Ecological factors such as changing climate on land and interspecific competition have been debated as possible causes of postglacial Caribbean extinction. These hypotheses, however, have not been tested against a null model of climate-driven postglacial area loss. Here, we use a new Quaternary mammal database and deep-sea bathymetry to estimate species-area relationships (SARs) at present and ...

and its tourist industry, a new report, commissioned by the UN Development Programme, with British and Caribbean partners, highlights the threat to other tropical islands. Released at the Cancún meeting, it estimates in detail the impacts of rising sea level on the 15 member Caribbean states of the Caricom regional community. While many of the islands are mountainous, the report highlights that...

The mesopelagic calanoid copepod Gaussia princeps (Scott, 1894) was originally described from the eastern Atlantic. It has been recorded in tropical and subtropical latitudes of the world, but has been reported only occasionally from the northwestern tropical Atlantic (NWTA). Comparative morphological studies, particularly of males, have not included specimens from the NWTA. Based on a collecti...

Monticellius indicum Mehra, 1939, is redescribed from the heart of green sea turtles (Chelonia mydas) at Tortuguero National Park, Caribbean coast of Costa Rica. Of the 40 green turtles examined, only 5 (12.5%) were infected with a mean intensity of 1.6. Our specimens are consistent with the original description based on a single fluke from the heart of the same host species in the Arabian Sea,...

As charismatic mega-fauna, sea turtles attract many volunteers to conservation programs. This article examines the ways in which volunteers value sea turtles, in the specific context of volunteers working with the Caribbean Conservation Corporation, at Tortuguero, Costa Rica. The complexity of volunteer values is explored using a qualitative approach. In-depth interviews with 31 volunteers were...

[1] The distribution of radiocarbon during simulations of the Last Glacial Maximum with a coupled oceanatmosphere-sea ice model is compared with sediment core measurements from the equatorial Atlantic Ceara Rise, Blake Ridge, Caribbean Sea, and South China Sea. During these simulations we introduce a perturbation of North Atlantic freshwater fluxes leading to varying strengths of the Atlantic m...

Symbioses between Bacteria, Archaea, and Eukarya in deep-sea marine environments represent a means for eukaryotes to exploit otherwise inhospitable habitats. Such symbioses are abundant in many low-oxygen benthic marine environments, where the majority of microbial eukaryotes contain prokaryotic symbionts. Here, we present evidence suggesting that in certain oxygen-depleted marine water-column ...

Populations of the common sea fan (Gorgonia ventalina) were decimated by an aspergillosis outbreak throughout the Caribbean two decades ago. Since then, aspergillosis has been considered as the principal cause of mortality in sea fans. However, prevalence and presumably incidence of this disease have been declining in the Caribbean since the mid 1990s. Incidence indicates new cases of disease i...