The Cenomanian-Turonian (late Cretaceous) radiation of marine squamates (Reptilia): the role of the Mediterranean Tethys

2008 ◽  
Vol 179 (6) ◽  
pp. 605-622 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nathalie Bardet ◽  
Alexandra Houssaye ◽  
Jean-Claude Rage ◽  
Xabier Pereda Suberbiola
Keyword(s):  
North America ◽  
Sea Level ◽  
Bone Microstructure ◽  
The Other ◽  
Sea Surface ◽  
Western Interior Seaway ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
The Mediterranean ◽  
Large Predators

AbstractDuring the Cenomanian-Turonian interval, marine squamates display a spectacular radiation in particular on the margins of the Mediterranean Tethys and, to a lesser extent, in the Interior Seaway of North America. In this span of time, three major groups diversified: the “hind-limbed” snakes (“pachyophiids”), the “dolichosaurids”, and the mosasauroids. “Hind-limbed” snakes, exhibiting all a pachyostotic bony structure, were small tropical inhabitants, known exclusively from the Cenomanian of the Mediterranean Tethys. “Dolichosaurids” and mosasauroids were rather mid latitude distributed groups, found in a wide range of palaeoenvironments of both the Mediterranean Tethys and the Western Interior Seaway. Whereas “dolichosaurids” remain of small size and become rare after the Cenomanian/Turonian (C/T) boundary, mosasauroids exhibit a notable size-increase and develop since the mid Turonian to become highly diversified and cosmopolitan large predators of the end of the Cretaceous. This important radiation of marine squamates is thus, except for derived mosasauroids (mosasaurids), restricted in time (Cenomanian-Turonian) and space (mostly the northern and southern margins of the Mediterranean Tethys). It is probable that: 1) the Mediterranean Tethys played an important role in both the radiation and the dispersion of these marine squamates during the Cenomanian-Turonian interval; 2) certain major geological and biological events that characterize this pivotal period (i.e., global high sea-level stand and warm sea-surface temperatures allowing the development of large carbonated platforms) could have permitted this radiation; and 3) conversely, other factors occurring at or just after the C/T boundary (OAE2, sea-level and sea-surface temperature drops, marine extinctions including the demise of carbonated platforms) as well as factors inherent to each of the groups (mainly the size and bone microstructure) could have had an effect on and insured the success of the mosasaurids with respect to the other groups, whereas thereafter the radiation of snakes succeeded only in continental environments.

scholarly journals XX. Discovery of the metamorphosis in the second type of the cirripedes, viz. the lepades, completing the natural history of these singular animals, and confirming their affinity with the crustacea

1835 ◽  
Vol 125 ◽  
pp. 355-358 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
North America ◽  
Natural History ◽  
Sea Water ◽  
The Other ◽  
External Appearance ◽  
The Real ◽  
Real Nature ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Mediterranean ◽  
The Waves

The Fourth Memoir, published in my Zoological Researches and Illustrations, No. III. page 69, &c., having first made known the real nature of the Cirripedes , the key of which remained concealed in their metamorphosis, it might have been expected that some naturalist favourably situated to investigate the oceanic tribe of these animals, would have been the first to make the same discovery in regard to these, and thereby complete their natural history. It was scarcely to be expected that the honour of this discovery also should be reserved for the author, fixed to one spot, where none of them naturally exist, and are but casually thrown upon our shores by the waves of the Atlantic, attached to pieces of wreck, or brought into port fixed to the bottoms of ships returning from distant voyages. Fortunately, however, two ships of this description came into this harbour (Cork), one from the Mediterranean, the other from North America, which, not being sheathed with copper, had their bot­toms literally covered with Barnacles of the three genera of Lepas , Cineras , and Otion ; and having persons employed expressly for the purpose, numbers of these were brought alive in sea water, amongst which were many with the ova in various stages of their progress, and some ready to hatch, which they eventually did in prodigious numbers, so as to enable him to add the proof of their being, like the Balani, natatory Crusta­cea in their first stage , but of a totally different facies and structure; a circumstance which determines the propriety of the separation of the Cirripedes into two tribes, and evinces the sagacity of Mr. MacLeay in being the first to indicate that these two tribes, the Balani and Lepades , were not so closely related as generally supposed. The larvæ of the Balani , described in Memoir IV. under the external appearance of the bivalve Monoculi ( Astracoda ), have a pair of pedunculated eyes, more numerous and more completely developed members, approximating to those of Cyclops , and of the perfect Triton ; while, in the present type, or Lepades , the larva resembles some­what that of the Cyclops , which Müller, mistaking for a perfect animal, named Amymone , and which can be shown to he common to a great many of the Entomostraca ; or the resemblance is still more striking to that of the Argulus Armiger of Latreille, which, in fact, is but an Amymone furnished with a tricuspidate shield at the back.

