Galler, John J.

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Perle, Christopher Robert

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Hill, Paula Lindsey

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Chartier, Nancy Jeanne

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Wenner, Charles Anthony

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Rudders, David B.

Cooperative research utilizing industry vessels represents a viable approach to acquire the data necessary to meet the increasing needs associated with the modern management of marine resources. This dissertation addresses a variety of topics associated with the integration of commercial vessels into the stock assessment of the sea scallop, Placopecten magellanicus. In this study we evaluate the efficacy of utilizing industry vessels with respect to topics that range from rotational closed area ...

Rodriguez-Calderon, Cielomar

Ecosystem services in tidal shoreline systems in the Chesapeake Bay experienced an increase in environmental pressure during the last decades mainly due to population growth, land development, and increasing sea levels. These changes jeopardized the potential capacity of shoreline ecosystems to provide habitat and water quality services which are vital for coastal resources, the economy and the coastal population's welfare.;This dissertation's main goal was to develop a local scale methodology c...

Peebles, Pamela Crowson

A depositional model accounting for the stratigraphic sequences which accumulate during a marine transgression across a dissected coastal plain aids in understanding the geologic history of southeastern Virginia and northeastern North Carolina. Application of this model to the Shirley Formation (middle Pleistocene) and the Sedgefield and Lynnhaven members of the Tabb Formation (late Pleistocene) allows delineation of (1) the facies within, (2) the areal extent of, and (3) the landforms associate...

Nelson, David A.

A study of channel utilization and behavior of subadult loggerhead turtles was conducted in the St. Mary's River entrance channel area, Georgia. A total of 38 loggerheads were captured by trawling and instrumented with radio and depth sensitive sonic tags from April to November 1993. Turtles were monitored for 6 to 36 hours continuously for approximately 30 days in the spring (13), summer (13), and fall (14). On a daily basis turtles generally confined their diving activity to one location for o...

Finkelstein, Kenneth.

A total of 68 vibra-cores and 14-box cores in conjunction with high-resolution seismic records are used to describe the late Quaternary development of a twin-barrier island complex. Based on the stratigraphy, radiocarbon dates, and microfossils, a transgressive outer Holocene and inner Pleistocene barrier island complex are recognized. The two subaerial sub-parallel barriers are a result of separate marine transgressions that occurred before and after late Wisconsin glaciation. Pollen assemblage...

Crabtree, Roy E.

Food habits of 23 species of demersal deep-sea fishes from the temperate Middle Atlantic Bight and the tropical Bahamas region are described. In addition, body composition parameters including percent water, ash, carbon, and nitrogen are discussed for 48 demersal species from these study areas. Food habits data on Bahamian species are combined with those from other studies in an attempt to describe the trophic structure of this tropical deep-sea fish assemblage. Numerical classification techniqu...

Bartol, Soraya M.

A majority of the research on sea turtle vision focuses on the turtle's ability to perceive shapes, colors and brightness cues on land. However, aerial vision is a minor component of the visual ability of sea turtles, potentially used only when surfacing to breathe, while basking, and during female reproductive activities. For my doctoral dissertation, I examined the aquatic visual acuity of juvenile loggerhead sea turtles (Caretta caretta) by investigating the morphology of the eye, the electro...

acase@tulane.edu / Relative Sea-Level (RSL) change influences surface processes and stratigraphic architecture of deltaic systems and has been studied extensively for decades. However, we still lack a quantitative framework to define what constitutes a small vs. large or short vs. long RSL cycle. We explore these questions with a suite of physical experiments that shared identical forcing conditions with the exception of sea-level. We utilize two non-dimensional numbers that characterize the mag...

Organic and inorganic geochemical proxies from two cores in the northeastern (NE) and western Arabian Sea were employed to study orbital and suborbital climate variability of the Indian Ocean monsoons. In the NE Arabian Sea 230Th-nonnalized 232Th fluxes and authigenic uranium concentrations were interpreted as indicators for eolian input and paleo-productivity, respectively. The highest eolian fluxes occur at times consistent with the North Atlantic (NA) millennial-scale cold intervals recorded ...

The main outcome of this dissertation is a highly detailed RSL record constructed for the time interval 600 to 1600 AD to explore the eustatic response of sea level to the atmospheric warming that occurred during the Medieval Warm Period (∼900 to ∼1200 AD) and the transition into the Little Ice Age (∼1400 to ∼1900 AD). This new record was obtained in the microtidal Mississippi Delta and contains 28 sea-level index points that track ∼60 cm of relative sea-level rise. Basal peat was used as a trac...

Velandia-Huerto, Cristian A., Gittenberger, Adriaan A., Brown, Federico D., Stadler, Peter F., Bermúdez-Santana, Clara I.

