Category Archives: Geography

Do Animals ‘Drink’ Intentionally?

Posted on January 23, 2015 by TheMorningTomatoReport

A link to the following article was in my mail yesterday.  The article is interesting however, I don’t think it really gets at what might be underlying causes of birds imbibing a little too much or a little too frequently….

James MacDonald.  2014.  When Birds Drink Too Much.  JSTOR Daily, January 1,4 2015.

 

There are two articles cited by the above mini-article.  I think that they are important and can be read online without any extra cost.

Frank Wiens, Annette Zitzmann, Marc-Andre Lachance, Michel Yegles, Fritz Pragst, Friedrich M. Wurst, Dietrich von Holst, Saw Leng Guan, and Rainer Spanagel.  2008.  Chronic intake of fermented floral nectar by wild treeshrews.  PNAS, Volume 105, No. 30, pages 10426-10431.

S.D. Fitzgerald, J.M. Sullivan and R.J. Everson.  1990.  Suspected Ethanol Toxicosis in Two Wild Cedar Waxwings.  Avian Diseases, Volume 34, No. 2, (Apr. – Jun., 1990), pages 488-490.

 

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Treeshrews?  Waxwings?

Eberhard Fuchs and Silke Cobach-Sohle.  2010.  Tree shrews in The UFAW handbook on the care and management of laboratory and other research animals, 8th ed. Oxford, UK:  Wiley-Blackwell, pages 262-275.

Loren S. Putnam.  1949.  The Life History of the Cedar Waxwing.  The Wilson Bulletin, pages 141-182.

 

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My thoughts on this are going towards the caloric intake in fruits and berries that are fermented or are in the process of fermenting.  It seems to me that it might be higher than when the fruits and berries have just freshly ripened.

Eva M. Sehub,Alan C. Logan, and Alison C. Bested.  2014.  Fermented foods, microbiota, and mental health:  ancient practice meets nutritional psychiatry.  Journal of Physiological Anthropology.  Article 332.

 

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Is it just the birds or do other creatures like a little drink now and then too?

Cheryl D. Knott.  1998.  Changes in Orangutan Caloric Intake, Energy Balance, and Ketones in Response to Fluctuating Fruit Availability.  International Journal of Primatology.  Volume 19, No. 6, pages 1061

 

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Reading a bit further and another thought occurred to me!  Higher caloric intake for wildlife, just before winter sets in, would be useful for survival.  Putting on a little weight to get through the cold dark nights.  Can the fermentation of fruits provide other contributions to survival?

James O. Vafidis, Ian P. Vaughan, T. Hefin Jones, Richard J. Facey, Rob Parry, Robert J. Thomas.  2014.  Habitat Use and Body Mass Regulation among Warblers in the Sahel Region during the Non-Breeding Season.  PLOS One.  doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0113665

Mark C. Witmer.  1996.  Annual Diet of Cedar Waxwings Based on U.S. Biological Survey Records (1885-1950) Compared to Diet of American Robins:  Contrasts in Dietary Patterns and Natural History.  The Auk.  Volume 113, No. 2, Pages 414-430.

 

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So, if the intoxicating fruits and berries are a good thing, why are some birds overdoing it?  Now?  Could it be that there is less competition for these yummy morsels?  Fewer birds equals more party favours?

Jennifer A. Howard.  2014.  The Lesser Coverts of Game Birds.  Booth, Volume 6, No. 2, Page 1-2.

Probably not the best answer to my question but, a very good short story!  One that has me thinking a bit further off-track than usual.  I will come back to this story for another post.

 

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And then, there are people….

Laren Cordain, S. Boyd Eaton, Anthony Sebastian, Neil Mann, Staffan Lindeberg, Bruce A Watkins, James H. O’Keefe, and Janette Brand-Miller.  2005.  Origins and evolution of the Western diet:  health implications for the 21st century.  The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.  Volume 81, pages 341-354.

