scholarly journals Sixty-six million years along the road of mammalian ecomorphological specialization

2019 ◽  
Vol 116 (26) ◽  
pp. 12698-12703 ◽  
Author(s):  
Borja Figueirido ◽  
Paul Palmqvist ◽  
Juan A. Pérez-Claros ◽  
Christine M. Janis
Keyword(s):  
North American ◽  
Evolutionary History ◽  
Potential Influence ◽  
Vegetation Shifts ◽  
The Road ◽  
Terrestrial Mammals ◽  
The Past ◽  
The North ◽  
Long Term Trend

The fossil record of the large terrestrial mammals of the North American Cenozoic has previously been quantitatively summarized in six sequential episodes of faunal associations—“evolutionary faunas”—that correspond well with previously proposed qualitative “Chronofaunas.” Here, we investigate the ecological spectrum of these faunas by classifying their major taxonomic components into discrete ecomorphological categories of diet, locomotion, and body size. To specifically address the potential influence of long-term climatic shifts on the ecomorphological composition of these faunas, we analyze via contingency tables and detrended correspondence analyses the frequency distribution of ecomorph types within faunas. We show that each evolutionary fauna has a unique, nonrandom association of ecomorphs, and we identify a long-term trend toward greater ecomorphological specialization over successive faunas during the past 66 My. Major vegetation shifts induced by climatic changes appear to underlie the ecomorphological dynamics of these six temporal associations that summarize Cenozoic North American mammalian evolutionary history.

scholarly journals Response Characteristics of Chinese Pine (Pinus tabulaeformis Carr.) Radial Growth to Climate and Drought Variability Reconstruction in Western Liaoning, Northeast China

Forests ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (9) ◽  
pp. 752
Author(s):  
Liu ◽  
Bao ◽  
Bao
Keyword(s):  
Northeast China ◽  
Radial Growth ◽  
Pinus Tabulaeformis ◽  
Western Liaoning ◽  
Chinese Pine ◽  
The Past ◽  
The North ◽  
Pinus Tabulaeformis Carr ◽  
The North Pacific

Chinese pine (Pinus tabulaeformis Carr.) plays an important role in maintaining ecosystem health and stability in western Liaoning Province and the southern Horqin sand land, Northeast China, with benefits including sand fixation and soil erosion. In the context of climate change, developing a better understanding of the relationship between climate factors and growth rates of this species will be extremely valuable in guiding management activities and meeting regional conservation objectives. Here, the results based on two groups of tree-ring samples show that the radial growth of Chinese pine is controlled primarily by water conditions. The longer chronology had the highest correlation coefficient with the January–September mean self-calibrating Palmer Drought Severity Index (scPDSI); therefore, drought variability was reconstructed for the period 1859–2014. Statistical analysis showed that our model explained 41.9% of the variance in radial growth during the 1951–2014 calibration period. Extreme dry and wet events, defined as the criteria of one standard deviation less or greater than the mean value, accounted for 19.9% and 18.6% of the 156-year climate record, respectively. During the past century, the regional hydroclimate experienced significant long-term fluctuations. The dry periods occurred from the early-1900s–1930s and 1980s–2000s, and the wet periods occurred from the 1940s–1970s. The drought reconstruction was consistent with the decreasing trend of the East Asian summer monsoon since the late 1970s. The reconstructed temporal patterns in hydroclimate in western Liaoning were closely related to the large-scale climate drivers in the North Pacific and the tropical equatorial Pacific. The teleconnections were confirmed by spatial correlations between the reconstructed sequence and sea surface temperature (SST) in the North Pacific, as well as the correlations with the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) and El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) indices. Aerosols played an important role in affecting drought variations over the past several decades. Moisture stress caused by global warming and interdecadal changes in the PDO will have long-term effects on the growth of pines in the study area in the future.

scholarly journals A Magical Reorientation of the Modern: Professional Organizers and Thingly Care in Contemporary North America

2016 ◽  
Vol 31 (3) ◽  
pp. 438-457 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katie Kilroy-Marac
Keyword(s):  
North America ◽  
Mental Disorder ◽  
North American ◽  
Popular Media ◽  
Hoarding Disorder ◽  
The Past ◽  
The North ◽  
Dsm V ◽  
Double Movement ◽  
Domestic Variety

