Southern Third Research Articles

Areas of Endemism and Biogeographic Regionalization of the Iberian Peninsula Based on Ants (Hymenoptera: Formicidae)

Based on the distribution of 275 species of ants native to the Iberian Peninsula (IP), we identified areas of endemism (AE) within its geographical limits and present a biogeographic regionalization using two complementary methods and two types of operational geographical units. For endemicity analysis (EA), we used a 100 km2 grid cell, and for parsimony analysis of endemicity (PAE), we used hydrological basins as natural units. The EA revealed twelve areas of endemism that were grouped into five consensus areas. These are the Northeastern area, South plateau, Guadalquivir Valley, Baetic System, and Iberian Peninsula (whole). PAE resulted in a cladogram that classified hydrological basins into at least two successively nested subsets: an Atlantic group that is more related to northern European fauna and an Iberian subset that is well supported by synapomorphies. The Iberian subset was differentiated into four main areas: (a) a Northeastern area formed by the Pyrenees and the Catalan Coastal Range, (b) a mainland area containing the Central System and Guadiana and Tajo valleys, (c) a Southern area consisting of the Guadalquivir Valley and the Baetic System, and (d) a Northern coastal area. The results showed congruence between the two methods since many of the synapomorphies are shared among the diagnostic and IP endemic species of the EA. Both EA and PAE showed the relevance of the heterogeneous peninsular orography that combines mountainous regions with valleys and plateaus, which have acted as historical barriers or corridors. The presence of numerous endemic species, particularly in the southern third of the IP, suggests that several Iberian refuges for ants originated during glacial periods. These areas constitute priority sites for the conservation of ants in particular and biodiversity in general on the IP and allow further research about the processes that generated these distributional patterns.

Discovery of Besdolus bicolor (Navás, 1909) in France, and complements to the description of its vibrational duet (Plecoptera, Perlodidae)

Besdolus bicolor (Navás, 1909) is identified for the first time in France. Surveys resulted in the collection of individuals from historically known or more recently stations, as well as the examination of specimens stored in collections (previously identified as “Besdolus ventralis”). The species is present in the southern third of France. Its distribution is compared with that of other Besdolus, thus allowing us to observe an overlap or proximity of distribution areas for certain species. Recordings of sexual vibrational signals from France confirmed the species identification and allowed for the description of the female’s answer and the duetting pattern.

British Army intelligence in provincial Ireland, 1919‒1921: organisation, outcomes and the 6th Division blacklist

AbstractIntelligence played a critical role in the Irish War of Independence, though debate remains about the effectiveness of British information-gathering. Historians have focused largely on the intelligence war in Dublin. This article examines British Army intelligence in the 6th Division area (roughly the southern third of the island). It will contextualise British military intelligence before the conflict and traces the slow development of an intelligence organisation in the 6th Division. It then considers the sources and nature of British information gathering, particularly interrogation of prisoners and the collection and analysis of captured documents. Military intelligence summaries and a ‘Blacklist’ of I.R.A. suspects across the 6th Division are used to ascertain the quality of military intelligence products during the final stages of the conflict. The ‘Blacklist’ can be contrasted with I.R.A. unit arrest data and leadership lists, to assess the effectiveness of British military intelligence at a county level. This comparison provides a new measure of British performance, clearly revealing the limitations of British military intelligence in the 6th Division, particularly when compared to relatively more successful results achieved by crown forces in the Dublin District.

Bioclimatic and Landscape Factors drive the Potential Distribution of Philaenus spumarius, Neophilaenus campestris and N. lineatus (Hemiptera, Aphrophoridae) in Southeastern Iberian Peninsula.

Philaenus spumarius and Neophilaenus campestris are the main vectors of the invasive bacteria Xylella fastidiosa and key threats to European plant health. Previous studies of the potential distribution of P. spumarius reveal that climatic factors are the main drivers of its distribution on the Mediterranean Basin scale. Other local studies reveal that the landscape could also have a role in the distribution of both species of P. spumarius and N. campestris. Our work is aimed at understanding the role and importance of bioclimatic and landscape environmental factors in the distributions of the vector and potential vector species P. spumarius, N. campestris, N. lineatus and L. coleoptrata on a regional scale across the Autonomous Community of Murcia (SE Spain), a region with relevant environmental gradients of thermality and crop intensity. We used sweeping nets for sampling 100 points during eight months in 2020. Using bioclimatic landscape composition and topographical variables, we carried out habitat suitability models for each species using the maximum entropy algorithm (MaxEnt). Distribution results for P. spumarius, N. campestris and N. lineatus indicate a gradient in habitat suitability, with the optimum in the coldest and wettest areas in landscapes with a high proportion of forest. All three species are absent from the southern third of the study region, the hottest, driest and most intensively cultivated area. These results are useful and should be considered in contingency plans against possible invasions of X. fastidiosa in Mediterranean regions.