Manas Ranjan Swain, Marimuthu Anandharaj, Ramesh Chandra Ray, and Rizwana parveen Rani.  2014.  Fermented Fruits and Vegetables of Asia:  A Potential Source of Probiotics.  Hindawi Publishing Corporation Biotechnology Research International.  http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2014/250424

 

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And, because we can think of other things to do with ethanol products…

Veeranjaneya Reddy Lebaka, Hwa-Won Ryu, and Young-Jung Wee.  2014.  Effect of fruit pulp supplementation on rapid and enhanced ethanol production in very high gravity (VHG) fermentation.  SpringerLink.  doi:  10.1186/s40643-014-0022-8

 

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And thinking along these lines… maybe we need to look at chronic diseases that may have some beginning in the foods that are available to us now as well as those that we choose to eat a lot of and, without competition, possibly eat a little too regularly – much like the small woodland creatures and birds in the first few articles.

Your thoughts are important to me and to continuing this as a discussion.  Please comment….

 

 

 

 

 

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Mangrove Forests….

Posted on January 18, 2015 by TheMorningTomatoReport

I just found a wonderful and interactive site!  Well, this isn’t just a site, this is a database and, it is worth a visit….

http://mangroves.elaw.org/map

 

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Now, I tried to put the following into my own words but, it is so perfectly written that I have copied and pasted it here for you:

“A Case for Mangroves
The approximately 70 distinct species of mangroves in the world cover roughly 17,000,000 hectares globally (Valiela et al.  2001) – only 0.12 percent of the Earth’s surface (Sullivan 2005, Ellison 2008).  The greatest diversity is in Southeast Asia (36-46 species); the lowest diversity is in the United States and the Middle East (1-3 species) (Polidoro et al.  2010).  Mangroves are being cut down or otherwise destroyed at such a high rate that they may be functionally extinct by 2100 (Duke et al.  2007).  In just the last 50 years, 30-50 percent of the global acreage has been lost.  (Alongi 2002, Duke et al. 2007)  Mangroves are among the most valuable and most threatened ecosystems on Earth.  The ecosystems services they provide—e.g., buffering coastal communities against flooding and storms, fiber production, habitat for thousands of species of birds, mammals and marine species—are estimated to be worth US $1.6 billion dollars/year (Polidoro et al.  2010).  In addition, recent evidence suggests that mangroves sequester carbon more effectively than any other tropical forest (Donato et al.  2011).”

This is important!

 

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There are 65 of the most influential papers on mangroves and mangrove forests listed on this site.  All are worth reading but, we don’t all have that much time….

If there is a paper that you feel is missing, please add it in the comments below.  I look forward to hearing from you.

 

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An Oilspill on December 15th, 2014 in the World’s Largest Mangrove Forest. Why isn’t this on the news?

Posted on December 21, 2014 by TheMorningTomatoReport

The oilspill in the Sundarbans National Park seems to have been all but ignored by world news services.  I heard about it on a blog, SkyTruth, and decided that there must be information out there that would help me to understand the area, the damage, and the responsibility.

There is.  There is a lot out there to read!  Scientists and other concerned people have been writing about pollution, oil spills and clean-ups for a very long time.

Here is some of what I have been reading as well as some of what I will be reading:

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The Sundarbans National Park – A UNESCO Heritage Site

The Sundarbans is an area composed of rivers, some arable land and the largest mangrove forest on earth.  It is also home to some of the poorest people on earth.  There is no industry here.  There are no resource friendly alternatives to illegal fishing and hunting.  There are no jobs.  This is an area where caste restricts choices.

Abhiroop Chowdhury and Subodh Kumar Maiti.  2014.  Mangrove Reforestation through Participation of Vulnerable Population:  Engineering a Sustainable Management Solution for Resource Conservation.  International Journal of Environmental Research and Development, Vol 4, No 1, pp. 1-8.  Link

There is a novel that depicts the Sundarbans as treacherous with humans holding on to a tenuous existence in the presence of an untamed nature.  (The Hungry Tide by Amitav Ghosh, 2005.)  Even the islands that dot the waterways are not constant but change, grow, disappear and reappear with seasons and storms.

