goby Elacatinus puncticulatus in the tropical eastern pacific: Effects of habitat discontinuities and local environmental variability

Habitat discontinuities, temperature gradients, upwelling systems, and ocean currents, gyres and fronts, can affect distributions of species with narrow environmental tolerance or motility and influence the dispersal of pelagic larvae, with effects ranging from the isolation of adjacent populations to connections between them. The coast of the Tropical Eastern Pacific (TEP) is a highly dynamic environment, with various large gyres and upwelling systems, alternating currents and large rocky-habitat discontinuities, which may greatly influence the genetic connectivity of populations in different parts of the coast. Elacatinus puncticulatus is a cryptic, shallow-living goby that is distributed along the continental shore of virtually the entire TEP, which makes it a good model for testing the influence of these environmental characteristics in the molecular evolution of widespread species in this region. A multilocus phylogeny was used to evaluate the influence of habitat gaps, and oceanographic processes in the evolutionary history of E. puncticulatus throughout its geographical range in the TEP. Two well-supported allopatric clades (one with two allopatric subclades) were recovered, the geographic distribution of which does not correspond to any previously proposed major biogeographic provinces. These populations show strong genetic structure and substantial genetic distances between clades and sub-clades (cytb 0.8–7.3%), with divergence times between them ranging from 0.53 to 4.88 Mya, and recent population expansions dated at 170–130 Kya. The ancestral area of all populations appears to be the Gulf of Panama, while several isolation events have formed the phylogeographic patterns evident in this species. Local and regional oceanographic processes as well as habitat discontinuities have shaped the distribution patterns of the genetic lineages along the continental TEP. Large genetic distances, high genetic differentiation, and the results of species-tree and phylogenetic analyses indicate that E. puncticulatus comprises a complex of three allopatric species with an unusual geographic arrangement.

Pre-processing ambient noise cross-correlations with equalizing the covariance matrix eigenspectrum

Passive imaging techniques from ambient seismic noise requires a nearly isotropic distribution of the noise sources in order to ensure reliable traveltime measurements between seismic stations. However, real ambient seismic noise often partially fulfils this condition. It is generated in preferential areas (in deep ocean or near continental shores), and some highly coherent pulse-like signals may be present in the data such as those generated by earthquakes. Several pre-processing techniques have been developed in order to attenuate the directional and deterministic behaviour of this real ambient noise. Most of them are applied to individual seismograms before cross-correlation computation. The most widely used techniques are the spectral whitening and temporal smoothing of the individual seismic traces. We here propose an additional pre-processing to be used together with the classical ones, which is based on the spatial analysis of the seismic wavefield. We compute the cross-spectra between all available stations pairs in spectral domain, leading to the data covariance matrix. We apply a one-bit normalization to the covariance matrix eigenspectrum before extracting the cross-correlations in the time domain. The efficiency of the method is shown with several numerical tests. We apply the method to the data collected by the USArray, when the M8.8 Maule earthquake occurred on 2010 February 27. The method shows a clear improvement compared with the classical equalization to attenuate the highly energetic and coherent waves incoming from the earthquake, and allows to perform reliable traveltime measurement even in the presence of the earthquake.

Emplacement of Semail–Emirates ophiolite at ridge–trench collision

AbstractThe Oman‐Emirates is the largest and best‐exposed ophiolite; consequently, it has attracted significant interest among scientists, together with serious conflicts. Most geologists regard this ophiolite as having formed in an intra‐oceanic subduction zone before being accreted to the Arabian continent. Here, we propose an alternative scenario, supported by detailed field observations and integrated geophysics. The smaller Emirates part of the ophiolite was forced into a nearby continent, in the pre‐collision stage of Tethyan closure. The contraction led to the exhumation of the mantle floor of segmented basins accreted in a rifted system similar to the present‐day Gulf of California. The implied high temperature–high pressure metamorphism and the range of geochemical signatures were introduced during the process of rifting, whereas the larger Oman ophiolite was emplaced by obduction onto and along the subducting continental shore. This Ridge–Trench–Transform system might call for a new process to obduct over continents in particular Tethyan ophiolites.

