Temporal Trends

This paper presents certain characteristics of trends in rainfall erosivity density (ED), that have not been so far investigated in depth in the current literature. Global warming is expected to increase the intensity of rainfall in Europe and consequently to increase the soil erosion rates. This potential may have a significant impact, especially on Greece, which is inflicted by the phenomenon of desertification. Raw pluviograph data were acquired from the Greek National Bank of Hydrological and Meteorological Information for 108 stations. Precipitation time series values were cleared from noise and errors and the ratio of missing values was computed. Erosive rainfalls were identified, their return period was determined using Intensity–Duration–Frequency (IDF) curves and erosivity values were computed. A Monte Carlo method was utilized to assess the impact of missing values ratio to the computation of annual erosivity (R) and ED values. It was found that the R values are underestimated in a linear way, while ED is more robust against the presence of missing precipitation values. Indicatively, the R values are underestimated by 49%, when only 50% of the erosive rainfall events are used while at the same time the estimation error of ED is 20%. Using predefined quality criteria for coverage and time length a subset of 18 stations was selected. Their annual ED values, as well as the samples' autocorrelation and partial autocorrelation functions were computed, in order to investigate the presence of stochastic trends. Subsequently, Kendall's Tau was used in order to yield a measure of the monotonic relationship between annual ED values and time. Finally, the hypothesis that ED values are affected by elevation was tested. In conclusion: a) it is suggested to compute ED for the assessment of erosivity in Greece instead of the direct computation of R, b) stationarity of ED was found for the majority of the selected stations, in contrast to reported precipitation trends for the same time period and c) the hypothesis that ED values are not correlated to elevation could not be rejected.

Since 1969, northern gannet (Morus bassanus) eggs from Bonaventure Island, Québec, have been collected to monitor concentrations of contaminants. Levels of p,p'-DDE, which caused low breeding success of Bonaventure gannets in the 1960s, decreased by 99.4% from 1969 to 2009 (17.1-0.1 mg/kg ww), with concomitant improvement of hatching success. PCBs, most organochlorines and mercury also showed decreasing trends. Stable isotopes of carbon (δ(13)C) and nitrogen (δ(15)N) were measured to track the possible influence of diet changes on concentrations of contaminants over time. The confounding effect of the combustion of fossil fuels on baseline values of δ(13)C (the Suess effect) was taken into account. No temporal trends were observed in δ(13)C and δ(15)N values in gannet eggs. Hence trophic level or foraging area had a negligible influence on temporal trends of contaminants.

Every five years, starting in 1979, the Canadian Wildlife Service has monitored the population trend of the three Northern Gannet colonies in Quebec, as well as monitoring breeding success at the largest gannet colony, which is located on Bonaventure Island. Data on diet have also been gathered in an opportunistic way at Bonaventure Island. The size of the Northern Gannet population grew constantly from 1976 to 2009, and is currently at a high level at nearly 90 000 breeding pairs. Breeding success at Bonaventure Island remained high throughout this period, except in 2009, when it fell below the threshold value required for the long-term maintenance of the colony. Mackerel is the mainstay of the diet of Northern Gannets on Bonaventure Island, but Capelin and herring can be important early and late in the breeding period, as important seasonal variations are observed. Since 1969, Northern Gannet eggs from Bonaventure Island have been collected to monitor levels of contaminants. Level...

To cite this article: Stephen J. Merrill, Madhan Subramanian & Dianne E. Godar (2016) Worldwide cutaneous malignant melanoma incidences analyzed by sex, age, and skin type over time (1955–2007): Is HPV infection of androgenic hair follicular melanocytes a risk factor for developing melanoma exclusively in people of European-ancestry?, Dermato-Endocrinology, 8:1, e1215391,

This study examines changes in the cross-sectional distribution of cortical bone in the humeral and femoral mid-shaft in a sample of 83 humeri and 88 femuri pertaining to individuals of male sex and adult age, comprised chronological arc from Neolithic Ancient to the Modern Age, and recovered during archaeological digs in cemeteries of Puglia (south Italy). Significant changes occur between the Neolithic periods and the others, and we recognize a temporal trend with a increase of physical labor and a decrease of nutritional status, from neolithic to Modern Age.

Long-term studies are those studies with a longer duration than usual in its topic. They have been essential in ecology to understand the ecological processes that happen in long temporal scales, to determine how general is a pattern emerging from a punctual finding, and to connect cause and effect in biological processes happening with some time lag. Most of ecologists agree about the scientific relevance of long-term studies, but they seldom carry out them (0.3% of published studies). The main handicap is to keep continuous funding during a long time because funding and evaluation system of science is based on short periods. However, there are opportunities to develop long-term studies with available data yet, such as monitoring programs of protected areas or threatened species, museum collections, hunting bags, fisheries or citizen sciences projects; although we will need to keep in mind that those data were not gathered with a long-term aim and this fact may constrain soundness of our conclusions. In spite of the fact that behavioral ecology is a young discipline in Spain, there are already some notable examples of long-term studies. For instance, it has been demonstrated that birds and insects are changing their life cycles in response to climate change and these changes can be leading to phenological mismatchings with the trophic levels in which they rely on. Marking and monitoring of the same individuals along years in the host-parasite system of magpies and cuckoos demonstrated that magpies learn to protect themselves against parasites, while have an inflexible reproductive phenology unable to adapt to environmental variation. Individual-based monitoring of black kites showed the effect of senescence and learning in migratory behavior, breeding territory acquisition, and fitness changes along the life of these birds. Similar results were found for other long-lived birds such as white storks, gulls or storm petrels. Individual marking has allowed building complete pedigrees in bird populations using nest boxes for breeding. Such pedigrees have been essential to understand heritability of several coloration traits of plumage directly linked to the phenotypic individual quality.

Keywords: animal models; individual-based monitoring; microevolution; phenotypic plasticity; replication; temporal trends.