Louise Squire.  2014. The Thoughts in our Head: A World.  Alluvium, Vol. 3, No. 1.  Link

Huma Yaqub.  2014.  Tides of Change Breaking against the World of Sundarbans:  A Study of Amitav Ghosh’s The Hungry Tide.  International Journal of English Language, Literature and Humanities, Vol. II, Issue V, pages 104-113.  Link

Mangrove Forests:

Ken W. Krauss, Karen L. McKee, Catherine E. Lovelock, Donald R. Cahoon, Neil Saintilan, Ruth Reef, and Luzehn Chen.  2013.  How mangrove forests adjust to rising sea level.  New Phytologist, doi:  10.1111/nph.12605  Link

Daniel M. Alongi.  2008.  Mangrove forests:  Resilience, protection from tsunamis, and responses to global climate change.  Estuarine Coastal and Shelf Science, Vol. 76. pages 1-13.  Link

Kandasamy Kathiresan and Narayanasamy Rajendran.  2005.  Coastal mangrove forests mitigated tsunami.  Estuarine Coastal and Shelf Science Vol. 65, pages 601-606.  Link

Daniel M. Alongi.  2002.  Present state and future of the world’s mangrove forests.  Environmental Conservation, Vol. 29, No. 3, pages 331-349.  Link

Ivan Valiela, Jennifer L. Bowen, and Joanna K. York.  2001.  Mangrove Forests:  One of the World’s Threatened Major Tropical Environments.  BioScience, Vol. 51, No. 10, pages 807-815.  Link

Tigers:

Chloe Inskip, Zubair Fahad, Rowan Tully, Thomas Roberts, and Douglas MacMillan.  2014. Understanding carnivore killing behaviour: Exploring the motivations for tiger killing in the Sundarbans, Bangladesh.  Biological Conservation, 180, pages 42-50.  Link

Chandan Kumar Mondal, Bholanath Mondal, and Debashis Sarkar.  2014.  Study on Utility and Revival through Community approach in Sundarbans Mangrove.  International Journal of Social Science, Vol. 3, No. 2, pages 191-203.  Link

R. Mani Murali, P.J. Vidya, Poonam Modi, and Seelam Jaya Kumar.  2014.  Site selection for offshore wind farms along the Indian coast.  Indian Journal of Marine Sciences.  Vol. 43(7).  Link

Dolphins:

B.E. Smith, G. Braulik, S. Strindberg, R. Mansur, M.A.A. Diyan, and B.Ahmed.  2012.  Habitat selection of freshwater-dependent cetaceans and the potential effects of declining freshwater flows and sea-level rise in waterways of the Sundarbans mangrove forest, Bangladesh.  Aquatic Conservation:  Marine and Freshwater Ecosystems, Vol 19, pages 209-225.  Link 

Ram Boojh.  2014.  Ensuring Sustainability of Wetlands in the Global Context, in International Conference on Lakes & Wetlands:  Bhopal, India.  Link

UNESCO World Heritage Sites:

This Link will take you to a map of all of the UNESCO World Heritage Sites.  Just point and click or, search for the Sundarbans.  Link

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How did we find out about this spill?  Satellite images!  I would like to find something a little more current but, for now this is interesting….

Mervin F. Fingas and Carl E. Brown.  2000.  Review of Oil Spill Remote Sensing.  Emergencies Science Division, Environment Canada.  Environmental Technology Centre, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.  Link

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What have we learned and what do we do?  Whatever it is, we must do it carefully and with thought for the future….