Distribution comparée du Dauphin commun (Delphinus delphis) et du Dauphin bleu et blanc (Stenella coeruleoalba) en Méditerranée occidentale

Comparative distribution of Common Dolphin (Delphinus delphis) and Striped Dolphin (Stenella coeruleoalba) in western Mediterranean Sea. The summer distribution and habitat of the Striped Dolphin Stenella coeruleoalba and Common Dolphin Delphinus delphis in the western Mediterranean Sea were investigated with small boat survey data collected from 1988 to 2012. An effective survey effort of 57 912 km enabled to collect 2300 sightings of Striped Dolphin and 46 of Common Dolphin, in most regions of the western basin. High Striped Dolphin relative abundance indices (RAI) were obtained in the northernmost regions and the Alboran Sea, about one dolphin per km of effort, and very low Common Dolphin RAI were obtained off the French continental coast. Common dolphin relative abundance was at the highest in the Alboran Sea (about 0.38 individual/km), moderate in the western Sardinia regions, and significant in other southern regions. Striped and Common Dolphins did not share the same topographic habitat, the former favouring slope and oceanic waters (mean bottom depth 1839 m) and the latter being more frequent in the shelf and slope domains (mean bottom depth 649 m). However, Striped Dolphin was frequently observed in the three habitat types, when Common Dolphin was almost not recorded in the oceanic domain. French stranding statistics were in agreement with our survey results and suggested that Striped Dolphin frequency increased during the 20th century, when Common Dolphin strandings decreased, in particular on French continental shores. However, both species were present in records since the 19th century. While some scientific accounts mentioned Common Dolphin as ''common'' and Striped Dolphin as ''rare'', erroneous identifications and dubious mentions were identified in the literature. The overall picture suggests that the Striped Dolphin is, and was, a common species in oceanic waters of the western Mediterranean Sea, while the Common Dolphin occupies and occupied a more specific habitat in shallower waters, certainly in relation to its preferred diet. Common Dolphins might have disappeared from regions where their preferred habitat has been overexploited. This study brings new elements to understand Common Dolphin current conservation issues in the Mediterranean Sea.

Feasibility Study for The Setting Up of a Safety System for Monitoring CO2 Storage at Prinos Field, Greece

Geological storage of CO2 in subsurface geological structures can mitigate global warming. A comprehensive safety and monitoring system for CO2 storage has been undertaken for the Prinos hydrocarbon field, offshore northern Greece; a system which can prevent any possible leakage of CO2. This paper presents various monitoring strategies of CO2 subsurface movement in the Prinos reservoir, the results of a simulation of a CO2 leak through a well, an environmental risk assessment study related to the potential leakage of CO2 from the seafloor and an overall economic insight of the system. The results of the simulation of the CO2 leak have shown that CO2 reaches the seabed in the form of gas approximately 13.7 years, from the beginning of injection. From that point onwards the amount of CO2 reaching the seabed increases until it reaches a peak at around 32.9 years. During the injection period, the CO2 plume develops only within the reservoir. During the post-injection period, the CO2 reaches the seabed and develops side branches. These correspond to preferential lateral flow pathways of the CO2 and are more extensive for the dissolved CO2 than for the saturated CO2 gas. For the environmental risk assessment, we set up a model, using ArcGIS software, based on the use of data regarding the speeds of the winds and currents encountered in the region. We also made assumptions related to the flow rate of CO2. Results show that after a period of 10 days from the start of CO2 leakage the CO2 has reached halfway to the continental shores where the “Natura” protected areas are located. CO2 leakage modelling results show CO2 to be initially flowing along a preferential flow direction, which is towards the NE. However, 5 days after the start of leakage of CO2, the CO2 is also flowing towards the ENE. The consequences of a potential CO2 leak are considered spatially limited and the ecosystem is itself capable of recovering. We have tried to determine the costs necessary for the creation of such an integrated CO2 monitoring program both during the CO2 injection phase as well as during permanent storage. The most prevalent solution consists of purchasing both seismic equipment and Echosounder systems as well as privileging a monitoring system, which uses selected boreholes. The necessary period required for monitoring the study area is at least 20 years after the end of the CO2 storage period at Prinos. To the overall monitoring time, we should also add a further 20 years that are required for the injection phase as well as 12 years for the storage phase. The operating costs for monitoring the CO2 amount to 0,38 $/ton CO2 and the total cost for EOR at Prinos amounts to 0,45 $/ton CO2.