Within the past decade, material disorder—especially that of the domestic variety—has come to stand alternately as evidence, symptom, and potential cause of mental disorder in the North American popular and psychiatric imagination. Sources ranging from the newly defined Hoarding Disorder diagnosis in the DSM-V, to popular media, to agents of the burgeoning clutter-management industry describe disorder in terms of an irrational attachment, closeness, or overidentification with objects. At the same time, these sources imagine order to result from the cool distance and controlled passion a person is able to maintain toward his or her possessions. Drawing on more than twenty interviews and numerous fieldwork encounters with professional organizers (POs) in Toronto between 2014 and 2015, this article describes how POs aim to reorient their clients materially, morally, and affectively to relieve the disorder they report in their lives. Here, I argue, POs emerge as a species of late capitalist healer whose interventions are animated by a paradoxical double movement. For just as POs act to loosen the object attachments and disrupt the “secret sympathy” their clients share with their possessions, they operate within a realm of magical correspondence where matter and mind are imagined to reflect and affect one another, and where bringing order to a client’s possessions means also bringing order to his or her mind.

scholarly journals The trend of the oxidants in boreal forest over 2007–2018: comprehensive modelling study with long-term measurements at SMEAR II, Finland

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dean Chen ◽  
Putian Zhou ◽  
Tuomo Nieminen ◽  
Pontus Roldin ◽  
Ximeng Qi ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Air Pollutants ◽  
Size Range ◽  
Chemical Components ◽  
Detailed Model ◽  
One Dimensional ◽  
The Past ◽  
Main Driver ◽  
The One ◽  
Long Term Trend

Abstract. Major atmospheric oxidants (OH, O3 and NO3) dominate the atmospheric oxidation capacity, while H2SO4 is considered as a main driver for new particle formation events. Although numerous studies have investigated the long-term trend of ozone in Europe, the trend of OH, NO3 and H2SO4 at specific sites are to a large extent unknown. In this study, we investigated how the trends in major atmospheric oxidants (OH, O3 and NO3) and H2SO4 changed in southern Finland during the past 12 years and discuss how these trends relate to decreasing emissions of regulated air pollutants in Europe. The one-dimensional model SOSAA has been applied in several studies at the SMEAR II station, and has been validated by measurements in several projects. Here, we ran the SOSAA model for the years 2007–2018 to simulate the atmospheric chemical components, especially the atmospheric oxidants and H2SO4 at SMEAR II. The simulations were evaluated with observations at SMEAR II for several shorter and longer campaigns. Our results show that OH increased by +1.56 (−0.8; +3.17) % yr−1 during daytime and NO3 decreased by −3.92 (−6.49; −1.79) % yr−1 during nighttime, indicating different trends of the oxidants during day and night. Sulphuric acid decreased during daytime by −5.12 (−11.39; −0.52) % yr−1, which correlated with the observed decreasing concentration of newly formed particles in the size range 3–25 nm by 1.4 % yr−1 at SMEAR II during the years 1997–2012 (Nieminen et al., 2014). Additionally we compared our simulated OH, NO3 and H2SO4 concentrations with proxies, which are commonly applied in case limited amount of parameters are measured and no detailed model simulations are available.

scholarly journals Air quality trends in Europe over the past decade: a first multi-model assessment

2011 ◽  
Vol 11 (7) ◽  
pp. 19029-19087 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. Colette ◽  
C. Granier ◽  
Ø. Hodnebrog ◽  
H. Jakobs ◽  
A. Maurizi ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Air Quality ◽  
Management Strategies ◽  
Anthropogenic Emissions ◽  
Model Assessment ◽  
Transport Models ◽  
The Past ◽  
Current State ◽  
Primary Compounds ◽  
Long Term Trend

Abstract. We discuss the capability of current state-of-the-art chemistry and transport models to reproduce air quality trends and inter annual variability. Documenting these strengths and weaknesses on the basis of historical simulations is essential before the models are used to investigate future air quality projections. To achieve this, a coordinated modelling exercise was performed in the framework of the CityZEN European Project. It involved six regional and global chemistry-transport models (Bolchem, Chimere, Emep, Eurad, OsloCTM2 and Mozart) simulating air quality over the past decade in the Western European anthropogenic emissions hotspots. Comparisons between models and observations allow assessing the skills of the models to capture the trends in basic atmospheric constituents (NO2, O3, and PM10). We find that the trends of primary constituents are well reproduced (except in some countries – owing to their sensitivity to the emission inventory) although capturing the more moderate trends of secondary species such as O3 is more challenging. Apart from the long term trend, the modelled monthly variability is consistent with the observations but the year-to-year variability is generally underestimated. A comparison of simulations where anthropogenic emissions are kept constant is also investigated. We find that the magnitude of the emission-driven trend exceeds the natural variability for primary compounds. We can thus conclude that emission management strategies have had a significant impact over the past 10 yr, hence supporting further emission reductions strategies.