Background: The colonial ascidian Didemnum vexillum, sea carpet squirt, is not only a key marine organism to study morphological ancestral patterns of chordates evolution but it is also of great ecological importance due to its status as a major invasive species. Non-coding RNAs, in particular microRNAs (miRNAs), are important regulatory genes that impact development and environmental adaptation. Beyond miRNAs, not much in known about tunicate ncRNAs. Results: We provide here a comprehensive hom...

Four shipwrecks of Late Antiquity were discovered in deep water during a survey in the summer of 2000 near the city of Sinop on the southern coast of the Black Sea. The survey was part of a long-term Institute for Exploration (IFE) project to explore archaeological maritime resources of the Black Sea led by Robert Ballard and a team of researchers from several organizations. Surveys were conducted using side-scan sonar and remotely operated vehicles. In 2003 the team returned with HERCULES, a re...

This is a study of the strategic and tactical use of ironclad warships during the American Civil War. The project seeks to examine why the naval administration on both sides (led by Gideon Welles for the Union and Stephen Mallory for the Confederacy) decided to give such vessels an opportunity in combat, their reaction to early operations (such as the famous battle at Hampton Roads on 8-9 March 1862), and how they learned to deploy the ships as the war progressed--account...

Satellite observations have revealed a small-scale (< 1000 km) air-sea coupling in regions of strong sea surface temperature (SST) gradients (e.g., fronts, currents, eddies, and tropical instability waves), where the surface wind and wind stress are modified. Surface winds and wind stresses are persistently higher over the warm side of the SST front compared to the cool side, causing perturbations in the dynamically and thermodynamically curl and divergence fields. Capturing this small-scale SST...

This study uses the high-resolution infrared radiation AVHRR (Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer)-only and microwave radiation AMSR (Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer)+AVHRR sea surface temperature (SST) datasets to analyze and compare non-Gaussian statistics and extreme events for SSTs. Since the primary difference between the two datasets is the lack of AVHRR data in regions of cloud cover, higher correlations between the datasets are expected in areas of low percent daily-averaged ...

An objective technique which produces regularly spaced fields of winds, temperatures, humidity, wind stress and sensible and latent heat fluxes is developed. It combines in-situ Volunteer Observing Ship (VOS) data and remotely sensed data from SEASAT during the analysis period, July 7-October 10, 1978 for the north Atlantic. The objective technique is a variational method which reduces a set of several constraints expressing closeness to input data, climatology and kinematics. Analysis results a...

The ability to accurately quantify shoreline variability along sandy beaches is essential in order to establish aggressive mitigation strategies, based on recent global climate change projections. This investigation employed a suite of coastal data -- topographic maps, aerial photography, high-resolution satellite imagery, and Lidar survey data-- to establish decadal trends of shoreline movement along sandy barrier islands on the northwest and southeast coasts of Florida. An extensive collection...

Microinjection of mutant templates into sea urchin one-cell zygotes showed that maximal expression of the early U1 snRNA gene in vivo was dependent upon two cis-acting DNA elements. The distal sequence element (DSE) was located to a position $-$300 nt from the start site of transcription, while the proximal sequence element (PSE) was localized to a region $-$50 to $-$60 relative to the transcription start site. Deletion of these regions completely abolished expression of the gene in blastula sta...

This series of studies evaluates the ability of global climate models (GCMs) to simulate the observed relationship between the upper limit of tropical cyclone (TC) intensity and sea surface temperature (SST). Previous studies addressed whether GCMs are capable of reproducing observed TC frequency and intensity distributions. This research builds upon these earlier studies by examining how well GCMs capture physically relevant relationships that are important for understanding the impacts of clim...

This dissertation is a close reading of representative examples of stichographic, hymnic and sapiential poetry from the corpus of the texts in the Dead Sea Scrolls. Chapter 1, "The Language of Hebrew Poetry," introduces and defines the specific devices, levels of structure, and various characteristics that are discussed in the following chapters. The devices considered are lists, ellipsis and repetition. The levels of structure are hemistich, colon, line and strophe. Lastly, the characteristics ...

Deep-sea meiofauna along the continental rise off the west coast of North America are nearly unstudied. To begin to remedy this situation, I sampled each of four regions (off Oregon and off northern, central, and southern California) for meiofaunal major taxa (i.e., nematodes, copepods, ostracods, and kinorhynchs) and for environmental factors in the band between 2700 and 3700 m depth. The abundances in each region fit well with those from previous reports from the Pacific. For each meiofaunal m...

In response to potential increasing rate of sea-level rise, planners and engineers are making accommodations in their management plans for protection of coastal infrastructure and natural resources. Dunes and barrier islands are important for coastal protection and restoration, because they absorb storm energy and play an essential role in sediment transportation. Most of traditional coastal models do not simulate joint evolution of dunes and barrier islands and do not explicitly address sea-lev...

