scholarly journals Satellite tracking of juvenile whale sharks in the Sulu and Bohol Seas, Philippines

PeerJ ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
pp. e5231 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gonzalo Araujo ◽  
Christoph A. Rohner ◽  
Jessica Labaja ◽  
Segundo J. Conales ◽  
Sally J. Snow ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Population Decline ◽  
High Mobility ◽  
Iucn Red List ◽  
The Philippines ◽  
Eastern Coast ◽  
Whale Shark ◽  
Sulu Sea ◽  
The Pacific ◽  
Whale Sharks ◽  
The Pacific Ocean

The whale shark Rhincodon typus was uplisted to ‘Endangered’ in the 2016 IUCN Red List due to >50% population decline, largely caused by continued exploitation in the Indo-Pacific. Though the Philippines protected the whale shark in 1998, concerns remain due to continued take in regional waters. In light of this, understanding the movements of whale sharks in the Philippines, one of the most important hotspots for the species, is vital. We tagged 17 juvenile whale sharks with towed SPOT5 tags from three general areas in the Sulu and Bohol Seas: Panaon Island in Southern Leyte, northern Mindanao, and Tubbataha Reefs Natural Park (TRNP). The sharks all remained in Philippine waters for the duration of tracking (6–126 days, mean 64). Individuals travelled 86–2,580 km (mean 887 km) at a mean horizontal speed of 15.5 ± 13.0 SD km day−1. Whale sharks tagged in Panaon Island and Mindanao remained close to shore but still spent significant time off the shelf (>200 m). Sharks tagged at TRNP spent most of their time offshore in the Sulu Sea. Three of twelve whale sharks tagged in the Bohol Sea moved through to the Sulu Sea, whilst two others moved east through the Surigao Strait to the eastern coast of Leyte. One individual tagged at TRNP moved to northern Palawan, and subsequently to the eastern coast of Mindanao in the Pacific Ocean. Based on inferred relationships with temperature histograms, whale sharks performed most deep dives (>200 m) during the night, in contrast to results from whale sharks elsewhere. While all sharks stayed in national waters, our results highlight the high mobility of juvenile whale sharks and demonstrate their connectivity across the Sulu and Bohol Seas, highlighting the importance of the area for this endangered species.

scholarly journals TSUNAMIS ALONG WEST COAST OF LUZON, PHILIPPINES

1980 ◽  
Vol 1 (17) ◽  
pp. 40 ◽  
Author(s):  
R.L. Wiegel
Keyword(s):  
West Coast ◽  
Nuclear Power ◽  
The Philippines ◽  
Good Evidence ◽  
The West ◽  
Sulu Sea ◽  
The Pacific ◽  
Engineering Study ◽  
Manila Bay ◽  
The Pacific Ocean

A detailed engineering study was made by Ebasco Services, Inc., (1977), for a proposed nuclear power plant in the Napot Point region of Bataan, between the entrance to Manila Bay and Subic Bay, Republic of the Philippines (about 14°- 37-12'N, 120°- 18-3/4'E), Figure 1. As a part of the oceanographic portion of this work, a study was made by the writer of the characteristics of tsunamis that had occurred in the region, and the statistics of occurrence (Wiegel, 1976). The study of tsunamis has been updated to the present time (May, 1980). The location of the site is such that the large tsunamis generated in some areas of the Pacific Ocean (such as off the coasts of Chile, Alaska, Japan and Kamchatka) are not likely to reach Napot Point with any appreciable amplitude (see, for example, Wiegel, 1976). There is good evidence that this is the case. Owing to the relative stability from the standpoint of earthquakes (aseismic) of Borneo, the Malaya Peninsula, most of Indochina and the intervening China Sea (Gutenberg and Richter, 1949, pp. 82 and 93), there is probably little, if any, chance of tsunamis being generated in this region; this appears to be a fact (Berninghausen, 1969). The great eruption of Krakatoa and the tsunami generated by it was not noticed on tide gages at either Singapore or Hong Kong, so that it would be reasonable that it would not have been detected at Manila (Wharton, 1888). Also, the large tsunamis that have been generated in the Sulu Sea and the Celebes Sea do not seem to reach the site with any appreciable amplitude. Thus, the tsunamis of importance to the site are those which will be generated in the local seas off the west coast of Luzon. In order to establish this fact, information is presented on a number of tsunamis generated in other regions, especially those generated in the seas off the west coast of the Philippine Islands.

