Genetic Traces of Recent Long-Distance Dispersal in a Predominantly Self-Recruiting Coral

Understanding of the magnitude and direction of the exchange of individuals among geographically separated subpopulations that comprise a metapopulation (connectivity) can lead to an improved ability to forecast how fast coral reef organisms are likely to recover from disturbance events that cause extensive mortality. Reef corals that brood their larvae internally and release mature larvae are believed to show little exchange of larvae over ecological times scales and are therefore expected to recover extremely slowly from large-scale perturbations.Using analysis of ten DNA microsatellite loci, we show that although Great Barrier Reef (GBR) populations of the brooding coral, Seriatopora hystrix, are mostly self-seeded and some populations are highly isolated, a considerable amount of sexual larvae (up to approximately 4%) has been exchanged among several reefs 10 s to 100 s km apart over the past few generations. Our results further indicate that S. hystrix is capable of producing asexual propagules with similar long-distance dispersal abilities (approximately 1.4% of the sampled colonies had a multilocus genotype that also occurred at another sampling location), which may aid in recovery from environmental disturbances.Patterns of connectivity in this and probably other GBR corals are complex and need to be resolved in greater detail through genetic characterisation of different cohorts and linkage of genetic data with fine-scale hydrodynamic models

Some Aspects of Farmer Cooperative Growth in the Midwest 1950-1962

Farmer Cooperatives have for over a century played a large role in the agricultural sector of the American economy; and yet they are a subject about which the average citizen knows very little. | There are usually three questions asked when one attempts to discuss Farmer Cooperatives with an individual who is not familiar with them. What are they? Why were they needed? When did they originate? I will attempt to answer these questions since the answers may help the reader to better understand and evaluate the analysis presented in the text of the study. The answers to these questions will, of necessity, be brief since my purpose in making this study was to analyze performance and not to justify the existence of the Farmer Cooperative, which for the purpose of brevity will hereafter be referred to simply as cooperative.ProQuest Traditional Publishing Optio

On the formation and spreading of the Bass Strait cascade

The Bass Strait cascade is a wintertime downwelling caused by cooling of the shallow waters of Bass Strait. During winter, a front separates the cold shelf water from the waters of the Tasman Sea. Continuous horizontal bands of downwelled water leading oceanward beneath the front imply that it can be transgressed near the bottom anywhere along its length. However, by far the greatest volume crosses at a breach at the northern end. Measured currents in eastern Bass Strait fit a predictable pattern: eastward toward the front, then as the front is approached, swinging north towards the breach. Flow northwards along the slope after downwelling is quantified using a simple analytic model. Cascade water found in the “far-field” was found only in small patches. One such patch was found to possess motion independent from the mean flow in which it was embedded

Circulation in the Great Barrier Reef Lagoon using numerical tracers and in situ data

Numerical hydrodynamic models of the northeastern Queensland shelf, forced by regional winds and modelled boundary currents in the northern Coral Sea, are used to provide improved estimates of general flow trajectories and water residence times within the Great Barrier Reef (GBR) shelf system. Model performance was checked against a limited set of current metre records obtained at Lark Reef (16°S) and the Ribbon Reefs (15.5°S). Estimates of water parcel trajectories are derived from a series of numerical tracer experiments, with daily releases of neutrally buoyant, un-reactive particles at 320 sites along the coast between Cape York (10.7°S) and Hervey Bay (25°S). Flow trajectories and residence times for tracer particles introduced to the GBR lagoon in the southern—ca. 22°S, central—19°S, and northern reef—14°S are emphasised. For purposes of the analysis, the year was divided into two seasons based on mean alongshore current direction. Most coastal sourced tracers entering the central GBR lagoon between 16° and 20°S during the northward-current season (January–August) primarily encounter the outer-shelf reef matrix after exiting the lagoon at its northern “head” (nominally 16°S), after 50–150 days. Up to 70% of tracer particles entering in the southward-current season (August–December) eventually crossed the lagoon to the outer-shelf reef matrix, with median crossing times between 20 and 330 days. During favourable wind conditions, tracers introduced at the coast may move rapidly across the lagoon into the reef matrix. The tracer experiments indicate that most coastal-sourced tracers entering the GBR lagoon remain near the coast for extended periods of time, moving north and south in a coastal band. Residence times for conservative tracer particles (and implied residence times for water-borne materials) within the GBR shelf system ranged from ca. 1 month to 1 year—time frames that are very long relative to development times of planktonic larvae and cycling times for nutrient materials in the water column, implying they are transformed long before reaching the outer reef matrix