Luis A. Soto, Alfonso V. Botello, Sergio Licea-Duran, Marcial L. Liarraga-Partida, and Alejandro Yanez-Arancibia.  2014.  The environmental legacy of the Ixtoc-I oil spill in Campeche Sound, southwestern Gulf of Mexico.  Frontiers in Marine Science, Vol. 1, Art. 57, pages 1-9.  Link

Naomi Klein.  2014.  Chapter 13: The Right to Regenerate.  In, This Changes Everything:  Capitalism vs. The Climate:  Canada:  Alfred A. Knopf.  Pages 419-448.  Link

Dagmar Schmidt Etkin.  2000.  Worldwide Analysis of Marine Oil Spill Cleanup Cost Factors.  Presented at:  Arctic and Marine Oilspill Program Technical Seminar.  Link

S.R. Pezeshki, M.W. Hester, Q. Lin, and J.A. Nyman.  1999.  The effects of oil spill and clean-up on dominant US Gulf coast marsh macrophytes:  a review.  Environmental Pollution 108, pp. 129-139.  Link

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Where does the information in these papers come from?  Research!  Research by the authors of these papers and by researchers and authors before them.  A selected bibliography is here (this will be a large file!):  Soon….

 

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Added on February 8, 2015.

A collected bibliography, most gathered from the above articles but not all, for you to peruse.  Possibly, this bibliography could be called ‘second generation’ as it provided the writers of the above research papers with documented research that they could use and further….

Reading List – Blog Post Dec 21, 2014

This document is fairly long.  There is a lot of good information in there, research and writing by many very qualified science specialists and others…..  I began to put links in to the articles in this list but, there are just too many.  If you have trouble finding anything on this list just leave a comment below I would be more than happy to take a look and see if I can help.

 

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Are Barrier Islands Worth Protecting? What Makes This Type of Island Special?

Posted on December 6, 2014 by TheMorningTomatoReport

Barrier islands are islands that form a barrier between open water and a larger body of land.  They form a “first defense” of protection from sea born storms such as hurricanes.  They protect the mainland against unceasing tidal action and waves.  They are breeding and nesting grounds for numerous vertebrates and invertebrates.  They form some of the loveliest places, visually, on this planet.  But, are they special?  When they are in trouble, are they worth saving?

Cat Islands, Mississippi Delta

I may or may not agree with what is in the following articles but, every one of these articles is important.  I have arranged them in chronological order.  My choices have taken into account the inclusions of maps and photographs (it is an easy way to compare today with yesterday).  I hope that you open one or two (or all) of them.  These research papers are more than just interesting and they are worth a browse through….

A blog worth browsing!  SkyTruth  Last Chance for Cat Island?

 

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The following are links to grey papers, peer-reviewed articles and book chapters.  Together, these publications form a body of work that is more than just interesting, it is historical and most are scientific in their approach to finding out answers to questions about things like barrier islands and what they do for this planet.

 

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Thesis:  Quantifying the Impact of Hurricanes, Mid-Latitude Cyclones and other Weather and Climate Extreme Events on the Mississippi-Alabama Barrier Islands Using Remotely Sensed Data.  pdf

Author:  Rebekah Jones

Published in:  2014

Thesis:  Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College, Department of Geography and Anthropology.

My copy was downloaded in December, 2014.  I found it here

Click to access text2.pdf

 

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Chapter:  Hurricane Katrina, the Role of US National Parks on the Northern Gulf of Mexico and Post Storm Wetland Restoration.  pdf

Author:  Mark Ford.  National Park Service Southeast Regional Office, New Orleans, LA.

Book:  Safe Havens:  Protected Areas for Disaster Risk Reduction and Climate Change Adaptation.  Edited by Radhika Murti and Camille Buyck.

My copy was downloaded in December, 2014.  I found it here

http://admin.indiaenvironmentportal.org.in/files/file/Safe%20Havens.pdf#page=155

This is Chapter 16.  The book is worth finding!

 

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Article:  Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill.  link

Author:  Cutler J. Cleveland, (ed. Peter Saundry

Published in:  The Encyclopedia of the Earth

Published on:  December 5, 2010 and updated on February 22, 2013

My copy was downloaded in December, 2014.  I found it here

http://www.eoearth.org/view/article/51cbf0267896bb431f6a0797/

 

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Article:  What are Barrier Islands Worth?  Estimates of Willingness to Pay for Restoration.  pdf

Authors:

Published in:  2009

Journal:  Marine Resource Economics (link), Vol. 24, pages 131-146.