A Remarkable Array: Species Diversity in the United States

2000 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bruce A. Stein ◽  
Larry E. Morse
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
North America ◽  
Sea Level ◽  
Eastern China ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Other ◽  
Death Valley ◽  
The Arctic ◽  
Blue Ridge Mountains ◽  
Little Tennessee River

The Carolina hemlock (Tsuga caroliniana) survives in just a few rocky streambeds along the lower slopes of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Other species of hemlock abound across the United States, but none bear a close resemblance to this particular tree. The closest relatives of the Carolina hemlock, in fact, survive in only one other forest on Earth, some 7,000 miles away in Hubei province of eastern China. The forests of eastern Asia and eastern North America are so similar that if you were suddenly transported from one to the other, you would be hard-pressed to tell them apart. In the swift mountain streams rushing past these seemingly displaced hemlocks live a number of small, colorful fish known as darters. Darters are found only in North America and have evolved into a prolific variety of fishes. Up to 175 species inhabit U.S. waters, including the famous snail darter (Percina tanasi), which brought endangered species issues to the fore when it held up construction of the Tellico Dam on the Little Tennessee River. How is it that these two organisms, hemlock and darter, one with its closest relatives on the other side of the globe and the other found nowhere else in the world, came to be living side by side? Just how many plants and animals share the piece of Earth that we know as the United States of America? Why these and not others? These are central questions for understanding the diversity of the nation’s living resources. The United States encompasses an enormous piece of geography. With more than 3.5 million square miles of land and 12,000 miles of coastline, it is the fourth largest country on Earth, surpassed only by Russia, Canada, and China. The nation spans nearly a third of the globe, extending more than 120 degrees of longitude from eastern Maine to the tip of the Aleutian chain, and 50 degrees in latitude from Point Barrow above the Arctic Circle to the southern tip of Hawaii below the tropic of Cancer. This expanse of terrain includes an exceptional variety of topographic features, from Death Valley at 282 feet below sea level to Mt. McKinley at 20,320 feet above sea level.

Waiting

2021 ◽  
pp. 342-368
Author(s):  
Anne Storch
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Spirit Possession ◽  
The Other ◽  
Special Interests ◽  
The Social ◽  
Getting Lost ◽  
Epistemic Approach ◽  
The Mediterranean ◽  
The One

This chapter explores the dialectics of walking and resting, and of mobility and waiting, with regards to creativity in language. It thereby focuses on the interruption and unintended break as an opportunity for interactions and encounters across linguistic epistemes, boundaries and norms. Walking as a methodology and epistemic approach has been discussed in anthropology, the social sciences and literary critique, but met very little interest in linguistics. This chapter on the one hand consequently attempts to address walking as a substantial approach to the study of multilingualism and improvisation, but on the other aims at highlighting disruption and stillness as creating the very liminal space and practice through which language creativity can emerge and be realized. It touches upon various practices that are crucial: being stuck, passing time, getting lost. Points of special interests interest include the role of language in the love songs and other genres, especially in the context of the Mediterranean, disruptions associated with migrations and peoples’ movements, the context of tourism, and the linguistic effects of spirit possession.

Portentous arrangements: Bernard Herrmann and The Man Who Knew Too Much

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Murray Pomerance
Keyword(s):  
The Other ◽  
Film Production ◽  
Working Relationship ◽  
Television Programs ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Symphonic Work ◽  
A Performance

While Herrmann's twenty-four successful and one failed collaboration with Hitchcock – including films and television programs – featured compositional scoring to some degree, Herrmann's work on The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956) is a peculiar deviation in the pattern of their regular working relationship because there are only a very small number of composed cues. The bulk of Herrmann's work on this film, which involved some considerable legal machinations, consisted of two very different kinds of contribution, each of which can tell us something about the composer's talents, diligence, and sensitivity to film production. On one hand he was called upon to arrange "received" music, and this in a wide range from Moroccan folk tunes to elaborate symphonic work, and including the traditionalist hymn, "The Portents." On the other, he became a member of the cast, on this one occasion only in his filmic work with Hitchcock, playing the role of a conductor at a performance in the Royal Albert Hall. This chapter argues that, since the overall score of the film is essentially an acoustic quilt, we find here evidence of a talent for assemblage and backgrounding that Herrmann does not have opportunity to show in his other work with Hitchcock.

