Economic value of conserving deep-sea corals in Irish waters: A choice experiment study on marine protected areas

Deep-water corals are slow growing, fragile and vulnerable to the impacts of deep-water fisheries and the development activities of the offshore industries. In Ireland there is now evidence of major damage to deep-water corals linked to a recent expansion of the Irish deep-water fishery. This fishery uses trawls fitted with robust rock hopping gear and employs a high risk fishing technique, which is potentially very destructive to coral habitats. Consequently resource managers have been exploring the potential of marine protected areas (MPA) as a tool for the conservation of these coral ecosystems in the North East Atlantic. MPAs aim to minimise the socio-economic costs associated with closures or other management restrictions while still achieving the desired conservation objectives. However, the decision to use MPAs (and thereby restrict fishing) is often taken in the light of uncertainty over the value of the reserved habitats to the fishing industry. This paper reports on a choice experiment study carried out in Ireland in early 2007 aimed at partly addressing this uncertainty. The study primarily focused on determining the economic value held by the Irish public for the conservation of deep-sea corals using several variants of the concept of MPAs. They have endorsed MPA strategies that banned trawling in an MPA that included all areas where corals are thought to exist with no personal tax imposed, banned trawling in an MPA covering all known corals with a personal tax imposed of €1 p.a. and banned all fishing in an MPA covering all areas where corals are thought to exist with a personal tax imposed of €1 p.a. In terms of the probabilities attached to the individual attributes, the most preferred policy options were to ban trawling, protect all areas where corals are thought to exist, and pay a ring-fenced personal tax of €1 p.a.     

Culture of juvenile European lobster (<Emphasis Type="Italic">Homarus gammarus</Emphasis> L.) in submerged cages

A bottleneck for re-establishment or enhancement of lobster (Homarus gammarus L.) populations through release of hatchery-produced juveniles is ineffective and expensive juvenile production. In this study, we cultured lobster juveniles from stage V to a size being suitable for re-establishment or enhancement purposes (40–50 mm total length) in cages submerged under existing facilities for culture of bivalves. The lobsters were not feed or tended during the culture period (6–14 months). The survival and growth rates were similar or higher compared to what has been achieved with other methods used for culture of lobster juveniles in the past. The highest survival (82–89%) and fastest growth (4–5 cm total length over 190–250 days) were achieved using commercial oyster baskets. It is believed that the juveniles fed on naturally occurring plankton and organisms growing inside the cages. Thus, the current study shows that it is possible to culture lobster juveniles for reestablishment or enhancement purposes in a way that would involve less investments and operational costs than earlier used methods as there would be no need for artificial heating of water, for large buildings or for continuous feeding and tending of large numbers of juveniles.     

Extending rotation age for carbon sequestration: A cross-protocol comparison of North American forest offsets

Through carbon offset programs, forest owners can be offered financial incentives to enhance the uptake and storage of carbon on their lands. The amount of carbon that can be claimed by an individual landowner will ultimately depend on multiple factors, including the productivity of the forest, the management history of the stand, and the program in which the landowner is participating. This project presents a modeling framework for forest carbon accounting which is driven by forest yield curves and carbon pool partitioning. Within this model the amount of creditable carbon generated from adjusting the rotation age of multiple forest stands can be estimated for 46 distinct North American forest types. The model also provides a comparison of total creditable carbon generated under three carbon accounting methodologies: the Department of Energy 1605b Registry, the Chicago Climate Exchange, and the Voluntary Carbon Standard. In our evaluation of a 5-year rotation extension across 102 unique modeling scenarios, we find large differences among the carbon accounting schemes. This has implications for both forest landowners and policymakers alike. In particular, methodologies to account for such issues as leakage, permanence, additionality, and baseline establishment, while potentially increasing the overall legitimacy of any forest carbon offset program, can reduce creditable carbon to the forest owner (by up to 70%). Regardless of the protocol used, we also note strong regional differences, with Pacific Northwest forests of fir, spruce, hemlock, alder and maple being the most effective at sequestering carbon on a per area basis.     

Available and not total nitrogen in leaves explains key chemical differences between the eucalypt subgenera

Many ecologists regard nitrogen as a key element in the life-histories of herbivore populations. Consequently, those studying interactions between plants and animals often attempt to link feeding to the concentration of nitrogen (N) in plants. This approach disregards the possibility that in many plants, especially those rich in tannins, animals cannot digest much of the N. The ubiquity of tannins in plants led us to hypothesise that the concentrations of available nitrogen may be more informative for ecologists than are measures of total N. Eucalypts provide a good model for examining this hypothesis because subgeneric differences in foliar chemistry cause dietary niche separation in marsupials.     

