Records of bat ectoparasites from the Caribbean region (Siphonaptera, Acarina, Diptera)

1970 ◽  
Vol 48 (5) ◽  
pp. 1093-1097 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. R. Tamsitt ◽  
Irving Fox

Twenty-eight species of ectoparasites, including one flea, one chigger, two ticks, six mites, and 18 streblids, are listed for 18 species of bats from Colombia, Guyana, Jamaica, and Puerto Rico. Most are new host or geographic records. Distributional observations are included when available.

The Auk ◽  
2007 ◽  
Vol 124 (4) ◽  
pp. 1397-1406 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susan M. Rice ◽  
Jaime A. Collazo ◽  
Mathew W. Alldredge ◽  
Brian A. Harrington ◽  
Allen R. Lewis

Abstract We report seasonal residency and local annual survival rates of migratory Semipalmated Sandpipers (Calidris pusilla) at the Cabo Rojo salt flats, Puerto Rico. Residency rate (daily probability of remaining on the flats) was 0.991 ± 0.001 (x̄ ± SE), yielding a mean length of stay of 110 days. This finding supports the inclusion of the Caribbean as part of the species' winter range. Average estimated percentage of fat was low but increased throughout the season, which suggests that birds replenish some spent fat reserves and strive for energetic maintenance. Local annual survival rate was 0.62 ± 0.04, within the range of values reported for breeding populations at Manitoba and Alaska (0.53–0.76). The similarity was not unexpected because estimates were obtained annually but at opposite sites of their annual migratory movements. Birds captured at the salt flats appeared to be a mix of birds from various parts of the breeding range, judging from morphology (culmen's coefficient of variation = 9.1, n = 106). This suggested that origin (breeding area) of birds and their proportion in the data should be ascertained and accounted for in analyses to glean the full conservation implications of winter-based annual survival estimates. Those data are needed to unravel the possibility that individuals of distinct populations are affected by differential mortality factors across different migratory routes. Mean length of stay strongly suggested that habitat quality at the salt flats was high. Rainfall and tidal flow combine to increase food availability during fall. The salt flats dry up gradually toward late January, at the onset of the dry season. Semipalmated Sandpipers may move west to other Greater Antilles or south to sites such as coastal Surinam until the onset of spring migration. They are not an oversummering species at the salt flats. Conservation efforts in the Caribbean region require understanding the dynamics of this species throughout winter to protect essential habitat. Tasas de Supervivencia Anual Local y de Residencia Estacional de Calidris pusilla en Puerto Rico


2010 ◽  
Vol 132 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
M. E. Angeles ◽  
J. E. González ◽  
D. J. Erickson ◽  
J. L. Hernández

Assessment of renewable energy resources such as surface solar radiation and wind current has great relevance in the development of local and regional energy policies. This paper examines the variability and availability of these resources as a function of possible climate changes for the Caribbean region. Global climate changes have been reported in the last decades, causing changes in the atmospheric dynamics, which affects the net solar radiation balance at the surface and the wind strength and direction. For this investigation, the future climate changes for the Caribbean are predicted using the parallel climate model (PCM) and it is coupled with the numerical model regional atmospheric modeling system (RAMS) to simulate the solar and wind energy spatial patterns changes for the specific case of the island of Puerto Rico. Numerical results from PCM indicate that the Caribbean basin from 2041 to 2055 will experience a slight decrease in the net surface solar radiation (with respect to the years 1996–2010), which is more pronounced in the western Caribbean sea. Results also indicate that the easterly winds have a tendency to increase in its magnitude, especially from the years 2070 to 2098. The regional model showed that important areas to collect solar energy are located in the eastern side of Puerto Rico, while the more intense wind speed is placed around the coast. A future climate change is expected in the Caribbean that will result in higher energy demands, but both renewable energy sources will have enough intensity to be used in the future as alternative energy resources to mitigate future climate changes.