DIPHTHERIA IN THE UNITED STATES, 1959-1960

PEDIATRICS ◽  
1962 ◽  
Vol 30 (2) ◽  
pp. 194-205
Author(s):  
Theodore C. Doege ◽  
Clark W. Heath ◽  
Ida L. Sherman
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Communicable Disease ◽  
Case Fatality ◽  
The United States ◽  
Surveillance Data ◽  
Term Trend ◽  
The Past ◽  
Primary Series ◽  
Long Term Trend

Diphtheria attack rates and cases, and to a much lesser extent case-fatality rates, have fallen steadily within the United States during the past 25 years. However, during 1959 and 1960 there was a halt in this long-term trend. Epidemiologic data on 868 clinical cases of diphtheria occurring in 1959 and 873 cases in 1960 were submitted to the Communicable Disease Center by 45 states. The cases and several major outbreaks tended to concentrate in the southern and southwestern states. Attack rates and deaths were highest for children under 10 years, and attack rates were more than five times greater for nonwhite children. Analysis of 1960 immunization data shows that 72% of the patients had received no immunizations. Fifty-five per cent of carriers, but only 18% of persons with bacteriologically confirmed cases, had received a primary series. Only 1 person of 58 fatal cases occurring in 1960 had received a primary series. Certain problems for future investigation, disclosed by the surveillance data, are discussed.

The pre-Hispanic history of Mexican California. The road to Mesoamerica that was never completed

2021 ◽  
pp. 69
Author(s):  
Valentina Baglay
Keyword(s):  
Geographical Isolation ◽  
The Road ◽  
Terrestrial Mammals ◽  
The North ◽  
Spiritual Culture ◽  
History Of ◽  
Rock Paintings

The article is devoted to the study of the oldest cultures of the California Peninsula. The analysis is based on the study of archaeological monuments of material and spiritual culture, reflected in rock paintings, petroglyphs and geoglyphs. The first traces of settlers in the territory of Mexican California are about 14,000 years old (Clovis culture) and are associated with Aridoamerica. Cultures have been coming in from the north continuously, although their sequence has yet to be determined. A culture of nomadic and semi-nomadic groups (the conchero camp culture) was formed here, collecting shellfish, plants and fruits, coastal fishing, and hunting marine and terrestrial mammals. The geographical isolation of the peninsula did not allow the establishment of links between Californians and Mesoamerican cultural areas.

The Decline of the Africanists' Africa and the Rise of New Africas

1995 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 24-26
Author(s):  
William Martin ◽  
Michael West
Keyword(s):  
American Academy ◽  
North American ◽  
African Studies ◽  
The Past ◽  
The North

Our thesis may be simply stated: There is a specter hanging over African studies: the specter of irrelevance both within and outside the academy. Indeed, African studies, as constructed in the North American academy over the past four decades, is dying.

Impact of Seasonality in the North Atlantic Jet Stream and Storm Migration on the Seasonality of Hurricane Translation Speed Changes

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-38
Author(s):  
Xi Guo ◽  
James P. Kossin ◽  
Zhe-Min Tan
Keyword(s):  
North Atlantic ◽  
Atlantic Coast ◽  
Jet Stream ◽  
Translation Speed ◽  
Multidecadal Variability ◽  
The Past ◽  
The North ◽  
Term Variation ◽  
The North Atlantic

AbstractTropical cyclone (TC) translation speed (TCTS) can affect the duration of TC-related disasters, which is critical to coastal and inland areas. The long-term variation of TCTS and their relationship to the variability of the mid-latitude jet stream and storm migration are discussed here for storms near the North Atlantic coast during 1948-2019. Our results reveal the prominent seasonality in the long-term variation of TCTS, which can be largely explained by the seasonality in the covariations of the mid-latitude jet stream and storm locations. Specifically, significant increases of TCTS occur in June and October during the past decades, which may result from the equatorward displacement of the jet stream and poleward migration of storm locations. Prominent slowdown of TCTS is found in August, which is related to the weakened jet strength and equatorward storm migration. In September, the effects of poleward displacement and weakening of the jet stream on TCTS are largely compensated by the poleward storm migration, therefore, no significant change in TCTS is observed. Meanwhile, the multidecadal variability of the Atlantic may contribute to the multidecadal variability of TCTS. Our findings emphasize the significance in taking a seasonality view in discussing the variability and trends of near-coast Atlantic TCTS under climate change.

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