Two species of sea turtle, loggerheads (Caretta caretta) and leatherbacks (Dermochelys coriacea) are caught frequently as bycatch in longline fisheries. These fisheries use hooks baited with fish or squid. Yet, leatherbacks feed on gelatinous prey while loggerheads are carnivores. I investigated the responses of these two species to bait odors in controlled laboratory experiments to better understand their feeding behavior and why they interact with longlines. Both species initiated feeding...

Global climate change stressors downscale to specific local vulnerabilities, requiring customized adaptation strategies. Southeast Florida has a high likelihood of sealevel rise impact to due to the low-lying porous limestone geology. High risk is coupled with high exposure due to high-valued coastal properties, productive ecosystems, and dense populations. Coastal populations are particularly at risk due to erosion, inundation and storm surge, but interior populations are also susceptible to r...

The red imported fire ant, Solenopsis invicta, is a South American native introduced in Alabama in the early 20th century. This predatory species has rapidly spread throughout the southeastern US and parts of the West Indies, inflicting great ecological and economic damage. For example, Solenopsis invicta is known to attack the eggs and hatchlings of ground nesting birds and reptiles. The ants swarm into the nests attacking hatchlings and diminishing their chance for survival. My thesis res...

In sea turtles, the study of the etiology and development of fibropapillomatosis is not fully understood. Sea turtle fibropapillomatosis is a disease characterized by the proliferation of skin fibropapillomas and occasional internal fibromas. In this study, sea turtle fibropapilloma tumor and healthy tissue samples were used to look at VEGF, BCL-2 and Bax expression. Cancer tumors have a well established pattern of protein expression that involves overexpression of vascular endothelial growth fa...

There are four distinct subpopulations of loggerhead sea turtles (Caretta caretta) in Florida as determined behaviorally by geographic fidelity, and genetically by mitochondrial haplotypes. The South Florida subpopulation consists of females nesting on the southeastern and southwestern coasts of Florida and their offspring. Previous research shows that west coast hatchlings exhibit higher levels of nocturnal swimming during the postfrenzy period than east coast hatchlings. This study attempted t...

The reproductive success of leatherback turtles (Dermochelys coriacea) is typically the lowest of the seven sea turtle species. Why this vital rate is decreased has remained unanswered for nearly a century. Recently, detailed postmortem examination of leatherback hatchlings identified muscular pathologies that suggested possible selenium deficiency. High bodily burdens of mercury compounds are associated with selenium depletion. Selenium is a necessary detoxifying nutrient that itself can be tox...

Marine turtles produce many offspring which offsets the high mortality experienced by turtles during early development. Juvenile mortality might be reduced by evolving effective behavioral as well as morphological anti-predator defenses. Body proportions of three species (Caretta caretta, Chelonia mydas, Dermochelys coriacea) of turtles were measured in the first fourteen weeks of development to examine how growth may mitigate predation by gape-limited predators. Growth was categorized as i...

Following nest emergence, sea turtle hatchling dispersal can be disrupted by artificial light or skyglow from urban areas. Mis- or disorientation increases exposure to predation, thermal stress, and dehydration, could consume valuable energy, and thus influence the likelihood of survival. This study utilized laboratory simulations of extended crawl distances and field observations to investigate the energy cost of disorientation crawling on loggerhead (Caretta caretta) and green (Chelonia m...

The tropical fire ant, Solenopsis geminata is a New World species with a wide native range including South America as well as several Caribbean islands. The red imported fire ant, Solenopsis invicta is native to parts of South America. Both species are known for preying on sea turtles’ eggs and hatchlings. The objectives of this thesis research were to conduct follow-up and baseline ant species distribution surveys on four sea turtle nesting beaches in St. Croix, U. S. Virgin Islands. Tuna ...

Nest predation can significantly reduce hatchling recruitment in sea turtle populations. This study uses 20 years of data from Canaveral National Seashore, Florida, which has pristine and altered beaches. Chi-square tests were used to determine if secondary predation events were related to the nest's primary depredation event. To determine if human beach use and nest predation are spatially or temporally linked, we ranked human beach use and examined predation frequency across all screened and m...

Loggerhead (Caretta caretta) and green (Chelonia mydas) turtles recruit to nearshore environments as juveniles. These often degraded habitats are associated with emerging diseases such as green turtle fibropapillomatosis (GTFP), however there are few studies on immune function in sea turtles. The objective of this research was to quantify phagocytosis of the innate immune system by flow cytometry and compare levels between animals from a degraded habitat (the Indian River Lagoon, FL) to a more...

This dissertation examined the natal origins, home-range, and in-situ foraging behavior of an aggregation of sub-adult hawksbill turtles (Eretmochelys imbricata) found off the coast of Palm Beach County, Florida. Surveys were conducted on approximately 30 linear km of reef between 15 and 30 m in depth. Tissue samples were retrieved from 112 turtles for mtDNA haplotype determination. GPS-linked satellite transmitters were deployed on six resident sub-adults, resulting in both minimum convex polyg...