Reconstructing the geological provenance and long-distance movement of rectangular, fishtail, and croisette copper ingots in Iron Age Zambia and Zimbabwe.

The southern third of Africa is unusually rich in copper ore deposits. These were exploited by precolonial populations to manufacture wound-wire bangles, other forms of jewelry, and large copper ingots that were used as stores of copper or as forms of prestige. Rectangular, fishtail, and croisette ingots dating between the 5th and 20th centuries CE have been found in many locations in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Zambia, and Zimbabwe, with isolated finds in Malawi and Mozambique. Molds for casting these ingots have been found mostly in the Central African Copperbelt, but also around the Magondi Belt copper deposits in northern Zimbabwe. For years, scholars have debated whether these ingots were exclusively made in the Copperbelt or if the molds found in Zimbabwe indicate that local copies were produced from Magondi Belt copper ore (Garlake 1970; Bisson 1976). Before the recent application of lead isotopic and chemical methods to provenance copper in central and southern Africa, there was no way to discern between these hypotheses. Rademakers et al. (2019) and Stephens et al. (2020) showed that copper artifacts from southern DRC (mostly from Upemba) and from northwestern Botswana (Tsodilo Hills) match the lead isotope ratios of ores from the Copperbelt. Building upon these previous studies, we present here the first results from a copper provenance project across the southern third of Africa, from the Copperbelt to northern South Africa. We apply lead isotopic analysis (LIA) and chemical analyses to establish the provenance of 29 croisette ingots recovered in Zimbabwe, 2 fishtail and 1 rectangular ingot recovered from sites in Zambia, and an "X" shaped ingot smelted in an experiment in Zambia in the 1970's. Our chemistry and lead isotopic results indicate that 16 of these objects were smelted with copper from the Copperbelt, 16 objects source more specifically to the Kipushi deposit within this geological district, and only one HXR ingot sources to the Magondi Belt in Zimbabwe. Taken together, we clearly illustrate that croisette ingots were traveling significant distances to reach their eventual sites of deposition, and that there was also local production of these objects in Zimbabwe.