Observational analysis of Mediterranean decadal hydroclimate variability: role of Atlantic-Mediterranean sea surface temperatures

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roberto Suarez-Moreno ◽  
Richard Seager ◽  
Yochanan Kushnir
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
North Atlantic ◽  
Mediterranean Region ◽  
Sea Surface ◽  
Wet Season ◽  
The North ◽  
Hydroclimate Variability ◽  
The North Atlantic ◽  
The Mediterranean

<p>The Mediterranean region is a semi-arid climate zone, subject to droughts, where water resources are scarce and observational data and climate models suggest a tendency towards greater aridification. Moreover, the Mediterranean region is an area of social and political instability and, in the Middle East, open warfare, which might be further stressed by climate change. The North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) is the dominant mode of winter climate variability in the North Atlantic sector, playing the leading role in driving Mediterranean hydroclimate variability from seasonal to multidecadal timescales, whereas the influence of sea surface temperatures (SSTs) remains unclear. Nevertheless, the mechanism underlying the NAO is still under debate, and the possibility for coupled ocean-atmosphere decadal interactions, for which several mechanisms have been proposed, would support the role of SST. Based on observations and reanalysis, we conduct a statistical-observational analysis to explore the decadal drivers of Mediterranean hydroclimate variability for the winter half-year (October-to-March) wet season. Our results put forward the uneven intraseasonal influence of the decadal NAO, being the leading driver during the winter peak season (December-to-March), while decadal Atlantic-Mediterranean SST variability exhibit a consistent link for the first months of the wet season (October-to-January). These results emphasize the need to further explore the ocean-atmosphere feedback mechanisms and their possible modulations under climate change. Understanding these mechanisms is essential to improve predictability of hydroclimate in the Mediterranean region, leading to adaptation strategies that mitigate the effect of climate change on the vulnerable population.</p>

3D climate simulations of Earth-like planets with a range of atmospheric composition, radiative transfer, ocean, and resolution configurations, using the new version of ROCKE-3D

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kostas Tsigaridis ◽  
Anthony D. Del Genio ◽  
Igor Aleinov ◽  
Eric T. Wolf ◽  
Maxwell Kelley ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Model ◽  
Sea Surface ◽  
Atmospheric Composition ◽  
Dynamic Simulations ◽  
Climate Simulations ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Earth Like Planets ◽  
Version 2.0 ◽  
Model Setup

<p>Understanding the climate of terrestrial planetary atmospheres has been increasingly the focus of research worldwide, in light of the increasing amount of rocky planet discoveries orbiting other stars in or near their habitable zone. Here we present simulations with the new version of the 3D climate model ROCKE-3D, whose version 2.0 will soon become publicly available. A wide range of configurations will be supported, compared to a handful ones in its predecessor, version 1.0 (Way et al., 2017). These include two model resolutions (4x5 and 2x2.5), two radiation schemes (GISS and SOCRATES), three atmospheric configurations (Earth-like, Earth-like without O3 and aerosols, and N2-dominated), and three ocean setups (prescribed sea-surface temperatures and ice cover, q-flux, and dynamic). Simulations of all different configuration combinations have been performed and will become available for use by the community. Key results will be presented across those configurations, together of the role of the structural uncertainty in model setup in the resulting climate calculated by the model.</p>

scholarly journals Distribution and host diversity of Amoebophryidae parasites across oligotrophic waters of the Mediterranean Sea

2011 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 267-278 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. Siano ◽  
C. Alves-de-Souza ◽  
E. Foulon ◽  
El M. Bendif ◽  
N. Simon ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Mediterranean Sea ◽  
Marine Ecosystems ◽  
Natural Environments ◽  
Coastal Station ◽  
Host Diversity ◽  
Eukaryotic Community ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
The Mediterranean ◽  
Host Infection