Prevention of the corrosion of steel reinforcement embedded in concrete is a constant challenge in engineering. A study of concrete surface resistivity versus elevation of partially immersed reinforced concrete structures in a marine splash zone has been developed and correlations made between concrete quality and chloride diffusion, i.e., aggressive ion permeability. A conditioning procedure was developed in which the concrete moisture content is increased by direct contact with fresh water for...

Juvenile green turtle (Chelonia mydas) abundance differs among nearshore reefs, but why some sites are preferred over others is unknown. My study had two objectives: to quantify differences in abundance over time (one year) and to determine what ecological factors were correlated with those differences. I conducted quarterly surveys on reefs in Palm Beach and Broward Counties and compared reef sites with respect to (i) water depth, (ii) algal abundance and composition, and (iii) changes in ...

The sea anemone Aiptasia pallida is a biological model for anthozoan research. Like all cnidarians, A. pallida possesses nematocysts for food capture and defense. Studies have shown that anthozoans, such as corals, can rapidly increase nematocyst concentration when faced with competition or predation, suggesting that nematocyst production may be an induced trait. The potential effects of two types of tissue damage, predator induced (Lysmata wurdemanni) and artificial (forceps), on nematocys...

The photopollution of beaches caused by artificial light sources can interfere with sea turtle hatchlings' ability to orient properly towards the sea. Exhaustion due to extended disorientation crawling may then increase hatchling mortality. This study evaluated the energetic consequences of long-distance crawls in green and loggerhead sea turtle hatchlings. Turtles crawled for 200 m or 500 m on a treadmill, followed by a 30 minute evaluation of swim performance. Metabolic activity was quantified...

NORARIPIN BIN OTHMAN, 歐斯曼

碩士 / 國防大學 / 戰略研究所 / 107 / The rise of China in the 21st century has changed the United States‟ hedging strategy towards China, especially when describing its containment behavior in the South China Sea area. This scenario has caused direct competition between both superpower nations, which escalated maritime security challenges through continuous military presence. In the meantime, the political temperature in the South China Sea is showing no signs of lowering of late, owing to several develop...

Vancea, Alexandra

Carbonic anhydrases catalyze a central reaction in life – the inter-conversion between carbon dioxide and water. Consequently, there is an increasing interest in research in using carbonic anhydrases for industrial applications such as biofuel production and carbon capture, since current approaches for CO2 capturing are expensive, harsh and energy demanding. The proof of principle for using carbonic anhydrase in these applications for carbon fixation has been validated. However, the current know...

The polar regions of the world constitute an important sector in the global energy balance. Among other effects responsible for the change in the sea-ice cover like ocean circulation and ice-albedo feedback, the cloud-radiation feedback also plays a vital role in modulation of the Arctic environment. However the annual cycle of the clouds is very poorly represented in current global circulation models. This study aimed to explore the atmospheric conditions in the Arctic on an unprecedented spati...

An atmospheric model is coupled to a sea surface temperature algorithm that calculates the diurnal variability in order to understand the responses to near surface winds and boundary layer temperature, pressure, and moisture in the north Central Atlantic. 7-day case study simulations with diurnally varying sea surface temperatures and daily-constant sea surface temperatures are compared. With the inclusion of diurnal heating during the day, the local heat fluxes are increased and the surface pre...

The solution speciation and solid-phase suspended particulate fractionation of the trace metals Al, Mn, Fe, Co, Ni, Cu, Zn, Cd, and Pb were investigated in the Black Sea, the world's largest anoxic basin. Sequential filtration/ion-exchange and selective leaching techniques were developed for the determination of dissolved and solid-phase trace metal fractionation. Field measurements were compared with the results of a thermodynamic equilibrium model. The transition metals (Mn, Fe, and Co) were c...

As part of the Processes and Resources of the Bering Sea Shelf (PROBES) program, a vertical time dependent phytoplankton-zooplankton model was developed for application to the middle and outer shelf domains of the Southeast Bering Sea Shelf. The model included two phytoplankton groups and four zooplankton groups. Use of two phytoplankton groups allowed the inclusion of phytoplankton with different uptake rates, nutrient requirements, sinking rates, and grazing pressures. All four zooplankton gro...

Worldwide, sea turtles are especially vulnerable immediately after emerging from nests. Many monitoring programs measure hatchling production from nest inventories. These inventories rarely account for mortality occurring post-emergence, leaving an incomplete estimate of hatchling production. This study addresses the nest-to-surf data gap for Florida’s east coast nesting assemblages of loggerhead sea turtles (Caretta caretta). Five locations were surveyed during the 2016 nesting season by u...