New Mexico's Spanish Catholic Past

New Mexico's Spanish Catholic Past Ramón A. Gutiérrez La Conquistadora: The Autobiography of an Ancient Statue, by Fray Angelico Chavez (Paterson, NJ: St. Anthony Guild Press, 1954), 96 pp. In the years following the initial voyage of Christopher Columbus seeking a western route to the riches of the East Indies in 1492, Spain rapidly established a far-flung empire. By the 1560s Spain's sovereignty extended from Madrid to Manila. Its expeditionary forces had captured the wealth of the Aztec and Inca Empires and explored much of what became known as the Spanish Borderlands of North America, that southern third of what became the United States extending from Florida to California. The Kingdom of New Mexico, established in 1598, is the oldest and most enduring of Spain's settlements in the United States, antedating the founding by the English of Jamestown in 1607 and Plymouth colony in 1620. The person who chronicled New Mexico's Catholic history most intensively during the twentieth century was Fray Angélico Chávez. In his lifetime he published twenty-three books and more than six hundred articles describing different facets of Catholic experiences here under Spanish, Mexican, and U.S. rule. The focus of this essay is on Chavez's 1954 book, La Conquistadora: The Autobiography of an Ancient Statue, in which he narrates the history of New Mexico's Christianization through the eyes of a wooden statue of Our Lady of the Rosary, brought by the Franciscan friars in 1625. Fray Angelico performs as a ventriloquist, giving the statue her feminine voice, which in turn she uses to narrate her triumphs and travails as New Mexico's virgin, queen, and mother over a span of more than three centuries. Chavez occasionally wrote with the female pseudonym as "Ann Jellico" assuming the persona of a woman, making his work by today's standards rather queer and campy. Males assuming female personas in [End Page 61] European and American literature is hardly unusual; what is, is that a piece of wood does. Chavez was born in 1910 to Fabian and Nicolasa Roybal in Wagon Mound, New Mexico and baptized as Manuel Ezequiel. When ordained a Franciscan friar in 1937 he chose Angélico as his clerical name to honor Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Ángeles, the Catholic patroness of Los Angeles, California. Fray Angélico was born into an ancestral line he traced to members of one of the first Spanish colonizing parties to enter New Mexico in 1598. A year after Angélico's birth his family moved to San Diego, California where his father worked as a carpenter building the pavilions for the Panama-California Exhibition inaugurated in 1915 to celebrate the opening of the Panama Canal. New Mexico's exhibition there, modeled after Acoma Pueblo's Franciscan church, became the pavilion that attracted the fair's largest crowds and subsequently inspired Santa Fe's city fathers to refashion the town's architectural style from Victorian to Spanish colonial in the 1930s. Some scholars opine that young Manuel's exposure to Spanish neocolonial architecture in San Diego and later Santa Fe may have inspired his fascination with the region's Spanish past. As a child Angelico was educated by the Sisters of Loretto who undoubtedly encouraged his pursuit of a clerical career. At the age of fourteen he enrolled at St. Francis Seraphic Seminary High School in Cincinnati, Ohio, moving to the nearby novitiate of the Saint John the Baptist Province of the Order of Friars Minor in 1929, obtaining a bachelor's degree in theology at Duns Scotus College in 1933. On returning to Santa Fe he was ordained a Franciscan priest at St. Francis Cathedral on May 6, 1937. He was the first native-born New Mexican ordained by the Order of Friars Minor begun by St. Francis of Assisi in 1210, having been educated entirely in Catholic schools by priests and nuns. Angelico Chavez became a prolific writer at a young age, first of poetry while he was still in high school, eventually adding essays and tomes on colonial art, history, and imaginative fiction to his literary repertoire anchored in themes derived from New Mexico...

Subsurface Water Flux in California's Central Valley and Its Source Watershed From Space Geodesy

AbstractWe integrate Global Positioning System displacements, Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment gravity data, reservoir water volumes, and snowpack to estimate change in subsurface water in California. We find 29% of precipitation infiltrates mountain soil and fractured bedrock each autumn and winter and is lost in the spring and summer by evapotranspiration and lateral subsurface flow either within mountain watersheds or into California's Central Valley. The Central Valley lost groundwater at 2.2 ± 0.7 km3/yr from 2006 to 2021, with 68% of the loss occurring in the southern third of the Valley. Water in Central Valley fluctuates each year by a mean of 10.7 ± 1.1 km3 with maximum water in April (not August). A third of Central Valley groundwater lost during recent severe drought is recharged during subsequent years of heavy precipitation. Of the 50 km3 of water entering Central Valley each year, 28 km3 comes from rivers, 17 km3 from precipitation, and 5 km3 from mountain groundwater.

Yilan crater, China: Evidence for an origin by meteorite impact

AbstractThe Yilan crater is 1.85 km in diameter and is located in the northeast of China's Heilongjiang Province. The crater is exposed in the Early Jurassic granite of the regional Paleozoic–Mesozoic granite complexes. The southern third of the crater rim is missing, but other rim sections are well preserved, with a maximum elevation above the present crater floor of 150 m. A drillcore from the center of the structure shows that the crater fill consists of 110 m thick lacustrine sediments underlain by a 319 m thick brecciated granite unit mainly composed of unconsolidated granite clasts and fragments. Melt products derived from the target granite, which include melted (and recrystallized) granite clasts, vesicular glass, and teardrop‐shaped glass, were found in the brecciated granite unit at 218–237 m depth. Petrographic investigations of unmelted granite clasts in the brecciated granite unit from this depth interval show the presence of multiple sets of planar deformation features (PDFs) in quartz. Orientation measurements for 79 PDF sets in 38 quartz grains with a U‐stage indicate the dominance of the ω{103} and π{102} orientations with a relative frequency of 39% and 18%, respectively. Only 7.6% of the observed PDFs remain unindexed. The observations of PDFs with the appropriate orientations are clear evidence of shock metamorphism and thus of an impact origin of the Yilan structure. Crystallite aggregates of coesite embedded in silica glass were found in the impact‐melted granite clasts. The carbon‐14 dates of possibly impact‐produced charcoal and lacustrine sediments from the crater fill suggest a young age for the impact event of 0.0493 ± 0.0032 Ma.