scholarly journals Chance long-distance or human-mediated dispersal? How Acacia s.l. farnesiana attained its pan-tropical distribution

2017 ◽  
Vol 4 (4) ◽  
pp. 170105 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karen L. Bell ◽  
Haripriya Rangan ◽  
Manuel M. Fernandes ◽  
Christian A. Kull ◽  
Daniel J. Murphy
Keyword(s):  
The Philippines ◽  
Historical Sources ◽  
Long Distance ◽  
Old World ◽  
South Central ◽  
The Pacific ◽  
The Pacific Ocean ◽  
Spanish Explorers ◽  
The Tropics ◽  
Old World Tropics

Acacia s.l. farnesiana , which originates from Mesoamerica, is the most widely distributed Acacia s.l. species across the tropics. It is assumed that the plant was transferred across the Atlantic to southern Europe by Spanish explorers, and then spread across the Old World tropics through a combination of chance long-distance and human-mediated dispersal. Our study uses genetic analysis and information from historical sources to test the relative roles of chance and human-mediated dispersal in its distribution. The results confirm the Mesoamerican origins of the plant and show three patterns of human-mediated dispersal. Samples from Spain showed greater genetic diversity than those from other Old World tropics, suggesting more instances of transatlantic introductions from the Americas to that country than to other parts of Africa and Asia. Individuals from the Philippines matched a population from South Central Mexico and were likely to have been direct, trans-Pacific introductions. Australian samples were genetically unique, indicating that the arrival of the species in the continent was independent of these European colonial activities. This suggests the possibility of pre-European human-mediated dispersal across the Pacific Ocean. These significant findings raise new questions for biogeographic studies that assume chance or transoceanic dispersal for disjunct plant distributions.

Pacific and Asiatic Doctrines Akin to the Monroe Doctrine

1915 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 802-817
Author(s):  
Albert Bushnell Hart
Keyword(s):  
West Indies ◽  
The United States ◽  
Eastern Coast ◽  
Monroe Doctrine ◽  
Late Professor ◽  
The Pacific ◽  
The Pacific Ocean ◽  
The Mind ◽  
North And South America ◽  
North And South

The late Professor Edward Bourne, of Yale, used to say that the Philippine Islands were attached to the Spanish West Indies till after 1823, and therefore it ought to be presumed that Monroe intended his doctrine to apply to that Asiatic archipelago. The quip leads the mind to the important fact that the relations of the Pacific Coast of America, the Pacific Ocean, and the nations of Asia, are all bound together. The first Asiatic trade went from Philadelphia, Boston, Providence, and other Atlantic ports via the Northwest Coast to China. The relation of the original Monroe Doctrine to Oregon is familiar to all students of the Monroe Doctrine. It is curious that the objection to “colonization” which was intended to block the way of Russia, has been applied almost entirely to the West Indies and the eastern coast of North and South America. The clause in Monroe’s declaration had little to do with the process by which the United States came to have a Pacific front.

scholarly journals Using Microwave Satellite Data to Assess Changes in Storminess over the Pacific Ocean

2015 ◽  
Vol 143 (8) ◽  
pp. 3214-3229 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael C. Kruk ◽  
Kyle Hilburn ◽  
John J. Marra
Keyword(s):  
Wind Speed ◽  
Pacific Ocean ◽  
Rain Rate ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Philippines ◽  
Tropical Pacific ◽  
Central Pacific ◽  
The Pacific ◽  
The Pacific Ocean ◽  
Increasing Trends

