Vertical Flux of Biogenic Carbon in the Ocean: Is There Food Web Control?

Models of biogenic carbon (BC) flux assume that short herbivorous food chains lead to high export, whereas complex microbial or omnivorous food webs lead to recycling and low export, and that export of BC from the euphotic zone equals new production (NP). In the Gulf of St. Lawrence, particulate organic carbon fluxes were similar during the spring phytoplankton bloom, when herbivory dominated, and during nonbloom conditions, when microbial and omnivorous food webs dominated. In contrast, NP was 1.2 to 161 times greater during the bloom than after it. Thus, neither food web structure nor NP can predict the magnitude or patterns of BC export, particularly on time scales over which the ocean is in nonequilibrium conditions.     

Estimation of a reliable evapotranspiration model and crop coefficient in red gram ( Cajanus cajan L .) for semi-arid environments in India

The study aims to compute the reference evapotranspiration (ETo) by six standard methods such as Penman Monteith, Modified Penman, Hargreaves, Radiation Balance, Blaney Criddle and Pan Evaporation by using the meteorological data of the All India Coordinated Research Project on Water Management at Rahuri, India (long. 74° 18′, lat. 19° 45′). These methods were compared with lysimeter crop evapotranspiration (ETc) by statistical tools. The results revealed that the total lysimeter ETc of red gram in 132 days' growing period (sowing to harvest) was 494?mm and the ETo in the above-mentioned models were 485.2, 486.9, 544.6, 547.6, 563.9 and 485.2?mm, respectively. Out of six models, ETo of Modified Penman and Pan Evaporation methods were very much close to lysimeter ETc, but the coefficient of variation was very high, i.e., 43.05% and 23.91%, respectively. But in the Hargreaves and Blaney Criddle methods, the coefficient of variation was low, i.e., 15.97% and 12.6%, respectively. Besides low coefficient of variation, these two methods require limited meteorological parameters such as minimum and maximum temperature, radiation. For generating these parameters even at regional level, minimum expenditure is involved. The crop coefficient (Kc) estimated by Hargreaves (Kc 0.90) and the Blaney Criddle (0.87) model for the entire growing season was very much close to the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) 56 model, and this can be used for estimating the irrigation requirement of red gram.     

An epidemiological study of sheep deaths before and during export by sea from Western Australia

A study was conducted to record the deaths that occurred during export, and to examine the temporal pattern of pellet feeding in the feedlot and ascertain the variation in mortality between groups of sheep from different farms. Between November 1985 and April 1987, 5 cohorts of sheep were selected on arrival at a feedlot before live export by sea from Western Australia to the Middle East. Each cohort consisted of 4,118 to 9,612 Merino wethers from 15 to 35 farms (lines). There were few deaths during trucking to the feedlot (rate 0.9, range 0.0 to 3.0 per 10,000 sheep) and during lot-feeding (rate 6.2, range 1.2 to 12.2 per 10,000 sheep). Most of the deaths occurred aboard ship (rate 210.7, range 152.7 to 271.5 per 10,000 sheep). The proportion of sheep that ate pelleted feed increased with increasing length of time in the feedlot. By the end of lot-feeding the percentage of sheep that had not eaten pellets was 23.3, 4.4, 1.2, 2.1 and 0.2 in a representative sample of each of the 5 cohorts. It was considered that offering hay throughout lot-feeding was undesirable for the purpose of maximising the number of sheep that ate pellets before loading on the ship. Half of the deaths aboard ship occurred in 25% of 133 lines of sheep in the 5 cohorts. In each cohort the median per cent death rate (and range) per line was 1.3 (0.3 to 11.9), 1.1 (0.0 to 5.7), 1.8 (0.0 to 6.8), 2.3 (0.0 to 14.3) and 0.9 (0.1 to 5.4).(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)     

Epidemiology of salmonellosis in the live sheep export industry

SUMMARY Salmonellosis in sheep was studied on 7 commercial voyages from Australia to the Middle East and in one animal house study. Faecal excretion of salmonellas was not a good indicator of pathological changes in the gastrointestinal tract. The ratio of the proportion of sheep excreting salmonellas to the proportion with histological lesions of salmonellosis ranged from 1:1 to 23:1. Increasing excretion rates in our studies indicated that most sheep would be exposed to infection, although deaths from salmonellosis were not spatially or temporally clustered as would be expected if challenge alone was a sufficient cause. We considered that inappetence predisposed to death from salmonellosis, and that sheep with inappetence were likely to be randomly distributed aboard ship. In the animal house study, histological lesions of salmonellosis were exclusively in inappetent sheep although almost all sheep excreted salmonellas in faeces. Lesions of salmonellosis were found only in sheep that were seriously ill or had died, which suggested that, under the conditions of lot-feeding and sea transport, most sheep with enteric lesions are likely to die. Lesions were not found in feeding controls. Adrenal gland weights, an indicator of stress duration and severity, were used to examine the temporal sequence of events in the development of salmonellosis. Weights were greater in sheep that died of inanition than in controls, suggesting that inappetent sheep were already stressed for that reason. The presence of enteric lesions of salmonellosis was associated with further increases in adrenal gland weights. In a small proportion of cases, septicaemic salmonellosis developed rapidly and without adrenal gland hypertrophy suggesting that the sheep succumbed before the adrenal glands had time to enlarge. We concluded that sheep were predisposed to salmonellosis by inappetence and that stress was involved in lesion development. We considered that the development of enteric lesions of salmonellosis, in the live export system, inevitably led to death.