2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lisa Nicole Jennings ◽  
Jamison Douglas ◽  
Emrys Treasure ◽  
Grizelle González

Author(s):  
David Eduardo Barreto Sánchez ◽  
aura Gutiérrez Escobar ◽  
Catalina Toro Pérez ◽  
Line Algoed ◽  
Pambana Bassett ◽  
...  

Through an interdisciplinary conversation in the context of the project: Food Insecurity in Times of Climate Change: Sharing and Learning from Bottom-up Responses in the Caribbean Region, we expose the voices, history and knowledge of local communities and activists in Barbuda, Belize, Colombia (San Andres and Providencia), Jamaica and Puerto Rico to the food insecurity and ecological crisis in the Caribbean. The composite effect of climate injustice and the COVID-19 pandemic is outlined as anthropogenic crises that thrive on inequality and dependency in the Caribbean. The community experiences of the project countries reveal an emergence of knowledge and diverse ways of producing food and relating to the environment as alternatives to development. It is a criticism of the solutions imposed from above that ignore the knowledge, needs and practices of popular ecologies in the Caribbean.


2020 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 155-157
Author(s):  
Leslie Maas Cortés ◽  
Melanie Z. Rodriguez-Rivera ◽  
James J. James ◽  
José F Cordero

ABSTRACTThe objective of the Caribbean Strong Summit was to plan an intersectoral summit to address the equity of community health and resilience for disaster preparedness, response and recovery and develop a set of integrated and actionable recommendations for Puerto Rico and the Caribbean Region post Hurricanes Irma and Maria. A three-day meeting was convened with a wide range of community, organizational and private sector leaders along with representatives from Puerto Rico, the Caribbean, the Americas, and global experts to generate recommendations for enhanced resilience based upon lessons learned and evidence-based approaches. More than 500 participants from the region gave 104 presentations with recommendations for resilience. Over 150 recommendations were generated and ranked for importance and actionability by participants. A representative sample of these are presented along with five major themes for building health resilient communities in the Caribbean. This summit was successful in compiling a set of integrated recommendations from more than 19 diverse sectors and in defining five major thematic areas for future work to enhance resilience for all types of future disasters. A follow-up meeting should be planned to continue this discussion and to showcase work that has been accomplished in these areas. A complete set of the recommendations from the Caribbean Strong Summit and their analysis and compilation would be published and should serve as a foundational effort to enhance preparedness and resiliency towards future disasters in the Caribbean.


Solar Energy ◽  
2006 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. E. Angeles ◽  
J. E. Gonza´lez ◽  
D. J. Erickson ◽  
J. L. Herna´ndez

Assessment of renewable energy resources, such as surface solar radiation and wind current has great relevance in the development of local and regional energy policies. This paper examines the variability and availability of these resources as a function of possible climate changes for the Caribbean region. Global climate changes have been reported in the last decades, causing changes in the atmospheric dynamics which affects the net solar radiation balance at the surface and the wind strength and direction. For this investigation, the future climate changes for the Caribbean are predicted using the Parallel Climate Model (PCM) and it is coupled with the Regional Atmospheric Modeling System (RAMS) to simulate the solar and wind energy spatial patterns changes for the specific case of the island of Puerto Rico. Numerical results from PCM indicate that the Caribbean basin from 2041 to 2055 will experience a slight decrease in the net surface solar radiation (with respect to the years 1996–2010), which is more pronounced in the western Caribbean Sea. Results also indicate that the easterly winds have a tendency to increase in its magnitude, especially from the years 2070 to 2098. The regional model showed that important areas to collect solar energy are located in the eastern side of Puerto Rico, while the more intense wind speed is placed around the coast. A future climate change is expected in the Caribbean that will result in higher energy demands, but both renewable energy sources will have enough intensity to be used in the future as an alternative energy sources to mitigate future climate changes.