Abstract This study analyzes 25 years of Special Sensor Microwave Imager (SSM/I) retrievals of rain rate and wind speed to assess changes in storminess over the open water of the Pacific Ocean. Changes in storminess are characterized by combining trends in both the statistically derived 95th percentile exceedance frequencies of rain rate and wind speed (i.e., extremes). Storminess is computed annually and seasonally, with further partitioning done by phase of the El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) index and the Pacific decadal oscillation (PDO) index. Overall, rain-rate exceedance frequencies of 6–8 mm h−1 cover most of the western and central tropical Pacific, with higher values present around the Philippines, Japan, Mexico, and the northwest coast of Australia. Wind speed exceedance frequencies are a strong function of latitude, with values less (greater) than 12 m s−1 equatorward (poleward) of 30°N/S. Statistically significant increasing trends in rain rate were found in the western tropical Pacific near the Caroline Islands and the Solomon Islands, and in the extratropics from the Aleutian Islands down the coast along British Columbia and Washington State. Statistically significant increasing trends in wind speed are present in the equatorial central Pacific near Kiribati and the Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI), and in the extratropics along the west coast of the United States and Canada. Thus, while extreme rain and winds are both increasing across large areas of the Pacific, these areas are modulated according to the phase of ENSO and the PDO, and their intersection takes aim at specific locations.

scholarly journals The state of mental health in the Philippines

2004 ◽  
Vol 1 (6) ◽  
pp. 8-11 ◽  
Author(s):  
Udgardo Juan L. Tolentino
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
South China Sea ◽  
South China ◽  
The Philippines ◽  
Land Area ◽  
The South ◽  
The West ◽  
The North ◽  
The Pacific ◽  
The Pacific Ocean

The Philippines, known as the Pearl of the Orient, is an archipelago of 7107 islands, bounded on the west by the South China Sea, on the east by the Pacific Ocean, on the south by the Sulu and Celebes Sea, and on the north by the Bashi Channel. The northernmost islands are about 240 km south of Taiwan and the southernmost islands approximately 24 km from Borneo. The country has a total land area of some 300 000 km2. It is divided into three geographical areas: Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao. It has 17 regions, 79 provinces, 115 cities, 1495 municipalities and 41 956 barangays (the smallest geographic and political unit). It has over 100 ethnic groups and a myriad of foreign influences (including Malay, Chinese, Spanish and American).

California sea lion population decline at the southern limit of its distribution during warm regimes in the Pacific Ocean

2021 ◽  
pp. 102040
Author(s):  
Lili Pelayo-González ◽  
Eduardo González-Rodríguez ◽  
Alejandro Ramos-Rodríguez ◽  
Claudia J. Hernández-Camacho
Keyword(s):  
Pacific Ocean ◽  
Population Decline ◽  
Sea Lion ◽  
California Sea Lion ◽  
Southern Limit ◽  
The Pacific ◽  
The Pacific Ocean

Religious Aspects of the Spanish Voyages in the Pacific during the Sixteenth Century and the Early Part of the Seventeenth

1948 ◽  
Vol 4 (03) ◽  
pp. 302-315
Author(s):  
André Gschaedler
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Pacific Ocean ◽  
New World ◽  
The Philippines ◽  
The Pacific ◽  
The Pacific Ocean ◽  
Religious Aspects ◽  
Galleon Trade ◽  
Spiritual Conquest

The Conquest of Mexico was under way when Magellan’s fleet left San Lucar, September 1519, in quest of a western route to the coveted Spice Islands. On May 22, 1607, the two smaller ships of Quirós’ armada put in at Cavite in the Philippines, bringing to a close the last of the great Spanish exploration voyages in the Pacific. By that time the English and the Dutch had entered the ocean. The Sea of the South of which Balboa had taken possession in the name of his sovereigns was not to be an exclusive preserve of Spain any more. Spain was on the defensive in the New World. The great era of Spanish discovery in the Pacific Ocean was not to outlast the climax of Spanish power in the Americas. Quirós never lost his faith in the mission of Spain in the Pacific, but his entreaties, and those of the friars who were ready to accompany him for the spiritual conquest of the Pacific insular world, met with deaf ears. The Spanish authorities were under the impression that Spain had already seized more than she could grasp. In the Pacific the Spaniards were now satisfied with keeping up the Manila Galleon trade, the life line of the Philippines. The task of exploration was taken up by Spain’s competitors the Dutch, the English and the French.

