Kategoria BISAC: Nature >> Animals - Marine Life

The aim of this book is to discuss practically useful (operational) bioindicators for sustainable coastal management, criteria for coastal area sensitivity to eutrophication and an approach set a "biological value" of coastal areas. These bioindicators should meet defined criteria for practical usefulness, e.g., they should be simple to understand and apply to managers and scientists with different educational backgrounds. Central aspects for this book concern effect-load-sensitivity analyses. One and the same nutrient loading may cause different effects in coastal areas of different...

For many years the reduction of eutrophication in the Baltic Sea has been a hot issue for mass-media, science, political parties and environmental action groups with manifold implications related to fisheries (will the Baltic cod survive?), sustainable coastal development (have billions of Euros been wasted on nitrogen reductions?), ecotoxicology (can we safely eat Baltic fish?). This book takes a holistic process-based ecosystem perspective on the eutrophication in the Baltic Sea, with a focus on the factors regulating how the system would respond to changes in nutrient loading. This...

Organotin compounds, used as antifouling biocides since 1960, are chemical compounds that act as endocrine disrupters. It is not known how organotin compounds cause hormone disturbance, however, and many questions remain about their effect on aquatic organisms. Studies on organotin compounds have recently evolved, with many new findings reported. Following a worldwide ban on organotin compounds in 2008, alternative compounds will mainly be used, with the potential for coastal areas to become contaminated, causing, among other effects, cholinesterase inhibition in aquatic organisms. Use of...

Do real stem cells and stem cell lineages exist in lower organisms? Can stem cells from one organism parasitize the soma and/or the germ line of conspecifics? Can differentiated cells in marine organisms be re-programmed to regenerate tissues, organs and appendages through novel de-differentiation, transdifferentiation, or re-differentiation processes, leading to virtually all three germ layers, including the germline? The positive answers to above questions open a new avenue in stem cell research: the biology of stem cells in marine organisms. It is therefore unfortunate that while the...

Like many coral specialists fifteen years ago, J. E. N. Veron thought Australia's Great Barrier Reef was impervious to climate change. "Owned by a prosperous country and accorded the protection it deserves, it would surely not go the way of the Amazon rain forest or the parklands of Africa, but would endure forever. That is what I thought once, but I think it no longer." This book is Veron's Silent Spring for the world's coral reefs.

Veron presents the geological history of the reef, the biology of coral reef ecosystems, and a primer on what we know about climate change. He...