Climate Driven Egg and Hatchling Mortality Threatens Survival of Eastern Pacific Leatherback Turtles

Egg-burying reptiles need relatively stable temperature and humidity in the substrate surrounding their eggs for successful development and hatchling emergence. Here we show that egg and hatchling mortality of leatherback turtles (Dermochelys coriacea) in northwest Costa Rica were affected by climatic variability (precipitation and air temperature) driven by the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO). Drier and warmer conditions associated with El Niño increased egg and hatchling mortality. The fourth assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) projects a warming and drying in Central America and other regions of the World, under the SRES A2 development scenario. Using projections from an ensemble of global climate models contributed to the IPCC report, we project that egg and hatchling survival will rapidly decline in the region over the next 100 years by ∼50–60%, due to warming and drying in northwestern Costa Rica, threatening the survival of leatherback turtles. Warming and drying trends may also threaten the survival of sea turtles in other areas affected by similar climate changes

Conformal anomalies and the Einstein field equations

We compute corrections to the Einstein field equations which are induced by the anomalous effective actions associated to the type A conformal anomaly, both for the (non-local) Riegert action, as well as for the local action with dilaton. In all cases considered we find that these corrections can be very large.Comment: 14 pages + appendice

" Marine Areas of Responsible Fishing " : A Path Toward Small-Scale Fisheries Co-Management in Costa Rica? Perspectives from Golfo Dulce

International audienceThis chapter analyzes participatory management processes of small-scale fisheries in two Pacific embayments of Costa Rica, a centralized state of Central America where fisheries management is traditionally " top-down " , data deficient, and poorly adapted to local biological and socioeconomic conditions. We provide an historical overview of coastal activities governance and fisheries national context, and describe different participative approaches to small-scale fishery management. The Marine Area of Responsible Fishing (Área Marina de Pesca Responsable, or AMPR), created in 2008, is a management tool developed by the Costa Rican government to effectively involve fishers organizations in small-scale fisheries management. In this paper, we compare participative management initiatives associated with AMPRs in the Golfo Dulce and Golfo de Nicoya (Palito and Tár-coles), and Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) in Cahuita and Marino Ballena National Parks. Based on our analysis, we recommend ten measures to improve the small-scale fisheries co-management process. Among these, five recommendations stand out: (1) increase the participation of artisanal fishers in the development of collective choice rules; (2) allocate costs and benefits of management measures among artisanal fishers; (3) improve local leadership ; (4) improve understanding and transparency of the management process; and (5) formalize and implement strategic fisheries management plans