1990 ◽  
Vol 64 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 7-27 ◽  
Author(s):  
John M. Lipski

[First paragraph]The question of Spanish language usage among African-born slaves (known as bozales) and their descendents in Spanish America is the subject of much controversy, and has had a major impact on theories of Creole formation and the evolution of Latin American dialects of Spanish, Portuguese and French. Briefly, one school of thought maintains that, at least during the last 150-200 years of African slave trade to Spanish America, bozales and their immediate descendants spoke a relatively uniform Spanish pidgin or creole, concentrated in the Caribbean region but ostensibly extending even to many South American territories. This creole in turn had Afro-Portuguese roots, derived from if not identical to the hypothetical maritime Portuguese creole (sometimes also identified with the medieval Sabir or Lingua Franca) claimed to be the source of most European - based Creoles in Africa, Asia and the Americas.1 The principal sources of evidence come in 19th century documents from the Caribbean region, principally Cuba and Puerto Rico, where many (but not all) bozal texts share a noteworthy similarity with other demonstrably Afro-Portuguese or Afro-Hispanic Creoles in South America, Africa and Asia.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Leny Montheil ◽  
Douwe Van Hinsbergen ◽  
Philippe Münch ◽  
Pierre Camps ◽  
Mélody Philippon

<p>Since the Eocene, the northeastern corner of the Caribbean plate is shaped by the indentation of the buoyant Bahamas platform with the Greater Caribbean Arc, the suture of a portion of the Antillean subduction zone along Cuba and Hispaniola and the subsequent relocation of the plate boundary along the strike slip Cayman Trough. Puzzlingly enough, these major re-arrangements followed a plate motion reorganization (Boschmann et al., 2014). During this kinematic reorganization, the Lesser Antilles trench initiated (or subduction intensified) along the eastern boundary of the Caribbean plate and progressively bent, resulting in an increase of subduction obliquity from south to north (Philippon et al., 2020a). This curvature has been, and still may be, associated with deformation within the Caribbean plate. Interestingly, in the 10-15 Ma following the plate reorganization, a hypothetical, now submerged “landbridge” allowed the dispersion of terrestrial fauna from South America to the Greater Antilles: the GAARlandia landbridge (land of Greater Antilles and Aves Ridge). Although it has been recently shown that Puerto Rico and the Northern Lesser Antilles where connected once forming a land mass called GrANoLA around 33-35 Ma (Philippon et al., 2020b), these rapids and drastics geodynamical changes may have impacted the regional paleogeography, which remains to be constrained. The intraplate deformation in the north-est Caribbean region associated with the plate reorganization, the Bahamas indentation, and the plate boundary curvature likely hold the key to (part of) the evolution of this landbridge.<br>At present day, the N-Eastern border of the Caribbean plate shows parallel to the trench faults dissecting the plate in a sliver-like manner. This “sliver” is cross cutted by perpendicular to the trench faults in four crustal blocks: Gonave, Hispaniola, Puerto Rico and the Northern Lesser Antilles. Present-day and past kinematics of these blocks, and even their existence, are still debated.</p><p>In this study, in the course of the French GAARAnti project, we focus on paleomagnetically determined vertical axis rotations that affected Puerto Rico and the Northern Lesser Antilles blocks since the Eocene, and use these to inform kinematic reconstructions constrained by regional structural analysis and Ar<sup>40</sup>-Ar<sup>39</sup> geochronology. These reconstructions will be used to refine the paleogeographic evolution of the NEastern edge of the Caribbean plate since the Eocene in order test the GAARlandia hypothesis.</p><p>A new set of paleomagnetic data (180 Oligo-Miocene specimens of sediments sampled in 18 sites) indicates that the Puerto Rico block underwent an early to mid-Miocene 10° counterclockwise (CCW) rotation. This result clearly differs from those of Reid et al., 1991 who concluded a Late Miocene 25° CCW rotation and that is currently used by the community to interpret the tectonic history of the northeastern Caribbean plate. The use of a larger dataset, that geographically covers the entire island, and of a more recent reference frame explain the difference observed between the two results. This new result will lead to a re-interpretation of the tectonic evolution of the region that will be integrated in a regional kinematic reconstruction.</p>


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