Abstract. Sequences affiliated to Syndiniales (Marine alveolate, MALV) regularly dominate 18S rDNA genetic libraries of nearly all marine ecosystems investigated so far. Among them, Amoebophryidae (MALV group II) is composed of numerous and genetically distant environmental sequences, where Amoebophrya is the only known and formally described genus. Amoebophrya species include virulent pathogens for a wide range of dinoflagellate species. Beside their regular occurrence in marine ecosystems, their quantitative distribution and the environmental factors triggering host infection have barely been studied in open oligotrophic waters. In order to understand the functional role of these parasites in natural environments, we studied the distribution and contribution to the eukaryotic community of the small free-living stage of Amoebophryidae (the dinospores) along a transect in the Mediterranean Sea, as well as their host diversity at three oligotrophic stations. Dinospores were more abundant at a coastal station (max. 1.5 × 103 cells ml−1) than in oligotrophic waters (max. 51 ± 16.3 cells ml−1), where they represented 10.3 to 34.9% of the total eukaryotic community at 40 and 30 m depth, respectively and 21.2% on average along the water column. Positive correlation was found between dinospore occurrence and higher concentration of NO3 + NO2 at the coastal station. At selected stations, out of 38 different dinoflagellates taxa identified, 15 were infected, among which a majority were not recognized as Amoebophryidae host so far. Prevalences (percentage of infected cells) generally varied between 1% and 10%, with a notable exception for Blepharocysta paulsenii for which 25% of cells were infected at the most oligotrophic station. The present study shows that dinospores are able to thrive and infect dinoflagellates both in coastal and ultra-oligotrophic open waters. Our results emphasize the role of parasitism in microbial food web dynamics and ultimately on biogeochemical cycles.

ON CONIFEROPHAGOUS SPECIES OF CHORISTONEURA (LEPIDOPTERA: TORTRICIDAE) IN NORTH AMERICA: II. GEOGRAPHIC DISTRIBUTION IN ACCORDANCE WITH FOREST REGIONS

1967 ◽  
Vol 99 (5) ◽  
pp. 456-463 ◽  
Author(s):  
G. W. Stehr
Keyword(s):  
North America ◽  
Geographic Distribution ◽  
Tree Species ◽  
The Other ◽  
Forest Region ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Late Instar ◽  
Forest Regions

AbstractField collections of late instar larvae of Choristoneura populations were obtained from a wide range of localities. These populations were found to fall into nine taxonomic entities, either species or subspecies. A tenth group is of uncertain affiliation. Five of these entities have tree species of the subfamily Abieteae as their hosts, whereas the other four (probably five) characteristically feed on species of the subfamily Pinoideae. Furthermore, each of the budworm species, or subspecies, is associated with a characteristic forest region.

scholarly journals Phylogeny and biogeography of some Cretaceous spatangoid echinoids with special emphasis on taxa from the Western Interior Seaway

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-11
Author(s):  
Steven Byrum ◽  
Bruce S. Lieberman
Keyword(s):  
Phylogenetic Analysis ◽  
North America ◽  
South America ◽  
Sea Level ◽  
North Africa ◽  
Marine Invertebrate ◽  
Western Interior Seaway ◽  
Biogeographic Patterns ◽  
Family Level ◽  
Character Matrix

Abstract Members of the echinoid order Spatangoida, a highly diverse and abundant marine invertebrate clade, were important denizens of the Cretaceous Western Interior Seaway (WIS), an epicontinental seaway that divided North America in two during an interval of greenhouse conditions between roughly 100 and 65 million years ago. A phylogenetic analysis of spatangoids was conducted using a character matrix of 32 characters from 21 species. Species that occur in the WIS were considered comprehensively, and species from other regions such as South America, Europe, and North Africa were also incorporated into the analysis. Phylogenetic patterns retrieved are largely congruent with preexisting family-level classifications; however, species within several genera, especially Hemiaster and Heteraster, need to be reassigned so that classification better reflects phylogeny. The genera Washitaster and Heteraster are closely related, as are Mecaster, Palhemiaster, and Proraster; Pliotoxaster, Macraster, and Hemiaster; and Micraster and Diplodetus. Biogeographic patterns were also considered using the phylogeny, and several episodes of vicariance and range expansion were identified. These were possibly related to some of the various major episodes of sea-level rise and fall during the Cretaceous. In particular, Valangian–mid-Aptian regressions may have caused vicariance within Heteraster and Washitaster while other early spatangoid vicariance may be related to regressions during the late Aptian–early Cenomanian. Further, vicariance caused by regressions during the mid-Cenomanian–Maastrichtian may have driven diversification within Micraster and Diplodetus. Last, transgressions during the late Aptian–early Cenomanian seem to have spurred prominent range expansions in Mecaster and Hemiaster.

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