Applications of Integrating Wildlife Habitat Suitability and Habitat Potential Models

ABSTRACTAssessment of habitat suitability provides natural resource managers with insights on the quality and spatial distribution of habitat for wildlife species. However, habitat suitability models only provide information on current habitat parameters, and do not consider changes in habitat due to forest succession and disturbances. Habitat potential models have been developed by identifying habitat types and their successional trajectories to provide insights on how landscapes change with time. We developed habitat suitability index (HSI) models and habitat potential models for elk (Cervus elaphus nelsoni) on public and private lands within the Michigan elk range (1,220 km2) in northeastern lower Michigan, USA. Our objective was to demonstrate how integration of habitat suitability and habitat potential models can provide spatiotemporal insights on wildlife habitat. When constructing public‐lands models, we used state forest compartment‐inventory data to identify cover types important to elk, and assigned suitability values (0 = low, 1 = high) to each cover type for elk life requisites (i.e., spring food, winter food, winter thermal cover). Additionally, we modified suitability values based on stand conditions acquired from state forest inventory records (e.g., stand size, percent canopy closure, age of aspen [Populus spp.]). For our private‐lands models, we used satellite imagery to classify cover types and assigned suitability values to cover types for each elk life requisite, and modified values based on percent canopy closure for winter thermal cover. Elk habitat potential was modeled by delineating habitat types by overlaying digital spatial data layers (soils, land‐type associations, vegetation) and identifying successional trajectories using habitat classification guides and literature. We assigned suitability values to each habitat type for life requisites at early to late successional stages. The highest suitability value of each habitat type's successional stage determined the habitat potential for each habitat type. Our winter thermal cover HSI model indicated several large areas (5–13 km2) of high suitability (i.e., lowland conifers) in the southern third of our study area. Our winter food HSI model indicated a heterogeneous arrangement of high suitability areas (hardwoods, upland conifers, aspen) throughout our study area. Our spring food HSI model indicated few areas of high suitability (openings) primarily on private lands. Our habitat potential models indicated high potential for each elk life requisite across the elk range. Comparisons between current elk habitat suitability and habitat potential identify key areas where managers can maximize management efforts for elk in Michigan. Areas determined to have high habitat potential (e.g., mature aspen stands) may become focus areas if they currently have low habitat suitability. Conversely, managers can avoid committing resources to areas with low habitat potential. Integrating habitat suitability and potential models provides insights on how wildlife habitats may respond to forest succession, land management practices, and disturbances, and ultimately help natural resource professionals prioritize and meet a diversity of wildlife management goals. © 2021 The Wildlife Society.

Seismo‐Turbidites in Aysén Fjord (Southern Chile) Reveal a Complex Pattern of Rupture Modes Along the 1960 Megathrust Earthquake Segment

AbstractGrain size analysis and end‐member modeling of a long sediment core from Aysén Fjord (southern Chile) allows to identify over 25 seismo‐turbidites in the last 9,000 years. Considering the shaking intensities required to trigger these turbidites (V½‐VI½), the majority can be related to megathrust earthquakes. Multiple studies in south‐central Chile have aimed at finding traces of giant, tsunamigenic megathrust earthquakes leading to the current 5,500‐year‐long paleoseismological record of the Valdivia segment. However, none of these cover the southern third of the segment. Aysén Fjord allows to fill this data gap and presents the first, crucial paleoseismic data to demonstrate that the 1960 event was not unique for the Valdivia segment, yielding a recurrence rate of 321 ± 116 years in the last two millennia. Moreover, the oldest identified events in Aysén Fjord date back to 9,000 cal years BP and, thus, also extend the regional paleoseismological record in time. We infer a large temporal variability in rupture modes, with successions of full‐segment ruptures alternating with partial and cascading ruptures. The latter seems to significantly postpone the occurrence of another full rupture when consecutively occurring in different parts of the segment. Additionally, one outstanding period of seismic quiescence—during which no megathrust earthquake evidence has been found at any paleoseismic site—occurred after a full rupture in AD ~745 that presents an unusual uplift/subsidence pattern. Such variability makes it highly speculative to anticipate the rupture mode of the next megathrust earthquake along the Valdivia segment.

