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"Paria"
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Benthic foraminiferal biogeography in the southeast Caribbean Sea
The SE Caribbean Sea is not ubiquitously oligotrophic. It is subject to the Caribbean Current, which is an extension of the Guiana Current and flows NW across the sea. It is also impacted by outflow from the Orinoco River, which produces a hypopycnal plume that is transported across the sea by the Caribbean Current, and by local upwelling, which occurs at distinct focuses. This paper uses non-metric multidimensional scaling (NMDS) to examine the impact of this oceanographic complexity on the distributions, based on species presence/absence, of neritic to upper bathyal benthic foraminifera. Sites within the ambit of the Orinoco Plume (Orinoco offshore, Trinidad East Coast Marine Area [ECMA], Trinidad North Coast Marine Area [NCMA), offshore NW Tobago, Bequia) are closely grouped by NMDS, despite the NCMA being subject to minor upwelling and Bequia only seasonally laying within the plume. The Paria and Araya Peninsula areas, though geographically close and both subject to upwelling, do not cluster closely. This indicates that the two upwelling focuses induced some biogeographic separation. The Isla La Tortuga, being bathed with oligotrophic water, plotted far from the eutrophic Orinoco Plume sites. The upwelling Paria Peninsula site, adjacent to the Orinoco Plume, yielded seventeen species of Bolivina (the greatest species richness for this genus of any of our sites), whereas Isla La Tortuga yielded only four. The Trinidad NCMA, likewise a site of upwelling, presented the second highest number of species of Bolivina, yielding twelve. That the Plataforma Deltana site plotted far from all others reflects its bathyal position beyond the Orinoco Plume.
Journal Article
A new species of Astronotus (Teleostei, Cichlidae) from the Orinoco River and Gulf of Paria basins, northern South America
Based on morphological and molecular analysis of Astronotus species, a new species is described from the Orinoco River and Gulf of Paria basins in Venezuela and Colombia. Morphologically, it differs from Astronotus crassipinnis and Astronotus ocellatus in pre-orbital depth, caudal peduncle depth, head width, and caudal peduncle length, with significant differences in average percentage values. Osteologically, it differs from the two described species by lacking a hypurapophysis on the parahypural bone (hypural complex) and having two or three supraneural bones. Another characteristic that helps diagnose the new species is the morphology of the sagitta otolith, which is oval with crenulated dorsal and ventral margins and a rounded posterior edge. Genetically, the new species is distinct from all the other lineages previously proposed for the genus, delimited by five single locus species delimitation methods, and also has unique diagnostic nucleotides. Phylogenetic analyses support the monophyly of the new species as well as all other species/lineages. Astronotus species have considerable genetic, anatomical, and sagitta otolith shape differences, but have few significant traditional morphometric and meristic differences, because there is high variability in counts of spines, soft dorsal-fin rays, and lateral-line scales. It is clear that this new species is genetically and anatomically differentiated from all other species within the genus, and deserves recognition as a new valid species.
Journal Article
Preliminary analysis of microplastics from the main continental nesting beach of the hawksbill sea turtle (Eretmochelys imbricata) in Venezuela
Microplastics are an increasing threat to marine fauna and oceanic habitats, potentially affecting sea turtle nesting beaches. Hawksbill sea turtles (Eretmochelys imbricata) are a Critically Endangered species with decreasing population trends. There are several hawksbill rookeries in the southern Caribbean Sea, particularly on Los Garzos Beach, the main nesting site of continental Venezuela. A preliminary physical analysis of microplastics sampled from 10 sites on Los Garzos Beach reported high numbers (94 ± 2.5 items) of 14 different materials and colors. Microplastic counts at 10 sites averaged 1504 ± 405.61 items m-2, higher than other sea turtle nesting sites worldwide. There were no statistical differences in the concentration of microplastics at the sampled sites of Los Garzos Beach. However, the concentration of microplastics on this beach is higher at the midpoint of the falling tide (3520 ± 405.61 items m-2) and the top of the sea turtle nesting area (3840 ± 405.61 items m-2). We speculate that this debris could harm the nesting environment of hawksbill sea turtles in the region. While this study presents preliminary values for microplastics in an important hawksbill turtle nesting beach in Venezuela, it also serves as a baseline for long-term studies that can help determine the impact and sources of plastic pollution in sea turtle rookeries.
Journal Article
Scent of a frog: Can conservation detection dogs be used to locate endangered amphibians in the wild?