Predicting crown damage to Eucalyptus grandis by Paropsis atomaria with direct and indirect measures of leaf composition

A genetic basis for variation in resistance to defoliating insects within Eucalyptus species has been identified in many studies. This variation has frequently been ascribed to variation in secondary metabolites but studies investigating variation in resistance to defoliation by paropsine chrysomelids have failed to correlate foliar chemistry with resistance. We found that the extent of crown damage due to defoliation by Paropsis atomaria (Chrysomelidae: Colepoptera) in two matched progeny trials of Eucalyptus grandis was a heritable trait that exhibited a strong correlation with provenance latitude. Despite this, neither foliar nitrogen or concentrations of a recently discovered group of compounds, formylated phloroglucinol compounds, could account for significant variation in defoliation. We also investigated whether defoliation in the field could be predicted from foliar near-infrared reflectance spectra. Such an approach takes into account all compositional variation simultaneously rather than relying on a restricted number of measured traits. Modified partial least squares regression models performed poorly in predicting variation in crown defoliation between trees within a site primarily due to the high level of variability and coarseness of the calibration data. Discriminant analyses however demonstrated a consistent difference between spectra from trees in families suffering low level defoliation from families more susceptible to defoliation by P. atomaria suggesting chemical differences between the two groups are important in determining resistance to this insect.     

Babesia vulpes in a dog from Prince Edward Island,Canada

A 12-year-old neutered male American Staffordshire terrier dog was referred to the Atlantic Veterinary College, Prince Edward Island, Canada, for suspected immune-mediated hemolytic anemia. Babesiosis (Babesia vulpes) was confirmed using polymerase chain reaction testing. The dog was successfully treated with a 10-day protocol of atovaquone/proguanil (TEVA Pharmaceutical Industries, Toronto, Ontario), 13.5 mg/kg BW, PO, q8h and azithromycin (Pharmascience, Montreal, Quebec), 10 mg/kg BW, PO, q24h. To the authors’ knowledge, this report is the first documented case of babesiosis caused by Babesia vulpes in a dog from Canada.     

Reclassification of North American leptospiral isolates belonging to serogroups Mini and Sejroe by restriction endonuclease analysis

The genomes of North American strains of leptospires belonging to serogroups Mini and Sejroe were analyzed and compared with those of reference strains by cleavage with restriction endonucleases. The isolates selected for this study, when typed by the serologic method, were identified as serovars szwajizak, hardjo, and balcanica. However, the results of restriction endonuclease analysis (REA) indicated that a different classification existed. The 2 isolates typed as serovar szwajizak seem to be georgia by REA. Isolates belonging to serovars balcanica and hardjo had REA patterns that differed from both reference strains. Differences were not observed in the REA patterns between balcanica and hardjo isolates. All hardjo and balcanica isolates examined are suggested to be classified into a previously described hardjo, REA subtype hardjobovis. Using the enzyme Hha1, these isolates were subdivided into 3 subgroups. When examining the REA pattern of the 17 reference strains in serogroup Sejroe, 3 identical pairs were observed: wolffi and roumanica; sejroe and polonica; and istrica and nyanza. The REA again indicated that it will be a valuable method for the classification of leptospires.     

Microbial pathogens in ticks, rodents and a shrew in northern Gyeonggi-do near the DMZ, Korea

A total of 1,618 ticks [420 individual (adults) and pooled (larvae and nymphs) samples], 369 rodents (Apodemus agrarius, Rattus norvegicus, Tscherskia triton, Mus musculus, and Myodes regulus), and 34 shrews (Crocidura lasiura) that were collected in northern Gyeonggi-do near the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) of Korea during 2004-2005, were assayed by PCR for selected zoonotic pathogens. From a total of 420 individual and pooled tick DNA samples, Anaplasma (A.) phagocytophilum (16), A. platys (16), Ehrlichia (E.) chaffeensis (63), Borrelia burgdorferi (16), and Rickettsia spp. (198) were detected using species-specific PCR assays. Out of 403 spleens from rodents and shrews, A. phagocytophilum (20), A. platys (34), E. chaffeensis (127), and Bartonella spp. (24) were detected with species-specific PCR assays. These results suggest that fevers of unknown causes in humans and animals in Korea should be evaluated for infections by these vector-borne microbial pathogens.