Tectonic geomorphology and late Quaternary deformation on the Ragged Mountain fault, Yakutat microplate, south coastal Alaska

The 33 km-long Ragged Mountain fault (RMF) forms the northwestern corner of the Yakutat Terrane, which is colliding with the North American plate in south coastal Alaska at ∼5.5cm/yr. The fault zone contains three types of scarps in a zone up to 175m wide: (1) antislope scarps on the lower range front, (2) a sinuous thrust scarp at the toe of the range front, and (3) a swarm of flexural-slip scarps on the footwall. Trenches across the first two scarp types reveal evidence for two Holocene surface ruptures, plus several late Pleistocene ruptures. In the antislope scarp trench, ruptures occurred at 0.5–3.9 ka; slightly younger than 8.3 ka; and at 18.1–21.8 ka (recurrence intervals 4.4–8 kyr and 9.8–13.3 kyr). Displacements per event ranged from 15 to 40cm. In the thrust trench ruptures are dated at 2.8–5.9 ka; 5.9–17.2 ka, and 17.2–44.9 ka (mean recurrence intervals 7.2 kyr and 19.5 kyr). Displacements per event ranged from 26 to 77cm. We interpret the thrust fault as the primary seismogenic structure, and its largest trench displacement (77cm) equates to the average displacement expected for a 33 km-long reverse rupture. The flexural-slip scarp, in contrast, was rapidly formed ca. 4 ka but its sag pond sediments have continued to slowly fold up to present. The southern third of the fault is dominated by large gravitational failures of the range front (as large as 2.5km wide, 0.6-0.7km long, and 200–250m thick), which head in a linear, 40 m-deep range-crest trough filled with lakes, a classic expression of deep-seated gravitational slope deformation.

European Empires in the American South: Colonial and Environmental Encounters, ed. Joseph P. Ward

In recent years, an ever-growing number of historians have turned their attention to what became the southern third of the modern United States. Some of the most influential studies have focused on the south-west and south-central regions, the territory from the Pacific coast through Texas, a vast terrain that was the home of powerful indigenous polities, including Comanches and Caddos. This book, edited by Joseph P. Ward, turns our attention to the east, the arc of territory that stretches from Chesapeake Bay through the Louisiana country and then back to Florida. Gone is the history of the south as a story of white planters and their enslaved workers toiling to produce tobacco or cotton, two commodities that seem invisible here (and are not even in the index). In its place, the contributors put indigenous peoples and communities or local nature at the centre of their interpretations. They are of course...

Knowledge as civilizational role play: China watching by its Southern neighbours

Colonial and postcolonial relations have always constituted sites of knowledge production in the Global South. This is particularly noticeable when it comes to the production of knowledge of a Global South self vis-à-vis the West. However, the literature has not seriously attended self-knowledge production in the Global South with regard to non-Western others. The paper compares South and Southeast Asian think tanks to reflect upon a common identity strategy of small nations to become a civilizational bridge between competing major neighbours. Specifically, China experts in these areas host more or less a common wish or even a desire to be a bridge over the difference of China and its potential rival in India, the West, or both. The bridge role is a rare sensibility in the postcolonial critique of the West. Watching China from its Southern Third World neighbourhood incurs such an agenda. Relying on interviews of retired diplomats and think tank experts, the paper also discusses how the abovementioned methodological characteristics affect the enactment of the bridge role.

American Indian History on Trial: Historical Expertise in Tribal Litigation

This unusual book does not fit easily into a category. E. Richard Hart trained as a historian but spent the past forty-five years working as an expert in cases of American Indian tribal litigation. This role required in-depth research, critical court testimony, and a unique relationship with tribal members. In American Indian History on Trial, Hart focuses on four case studies from his extensive career; he covers the history of each tribe in detail then discusses the legal issue that prompted his engagement. The native nations have no obvious association other than in Hart's work. In the 1990s the Coeur d'Alene people of Idaho contested the ownership of lands flooded by Coeur d'Alene Lake. Hart's research documented the tribe's long-term reliance on water from the lake for fishing, hunting, and travel, and for religious and cultural practices. In 1999 a judge agreed that the tribe owned the southern third of the lake bed, a decision later upheld by the Supreme Court, thus validating Hart's work on behalf of the tribe. Other chapters in this section seem unconnected to the main points, as they veer off into a discussion of the use of executive orders to create reservations.