My copy was downloaded in December, 2014.  I found it here

http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1889277

 

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Article:  Geomorphologic Evolution of Barrier Islands along the Northern U.S. Guld of Mexico and Implications for Engineering Design in Barrier Restoration.  pdf

Authors:

  • Julie Dean Rosati, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Research and Development Center (Publications)
  • Gregory W. Stone, Louisiana State University (Publications)

Published in:  January 2009

Journal:  Journal of Coastal Research (link), Vol. 25, No. 1, pages 8-22.

My copy was downloaded in December, 2014.  I found it here

Click to access JCRv25-1_Rosati_Stone.pdf

 

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Article:  Historical Changes in the Mississippi-Alabama Barrier-Island Chain and the Roles of Extreme Storms, Sea Level, and Human Activities.  pdf

Author:  Robert A. Morton, U.S. Geological Survey

Published in: November 2008.

Journal:  Journal of Coastal Research (link), Vol. 24, No. 6, pages 1587-1600.

My copy was downloaded in December, 2014.  I found it here

Click to access historical.changes.in.the.MS.AL.barrier.islands.pdf

 

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Article:  Hurricane Katrina Storm Surge Distribution and Field Observations on the Mississippi Barrier Islands.  pdf

Authors:

  • Hermann M. Fritz, School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology (publications)
  • Chris Blount, School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology
  • Robert Sokoloski, School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology
  • Justin Singleton, School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology
  • Andrew Fuggle, School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology
  • Brian G. McAdoo, Department of Geology and Geography, Vassar College (publications)
  • Andrew Moore, Department of Geology, Kent State University (publications)
  • Chad Grass, School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology
  • Banks Tate, School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology (Publications)

Published in:  2007

Journal:  Estuarine Coastal and Shelf Science (link), 2007, pages 1-9.

My copy was downloaded in December, 2014.  I found it here

Click to access ECSS_HurricaneKatrina_Fz.pdf

 

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Article:  National Assessment of Shoreline Change:  Part 1 Historical Shoreline Changes and Associated Coastal Land Loss Along the U.S. Gulf of Mexico.  pdf

Authors:

  • Robert A. Morton
  • Tara L. Miller
  • Laura J. Moore (publications)

Published in:  2004

Journal:  USGS:  Science for a Changing World, Open File Report 2004-1043

My copy was downloaded in December, 2014.  I found it here

http://pubs.usgs.gov/of/2004/1043/

Just a quick note.  The front cover of this report is stamped “Distribution Unlimited.”  There are publishing companies who want to charge to let you see this.  It is available for free, just a bit tricky to find….

 

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Article:  Land Loss Rates:  Mississippi River Deltaic Plain.  pdf

Authors:

  • Louis D. Britsch, Geotechnical Laboratory, Department of the Army
  • E. Burton Kemp III, US Army Engineer District, New Orleans

Published in:  April 1990

Publisher:  U.S. Army Engineer Waterways Experiment Station

My copy was downloaded in December, 2014.  I found it by using a Google Scholar Search

If this article is not showing in the link, try copying and pasting the full title (Land Loss Rates: Mississippi River Deltaic Plain) into a search box on your browser.  This is a wonderful publication for photographs!

 

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Article:  The Flank Margin Model for Dissolution Cave Development in Carbonate Platforms.  pdf

Authors:

  • John E. Mylroie, Department of Geology and Geography, Mississippi State University (publications)
  • James L. Carew, Department of Geology, The College of Charleston, Charleston, South Carolina

Published in:  1990

Journal:  Earth Surface Processes and Landforms, Vol. 15, pages 413-424.

My copy was downloaded in December, 2014.  I found it here

Click to access Mylroie_Carew_1990_ESPL%20flank%20margin%20caves.pdf

 

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Chapter:  Sediments of the Eastern Mississippi Delta.  pdf

Author:  P.C. Scruton

Book information:  Finding Ancient Shorelines, edited by Jack L. Hough and Henry W. Menard.  Published by SEPM Society for Sedimentary Geology.  1955

My copy of this chapter was downloaded in December, 2014.  I found it here

Click to access SEC2.body.pdf

 

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