Evaluación de la peligrosidad del tsunami de Chile del 16 de setiembre del 2015 para Costa Rica

El 16 de setiembre del 2015 un sismo Mw 8.3 en Chile causó un tsunami que afectó únicamente a dicho país. Sin embargo, este sismo motivó la realización de un análisis de peligrosidad de tsunami por parte del Sistema Nacional de Monitoreo de Tsunamis (SINAMOT) para recomendar a la Comisión Nacional de Emergencias (CNE) las medidas a tomar al respecto para Costa Rica. Este evento representó un ejercicio de los procedimientos operativos estandarizados con los que cuenta el SINAMOT y la utilización por primera vez de herramientas locales de pronóstico de alturas y corrientes de tsunamis, además con resultados exitosos. En este artículo se detallan el desarrollo del evento y las herramientas usadas para el análisis de peligrosidad por tsunami, así como los registros que se dieron del tsunami en territorio nacional. Dicho tsunami fue registrado en Costa Rica continental únicamente en mareógrafos, tal y como había sido pronosticado por el SINAMOT. Este artículo tiene un enfoque operativo y muestra los resultados en la misma forma en que se usan durante el evento para la toma de decisiones.

HMS Swift: Scientific Research and Management of Underwater Cultural Heritage in Argentina

The Swift had an overall length of 28 meters and a beam of 8 meters and was armed with fourteen six-pounder cannons and twelve swivel guns. A few days earlier, under the command of Captain George Farmer and with a crew of nearly a hundred men, the Swift had left the British base with the purpose of conducting geographical surveys in the region. However, according to the historical documents, strong and persistent winds drove the ship towards the continental shore. The captain decided to enter the Deseado estuary, a natural and well sheltered harbor which had been visited by sailors and explorers since the 16th-century.

Collapses of island societies from environmental forcing: Does history hold lessons for the future?

Abstract Societies that develop on islands in oceans, distant from continental shores and one another, are unusually vulnerable to fundamental change (collapse). It is argued that a common cause of such change is the effect of external (climate-driven) environmental forcing on food resources, especially those on which coastal-dwelling island peoples invariably depend. Relative changes in sea level that were comparatively rapid are implicated in several instances of societal collapse on islands; two examples are discussed. The first refers to western tropical Pacific Island groups in which Early Period societies are distinctive, representing periods of human settlement beginning 3,500–2,800 years ago and undergoing major transformative change a few centuries later. The end of these Early Period societies appears to have been near-synchronous, an observation requiring an external and region-wide driver rather than local drivers. Sea-level fall, which began 4,000–3,000 years ago in this region, continued for some centuries and is considered to have dropped below a critical threshold about 2,570 years ago, abruptly reducing useful coastal bioproductivity and forcing the inhabitants of these islands to sharply reduce their dependence on coastal foods. Second is the effect of sea-level fall during the AD 1300 Event (approximately AD 1250–1350) that rapidly reduced coastal food availability and resulted in conflict that forced human groups throughout the higher islands of the tropical Pacific to abandon coastal settlements in favour of those in defensible locations inland, upslope and offshore. On lower islands (atolls), people made use of islands newly formed as a result of the sea-level fall during the ad 1300 Event, while some islands were abandoned by people altogether. External environmental change, particularly sea-level change, has demonstrated potential to force fundamental alterations to island societies and even cause their collapse. This situation remains the same in today’s more globalised island world, where some islands are likely to become uninhabitable within a few decades as a result of sea-level rise, while on others deleterious impacts on coastal food systems are likely to force coastal peoples to seek new ways of feeding themselves.