scholarly journals New bioeroding sponges from Mingulay coldwater reefs, north-west Scotland

2008 ◽  
Vol 89 (2) ◽  
pp. 329-335 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rob W.M. van Soest ◽  
Elly J. Beglinger
Keyword(s):  
New Species ◽  
Great Britain ◽  
The Other ◽  
Eastern Coast ◽  
North West ◽  
Deep Waters ◽  
Superficial Resemblance ◽  
The Pacific ◽  
First Occurrence ◽  
The Pacific Ocean

The relatively shallow coldwater coral reefs growing off the eastern coast of Mingulay, north-west Scotland, are excavated by five sponge species, three of which, Alectona millari, Pione vastifica and Cliona lobata, were known previously from Scottish waters. The other two species are new to Scotland and Great Britain. One species is here described as new to science: Cliona caledoniae sp. nov. The species shows a superficial resemblance in colour (orange) and spiculation (possession of tylostyles and knobby microscleres) to Cliothosa hancocki described disjunctly from the Pacific Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea, but it differs clearly in lacking the characteristic Cliothosa amphiasters with branching rays. The Scottish species only possesses peculiar thick-rayed streptasters, which at first glance appear rather similar to the second microsclere type reported for Cliothosa hancocki, knobby-rayed amphiasters. However, the majority of the microscleres in the Mingulay species appear to be genuine spirasters (not amphiasters), and exhaustive search for true amphiasters, branching or otherwise, was in vain. The new species is extensively illustrated. Furthermore, we also report the first occurrence in British waters of Spiroxya levispira, originally described from Azorean deep waters, and subsequently reported from Madeira and several Mediterranean localities. It was found to occur not uncommonly in the Mingulay reefs, and additionally also in reefs of the Rockall Bank, west of Ireland. The spicular characters generally match those of the southern locations. The newly recorded species is described and amply illustrated.

Revision of the genusMegasyllis(Annelida, Syllidae) with descriptions of four new species

2013 ◽  
Vol 94 (2) ◽  
pp. 331-351 ◽  
Author(s):  
Guillermo San Martín ◽  
María Teresa Aguado ◽  
Patricia Álvarez-Campos
Keyword(s):  
New Species ◽  
New Zealand ◽  
The Philippines ◽  
New Combinations ◽  
Key To Species ◽  
Marquesas Islands ◽  
The Pacific ◽  
The Indian Ocean ◽  
The Pacific Ocean ◽  
San Martín

The genusMegasyllisis herein reorganized excluding the size from the diagnosis, since it is not a characteristic of all the species of the genus. We provide here a taxonomic account of all known species and a key to species identification. Seven species are new combinations, and re-descriptions of the four latter are included:Megasyllis nipponica(Imajima, 1966) andM. multiannulata(Aguado, San Martín & Nishi, 2008) from Japan;Megasyllis procera(Hartman, 1965) from the Atlantic;Megasyllis pseudoheterosetosa(Böggemann & Westheide, 2004) from the Indian Ocean.Megasyllis glandulosa(Augener, 1913), from Australia;Megasyllis marquesensis(Monro, 1939) from the Marquesas Islands, Micronesia andMegasyllis subantennata(Hartmann-Schröder, 1984) from Australia. Four new species from the Pacific Ocean namelyMegasyllis tigrinasp. nov.,Megasyllis mariandreworumsp. nov. (both from Australia),Megasyllis chrissyaesp. nov. (from the Philippines) andMegasyllis eduardoisp. nov. (from New Zealand) are described.

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