In recent years, the potential to locate endangered animals using scent trained detection dogs (conservation detection dogs) has gained attention. Among vertebrates, conservation detection dogs have demonstrated a remarkable capacity to detect the scent of endangered mammals, reptiles, and birds, but their use in detecting amphibians is only beginning to be explored. A lack of work in this area is surprising given that amphibians are declining faster than any other vertebrate taxa. Moreover, amphibians are generally small, highly cryptic and breed in complex habitats, making them difficult to locate for the purpose of monitoring or establishing conservation breeding programs. This study aimed to provide a preliminary investigation into whether conservation detection dogs can be imprinted on the scent of the critically endangered Baw Baw frog (Philoria frosti) under captive conditions, and then effectively trained to locate wild frogs in their complex natural habitat. Two conservation detection dogs were trained to identify and locate P. frosti scent under controlled conditions before assessing their ability to locate wild P. frosti. Both conservation detection dogs were effective at locating P. frosti scent under controlled conditions, and also demonstrated an ability to detect live frogs under natural conditions. From an applied perspective, our findings provide new evidence that conservation detection dogs are capable of learning to detect the scent of small, cryptic anuran species. They also indicate that detection dogs are capable of locating frogs in highly complex forest habitat, confirming their untapped potential to aid in the management of imperiled species that have previously proven difficult to detect, monitor, and protect. We discuss the limitations of our approach and provide recommendations to help direct future amphibian conservation detection dog research. Conservation detection dogs have gained worldwide attention for detecting threatened species. However, their effectiveness in detecting amphibians is only recently beginning to be explored. Here, we demonstrate their untapped potential for aiding in the conservation management of imperiled species.
Journal Article
The caste question
This innovative work of historical anthropology explores how India's Dalits, or ex-untouchables, transformed themselves from stigmatized subjects into citizens. Anupama Rao's account challenges standard thinking on caste as either a vestige of precolonial society or an artifact of colonial governance. Focusing on western India in the colonial and postcolonial periods, she shines a light on South Asian historiography and on ongoing caste discrimination, to show how persons without rights came to possess them and how Dalit struggles led to the transformation of such terms of colonial liberalism as rights, equality, and personhood. Extending into the present, the ethnographic analyses of The Caste Question reveal the dynamics of an Indian democracy distinguished not by overcoming caste, but by new forms of violence and new means of regulating caste.
eBook
Untouchable Fictions
William Riley Parker Prize for an outstanding article published in PMLA \"Some Time between Revisionist and Revolutionary: Unreading History in Dalit Literature\" May 2011 issue of PMLA Untouchable Fictions considers the crisis of literary realism--progressive, rural, regionalist, experimental--in order to derive a literary genealogy for the recent explosion of Dalit (\"untouchable caste\") fiction. Drawing on a wide array of writings from Premchand and Renu in Hindi to Mulk Raj Anand and V. S. Naipaul in English, Gajarawala illuminates the dark side of realist complicity: a hidden aesthetics and politics of caste. How does caste color the novel? What are its formal tendencies? What generic constraints does it produce? Untouchable Fictions juxtaposes the Dalit text and its radical critique with a history of progressive literary movements in South Asia. Gajarawala reads Dalit writing dialectically, doing justice to its unique and groundbreaking literary interventions while also demanding that it be read as an integral moment in the literary genealogy of the 20th and 21st centuries. This book, grounded in the fields of postcolonial theory, South Asian literatures, and cultural studies, makes a crucial intervention into studies of literary realism and will be important for all readers interested in the problematic relations between aesthetics and politics and between social movements and cultural production.
eBook
Flesh and fish blood
In Flesh and Fish Blood Subramanian Shankar breaks new ground in postcolonial studies by exploring the rich potential of vernacular literary expressions. Shankar pushes beyond the postcolonial Anglophone canon and works with Indian literature and film in English, Tamil, and Hindi to present one of the first extended explorations of representations of caste, including a critical consideration of Tamil Dalit (so-called untouchable) literature. Shankar shows how these vernacular materials are often unexpectedly politically progressive and feminist, and provides insight on these oft-overlooked—but nonetheless sophisticated—South Asian cultural spaces. With its calls for renewed attention to translation issues and comparative methods in uncovering disregarded aspects of postcolonial societies, and provocative remarks on humanism and cosmopolitanism, Flesh and Fish Blood opens up new horizons of theoretical possibility for postcolonial studies and cultural analysis.
eBook
Paria la Viexa and an expanding empire: Provincial centers in the political economy of the Inka Empire (a.d. 1440-1532)
The fastest growing and largest territorial empire of the Americas was the Inka Empire. At the time of its emergence in the 14th century, the empire lacked an urban network, a developed division of labor, a sophisticated craft industry, and an exchange network like that of most pre-industrial states. The emerging Inka state had to create the social and economic institutions that would ensure its growth and long-term operation. Data from Paria la Viexa, an Inka provincial center in Bolivia, illustrates how the Inka Empire created the necessary conditions for its expansion and operation through a network of provincial centers it had called to life.
Journal Article