Allopatry and overlap in a clade of snails from mangroves and mud flats in the Indo-West Pacific and Mediterranean (Gastropoda: Potamididae:Cerithideopsilla)

Cerithideopsilla is a genus of potamidid snails found in high abundance on sedimentary intertidal flats and beneath mangrove trees on continental shores in the tropical and subtropical Indo-West Pacific region and Mediterranean Sea. Taxonomic revisions have recognized four species, but recent molecular studies have hinted at a higher diversity. Here, we analyse 377 individuals sampled from across the known range and use a combination of molecular phylogenetic (mitochondrial COI and 16S rRNA, and nuclear 28S rRNA genes), statistical (generalized mixed Yule-coalescent GMYC method) and morphological (shell form) criteria to delimit 16 species. These form four species groups, corresponding with the traditionally recognized species C. alata, C. ‘djadjariensis’ (for which the valid name is C. incisa), C. cingulata and C. conica. Distribution maps were compiled using museum specimens identified by diagnostic shell characters. In combination with the molecular phylogenetic trees, these suggest an allopatric speciation mode, with diversification centred on the East Asian coastline and northern Australia, and a pronounced gap in the ‘eastern Indonesian corridor’, an area of low oceanic productivity. There is, however, frequently geographical overlap between sister species and we suggest from several sources of evidence (e.g. presence of C. conica in isolated saline lakes 900 km from the sea) that post-speciation transport by migratory birds has occurred. Nine of the 16 species occur between the Gulf of Tonkin and Hong Kong, so southern China is significant for both the evolution and conservation of Cerithideopsilla species. © 2014 The Linnean Society of London, Biological Journal of the Linnean Society, 2014, 114, 212–228.

Ichthyofauna of the Selvagens Islands. Do small coastal areas show high species richness in the northeastern Atlantic?

The Selvagens Islands are located in the northeastern Atlantic between the Canary Islands and Madeira Island. As a result of their small size, remote location and harsh sea conditions only a few studies have been conducted to describe their marine species diversity. We were able to identify 29 new coastal fish species, an increase of 33% in the ichthyofauna described for these islands (n = 88). There is a prevalence of species with tropical affinities and only 2.3% (n = 2) are endemic to Macaronesia. Considered a stepping-stone colonization vector from the nearest continental shore, as proposed by other authors for this region, the Selvagens Islands host 34.1% of the ichthyofauna described for the much larger Canary Islands (nspecies = 258, submerged area nSelvagensIs. = 2.3%) and 47.3% of the ichthyofauna described for the more distantly located Madeira Island (nspecies = 186, submerged area nSelvagensIs. = 17.9%). Interestingly, 6.8% (n = 6) of the species failed to bridge the gap between the Selvagens Islands and Madeira Island. Data collected so far showed no trend toward an increasing number of species with high dispersal capability. The Selvagens Islands are an example of a high coastal species diversity occurring even in very small areas of the northeastern Atlantic Ocean.

Understanding the Transport and Impact of African Dust on the Caribbean Basin

Every year huge quantities of soil dust are carried by winds from Africa, across the Atlantic, and to the Caribbean. No other ocean region is so extensively and persistently impacted by such high concentrations of dust, a region that extends over 7000 km from the coast of Africa to the Caribbean and to the bounding continental shores of the Americas. In effect, the Caribbean Basin can be thought of as the “receptor” site of the Saharan dust “source,” a source that accounts for over half of global dust emissions. It is generally recognized that on a global scale mineral dust can affect many aspects of climate, marine biogeochemical processes, soil fertility, air quality, and human health. However, it is difficult to assess the impact on the Caribbean Basin because of the dearth of studies in this region. A better understanding is needed of the factors that affect the transport of dust, the physical and chemical properties of the transported materials, and how these might change during transport. Of particu...

Shaw and Bertrand Russell versus Gilbert Murray on Britain's Entry into World War I

Shaw and Bertrand Russell versus Gilbert Murray on Britain's Entry into World War I