Building Arc Crust: Plutonic to Volcanic Connections in an Extensional Oceanic Arc, the Southern Alisitos Arc, Baja California

AbstractThe ∼50 km long Rosario segment of the Cretaceous Alisitos oceanic arc terrane provides undeformed three-dimensional exposures of the upper 7 km of an oceanic extensional arc, where crustal generation processes are recorded in both the volcanic and underlying plutonic rocks. These exceptional exposures allow for the study of the physical and chemical links between the rock units and help constrain the differentiation processes active during the growth and evolution of arc crust. This study focuses on the southern third of the Rosario segment, previously referred to as the southern volcano-bounded basin, and its plutonic underpinnings. Upper crustal rocks in the Rosario segment consist of a 3–5 km thick volcanic–volcaniclastic section with hypabyssal intrusions. Plutons intrude these units at various levels along-strike, but at each intrusive contact the transition is complete over a distance of <150 m, where stoped volcanic blocks are present. There is striking compositional overlap in whole-rock and mineral chemistry between the plutonic and volcanic units, suggesting a comagmatic source. Whole-rock geochemistry shows coherent trends in major and trace elements in mafic to intermediate compositions, but less coherent trends above 63 wt % SiO2. Units are predominantly low-K with flat rare earth element patterns, and show large ion lithophile element enrichment and high field strength element depletion. Initial Nd and Pb isotope ratios overlap for all units and imply no cratonic continental involvement. This agrees with low Sr/Y ratios of all rock types, indicative of thin, immature oceanic arc crust. Modeling results show that closed-system fractional crystallization drove crustal differentiation from mafic to intermediate compositions, but open-system processes likely occurred to produce some of the felsic compositions. Differentiation occurred in a two-step fractionation process. Step 1, from basaltic andesite to andesite, fractionated an anhydrous gabbroic cumulate (∼40% crystallization). Step 2, from andesite to rhyolite, fractionated a hydrous amphibole cumulate (∼65% crystallization, total), which is similar to what fluid dynamical models suggest for production of rhyolite (between 50–70% crystallization). Our results can be used as a reference model for differentiation processes relating to the growth of the middle and upper crust within active extensional arc systems. The Rosario segment plutonic rocks may be analogous to the low-velocity zone (Vp = 6·0–6·5 km s–1) imaged within the extensional Izu–Bonin arc. The chemistry of the plutonic and volcanic rocks is most similar to those of volcanic rocks in the Izu–Bonin active rift.

Precipitation differences cause contrast patterns of glacier-melt water supplied discharge of two glacier basins between northern and southern Third Pole

Precipitation differences cause contrast patterns of glacier-melt water supplied discharge of two glacier basins between northern and southern Third Pole

Insights into the evolution of the Thomson Orogen from geochronology, geochemistry, and zircon isotopic studies of magmatic rocks

