Bibliographic and data gathered in scientific bottom trawl surveys carried out off the Southern Coasts of Sicily (Mediterranean Sea), from 1994 to 2009 and between a depth of 10 and 800 m, were analysed in order to prepare a checklist of demersal sharks and chimaera, which are species sensitive to fisheries exploitation. Out of the 27 previously reported demersal shark and chimaera taxa in the ...

Franciscana dolphins were used as source of information on the bioavailability of cadmium in the neritic waters off South Brazilian Coast. Liver samples obtained from 44 individuals incidentally captured off Rio Grande do Sul State were analyzed by electrothermal AAS. Cadmium concentrations, age, total weight and length of the analyzed dolphins varied between 39 and 4144 μg.kg (wet weight), one...

[1] Core top samples from Indonesian and northeast Atlantic depth transects were used to calibrate Mg/Ca and dO in tests of the calcitic benthic foraminifer Hyalinea balthica to bottom water temperature between 4°C and 13°C. This shallow infaunal species is primarily abundant in neritic to upper bathyal sediments (<600 m). Both linear and exponential calibrations suggest a temperature sensitivi...

Physonect siphonophores are colonial cnidarians that are pervasive predators in many neritic and oceanic ecosystems. Physonects employ multiple, clonal medusan individuals, termed nectophores, to propel an aggregate colony. Here we show that developmental differences between clonal nectophores of the physonect Nanomia bijuga produce a division of labour in thrust and torque production that cont...

During the Neogene, Betic Strait was one of gateways that connected Atlantic Ocean and Mediterranean Sea. In this paper, we have analyzed ostracod faunas samples collected from sediments crossed by a long borehole in southwestern Spain. These were deposited strait just before Messinian Salinity Crisis. middle (6.8-6.0 Ma), scarce low diversified assemblages (Krithe, Parakrithe, Henryhowella) ar...

Studies of the effects of the Central American Seaway’s closure on microfossil taxa and stable isotopes of foraminifera previously addressed the timing of emplacement of the Caribbean–tropical eastern Pacific sill, changes in marine nutrients, evolutionary and paleobiogeographic events associated with closure, and rates of uplift in Central America. However, there have been no quantitative stud...