scholarly journals Hatching Success Rather Than Temperature-Dependent Sex Determination as the Main Driver of Olive Ridley (Lepidochelys olivacea) Nesting Activity in the Pacific Coast of Central America

Animals ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (11) ◽  
pp. 3168
Author(s):  
Alejandra Morales Mérida ◽  
Aude Helier ◽  
Adriana A. Cortés-Gómez ◽  
Marc Girondot

In marine turtles, sex is determined during a precise period during incubation: males are produced at lower temperatures and females at higher temperatures, a phenomenon called temperature-dependent sex determination. Nest temperature depends on many factors, including solar radiation. Albedo is the measure of the proportion of reflected solar radiation, and in terms of sand color, black sand absorbs the most energy, while white sand reflects more solar radiation. Based on this observation, darker sand beaches with higher temperatures should produce more females. As marine turtles show a high degree of philopatry, including natal homing, dark beaches should also produce more female hatchlings that return to nest when mature. When sand color is heterogeneous in a region, we hypothesize that darker beaches would have the most nests. Nevertheless, the high incubation temperature on beaches with a low albedo may result in low hatching success. Using Google Earth images and the SWOT database of nesting olive ridleys (Lepidochelys olivacea) in the Pacific coast of Mexico and Central America, we modeled sand color and nesting activity to test the hypothesis that darker beaches host larger concentrations of females because of feminization on darker beaches and female philopatry. We found the opposite result: the lower hatching success at beaches with a lower albedo could be the main driver of nesting activity heterogeneity for olive ridleys in Central America.

1969 ◽  
Vol 39 (1) ◽  
pp. 32-40
Author(s):  
George N. Wolcott

The spiraea aphid, Aphis spiraecola Patch, which previous to 1924 was known only on species of Spiraea in the northern United States, in that year appeared in mass infestations on citrus trees in Florida and Cuba, causing enormous damage by distorting and resetting the young growth. By 1926 it had spread to Puerto Rico, attacking not only various endemic trees and plants, but being implicated in the transmission of a new virus disease of papaya. By 1928, it was reported on citrus from Honduras in Central America, and it has since dispersed to Costa Rica, and on a great variety of hosts to California, Oregon, and Washington on the Pacific Coast.


Zootaxa ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 3178 (1) ◽  
pp. 63
Author(s):  
TORE HØISÆTER

The Panamic biogeographic province has long been thought to harbour a rich pyramidellid fauna. In the compilation of Keen (1971) the family is second only to the Turridae in being the most speciose gastropod family in the region, and no less than 350 species are listed. However a number of these have later been recognized to be synonyms, and in the update of the compilation by Skoglund (2002) the number of pyramidellids was reduced to 258.


Author(s):  
Anno Faubel ◽  
Ronald Sluys ◽  
David G. Reid

A commensal relationship is described between the polyclad flatworm Paraprostatum echinolittorinae Faubel & Sluys gen. et sp. nov. and gastropod molluscs living on the Pacific coast of central America. Although the worms are relatively large in comparison with their hosts, the latter sustained no apparent damage. Considering the fact that the molluscs live in the upper eulittoral zone and littoral fringe of the shore, it is unlikely that the polyclads could survive for long outside the hosts. Diagnostic characters for the new genus and species are a long penial stylet joined to the proximal vesicle and absence of Lang's vesicle. It is pointed out that Aprostatum clippertoni Bock, 1913 and A. longipenis (Kato, 1943) have been incorrectly transferred to the genus Euplana Girard, 1893 and that Discoplana malagensis Doignon, Artois & Deheyn, 2003 should be transferred to the genus Ilyella Faubel, 1983.


2014 ◽  
Vol 14 (7) ◽  
pp. 1889-1903 ◽  
Author(s):  
B. Brizuela ◽  
A. Armigliato ◽  
S. Tinti

Abstract. Central America (CA), from Guatemala to Panama, has been struck by at least 52 tsunamis between 1539 and 2013, and in the extended region from Mexico to northern Peru (denoted as ECA, Extended Central America in this paper) the number of recorded tsunamis in the same time span is more than 100, most of which were triggered by earthquakes located in the Middle American Trench that runs parallel to the Pacific coast. The most severe event in the catalogue is the tsunami that occurred on 2 September 1992 off Nicaragua, with run-up measured in the range of 5–10 m in several places along the Nicaraguan coast. The aim of this paper is to assess the tsunami hazard on the Pacific coast of this extended region, and to this purpose a hybrid probabilistic-deterministic analysis is performed, that is adequate for tsunamis generated by earthquakes. More specifically, the probabilistic approach is used to compute the Gutenberg–Richter coefficients of the main seismic tsunamigenic zones of the area and to estimate the annual rate of occurrence of tsunamigenic earthquakes and their corresponding return period. The output of the probabilistic part of the method is taken as input by the deterministic part, which is applied to calculate the tsunami run-up distribution along the coast.


2016 ◽  
Vol 32 (3) ◽  
pp. 439-447 ◽  
Author(s):  
B. Naranjo-Elizondo ◽  
M. Espinoza ◽  
M. Herrera ◽  
T. M. Clarke ◽  
I. S. Wehrtmann

Zootaxa ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 4066 (4) ◽  
pp. 493 ◽  
Author(s):  
ARTURO ANGULO ◽  
CAROLE C. BALDWIN ◽  
D. ROSS ROBERTSON

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