Zircon U–Pb ages, εHf(t), and δ18O isotopic data together with geochemistry and limited Sm–Nd results from magmatic rocks sampled in deep-basement drill cores from undercover parts of the Thomson Orogen provide strong temporal links with outcropping regions of the orogen and important clues to its evolution and relationship with the Lachlan Orogen. SHRIMP U–Pb zircon ages show that magmatism of Early Ordovician age is widespread across the central, undercover regions of the Thomson Orogen and occurred in a narrow time-window between 480 and 470 Ma. These rocks have evolved εHf(t)zrn (−12.18 to −6.26) and εNd (−11.3 to −7.1), and supracrustal δ18Ozrn (7.01–8.50‰), which is in stark contrast to Early Ordovician magmatic rocks in the Lachlan Orogen that are isotopically juvenile. Two samples have late Silurian ages (425–420 Ma), and four have Devonian ages (408–382 Ma). The late Silurian rocks have evolved εHf(t)zrn (−6.42 to −4.62) and supracrustal δ18Ozrn (9.26–10.29‰) values, while the younger Devonian rocks show a shift toward more juvenile εHf(t)zrn, a trend that is also seen in rocks of this age in the Lachlan Orogen. Interestingly, two early Late Devonian samples have juvenile εHf(t)zrn (0.01–1.92) but supracrustal δ18Ozrn (7.45–8.77‰) indicating rapid recycling of juvenile material. Two distinct Hf–O isotopic mixing trends are observed for magmatic rocks of the Thomson Orogen. One trend appears to have incorporated a more evolved supracrustal component and is defined by samples from the northern two-thirds of the Thomson Orogen, while the other trend is generally less evolved and from samples in the southern third of the Thomson Orogen and matches the isotopic character of rocks from the Lachlan Orogen. The spatial association of the Early Ordovician magmatism with the more evolved metasedimentary signature suggests that at least the northern part of the Thomson Orogen is underlain by older pre-Delamerian metasedimentary rocks.

Onset and Evolution of Southern Annular Mode-Like Changes at Centennial Timescale

The Southern Westerly Winds (SWW) are the surface expression of geostrophic winds that encircle the southern mid-latitudes. In conjunction with the Southern Ocean, they establish a coupled system that not only controls climate in the southern third of the world, but is also closely connected to the position of the Intertropical Convergence Zone and CO2 degassing from the deep ocean. Paradoxically, little is known about their behavior since the last ice age and relationships with mid-latitude glacier history and tropical climate variability. Here we present a lake sediment record from Chilean Patagonia (51°S) that reveals fluctuations of the low-level SWW at mid-latitudes, including strong westerlies during the Antarctic Cold Reversal, anomalously low intensity during the early Holocene, which was unfavorable for glacier growth, and strong SWW since ~7.5 ka. We detect nine positive Southern Annular Mode-like events at centennial timescale since ~5.8 ka that alternate with cold/wet intervals favorable for glacier expansions (Neoglaciations) in southern Patagonia. The correspondence of key features of mid-latitude atmospheric circulation with shifts in tropical climate since ~10 ka suggests that coherent climatic shifts in these regions have driven climate change in vast sectors of the Southern Hemisphere at centennial and millennial timescales.

Topographische vs. virtuelle Räume des Okzitanischen: « Faut-il abolir les frontières ? »

The present study aims to investigate the area of conflict between the decline and the expansion of communication options in regional and minority languages, which has increasingly been brought into the focus of attention by the new digital media. This topic will be discussed based on the example of Occitan in the southern third of contemporary France where the langue d’oc continuously forfeits its territory.Besides the real topographic decline, the internet offers the Occitan a new virtual sphere of communication. By contrasting the concrete decline of space with the virtual expansion of space, the following article aims to illustrate the importance of the border, more precisely the border demarcation, with regard to the possibilities of communication of the Occitan language.

Nodular onchocercosis in red deer (Cervus elaphus) in Sweden.

The presence of subcutaneous nodular onchocercosis was investigated at slaughter of 151 red deer (Cervus elaphus) (107 juveniles and 44 adults) between October–December 2015. The prevalence of subcutaneous nodules was 56%. Nodules were located in the lumbar region of the back in 96% of the cases, and 38% of the infected red deer had additional parasitic nodules in other body locations, such as rump, thorax, forelimbs and neck. The number of nodules per deer was 1–10 in two-thirds of the affected animals, and only 2% had more than 50 nodules. Significant differences in prevalence of nodule presence were found between adult (81%) and juvenile red deer less than two years of age (45%) (p = 0.0001). Species confirmation and identification was done on 14 randomly selected nodules taken from the lumbar region of 14 deer of different geographical origin, by sequencing the mitochondrial 12S, 16S and nad5 gene fragments. The sequences were more or less identical (12S = 99–100%; 16S = 93–100%; nad5 = 92–100%) to previously published sequences for Onchocerca flexuosa. The high prevalence of nodular onchocercosis caused by O. flexuosa in red deer in Sweden shows that the investigated areas in the southern third of Sweden have favorable vector (simuliids and ceratopogonids) conditions and suitable environment for the maintenance of the parasite. To our knowledge, this is the first systematic study of O. flexuosa in red deer in Sweden.