Enhancing Coral Survival on Deployment Devices With Microrefugia

Surviving after settlement through the first year of life is a recognised bottleneck in up-scaling reef coral restoration. Incorporating spatial refugia in settlement devices has the potential to alleviate some hazards experienced by young recruits, such as predation and accidental grazing, and can increase the likelihood of survival to size-escape thresholds. Yet optimising the design of microrefugia is challenging due to the complexity of physical and biological processes that occur at fine spatial scales around a recruit. Here, we investigated the effects of microhabitat features on the survival of Acropora tenuis spat in a year-long experimental field deployment of two types of artificial settlement devices—grooved-tiles and lattice-grids—onto three replicate racks on a shallow, central mid-shelf reef of the Great Barrier Reef. Spat survival across device types averaged between 2 and 39% and about half of all devices had at least one surviving coral after a year. While the larvae settled across all micro-habitats available on the devices, there was strong post-settlement selection for corals on the lower edges, lower surfaces, and in the grooves, with 100% mortality of recruits on upper surfaces, nearly all within the first 6 months of deployment. The device type that conferred the highest average survival (39%) was a tile with wide grooves (4 mm) cut all the way through, which significantly improved survival success over flat and comparatively featureless control tiles (13%). We hypothesise that the wide grooves provided protection from accidental grazing while also minimising sediment accumulation and allowing higher levels of light and water flow to reach the recruits than featureless control devices. We conclude that incorporating design features into deployment devices such as wide slits has the potential to substantially increase post-deployment survival success of restored corals.

Download Full-text

Intracranial Neoplasms during the First Year of Life: Analysis of One Hundred Consecutive Cases

Neurosurgery ◽

10.1227/00006123-198401000-00008 ◽

1984 ◽

Vol 14 (1) ◽

pp. 31-41 ◽

Cited By ~ 74

Author(s):

Rashid Jooma ◽

Richard D. Hayward ◽

Norman D. Grant

Keyword(s):

Psychomotor Development ◽

First Year ◽

Older Children ◽

Mortality And Morbidity ◽

Whole Brain Radiation ◽

Average Survival ◽

Diencephalic Syndrome ◽

Neuroectodermal Origin ◽

First Year Of Life ◽

Brain Radiation

Abstract One hundred infants with intracranial tumors symptomatic during the 1st year of life were studied. They differed from older children in having a higher percentage of supratentorial tumors and in the fact that 90% of the tumors were of neuroectodermal origin. Vomiting, alteration of psychomotor development, and macrocrania were the most common presenting features. The “diencephalic syndrome” was seen in 5 infants, and subarachnoid hemorrhage due to tumor was diagnosed in 4. Computed tomography as the primary investigation is increasing the number of neoplasms diagnosed in this age group, although review of the skull roentgenograms in the series disclosed an abnormality in 92%. Eighty of the tumors were verified, 68 by a cranial operation and the rest at autopsy, Of the verified neoplasms, 20% were medulloblastomas, 12.5% were choroid plexus papillomas, and 10% were cerebellar astrocytomas. The cumulative average survival was 27 months but, for those who underwent a tumor operation, the average survival was 37 months. The operative mortality was 30%. Thirty-nine patients were irradiated, and this subset had a 5-year survival rate of 43%. The morbidity was high irrespective of radiotherapy; 60% of those who survived 1 year were moderately or severely disabled. Those infants receiving more than 5000 rads of whole brain radiation tended to have greater deficits in the long term. When analyzed separately, patients treated after 1970 had greatly improved mortality and morbidity rates.

Download Full-text

The Development of Swallowing Respiratory Coordination

Perspectives on Swallowing and Swallowing Disorders (Dysphagia) ◽

10.1044/sasd18.1.19 ◽

2009 ◽

Vol 18 (1) ◽

pp. 19-24

Author(s):

Maggie-Lee Huckabee

Keyword(s):

Cortical Activation ◽

First Year ◽

Healthy Children ◽

Nasal Airflow ◽

Single Session ◽

Primary Finding ◽

Patterns Of Behavior ◽

Cortical Modulation ◽

First Year Of Life ◽

Swallowing Apnea

Abstract Research exists that evaluates the mechanics of swallowing respiratory coordination in healthy children and adults as well and individuals with swallowing impairment. The research program summarized in this article represents a systematic examination of swallowing respiratory coordination across the lifespan as a means of behaviorally investigating mechanisms of cortical modulation. Using time-locked recordings of submental surface electromyography, nasal airflow, and thyroid acoustics, three conditions of swallowing were evaluated in 20 adults in a single session and 10 infants in 10 sessions across the first year of life. The three swallowing conditions were selected to represent a continuum of volitional through nonvolitional swallowing control on the basis of a decreasing level of cortical activation. Our primary finding is that, across the lifespan, brainstem control strongly dictates the duration of swallowing apnea and is heavily involved in organizing the integration of swallowing and respiration, even in very early infancy. However, there is evidence that cortical modulation increases across the first 12 months of life to approximate more adult-like patterns of behavior. This modulation influences primarily conditions of volitional swallowing; sleep and naïve swallows appear to not be easily adapted by cortical regulation. Thus, it is attention, not arousal that engages cortical mechanisms.

Download Full-text