Pacific toy spill fuels ocean current pathways research

Ebbesmeyer, Curtis C.; Ingraham, W. James

doi:10.1029/94eo01056

Cited by 41 publications

(17 citation statements)

References 2 publications

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“…The fragile nature of wild bottle gourd fruits, and their resultant reduced utility to humans, along with the lack of evidence of wild bottle gourd ever having being present in the Americas thus substantially weakens the case for bottle gourd having diffused from Asia as a wild plant. In contrast to the thin-walled fruits of wild plants, however, thicker walled, domesticated bottle gourd fruits could potentially have been carried eastward from Asia to the Americas along the north Pacific current rapidly enough to reach landfall with still-viable seeds, based on recent drift and diffusion analyses of container ship spills of buoyant cargo (e.g., rubber bath toys, Nike shoes) in the North Pacific (35).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

An Asian origin for a 10,000-year-old domesticated plant in the Americas

Erickson

Smith

Clarke

et al. 2005

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

252

145

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New genetic and archaeological approaches have substantially improved our understanding of the transition to agriculture, a major turning point in human history that began 10,000–5,000 years ago with the independent domestication of plants and animals in eight world regions. In the Americas, however, understanding the initial domestication of New World species has long been complicated by the early presence of an African enigma, the bottle gourd ( Lagenaria siceraria ). Indigenous to Africa, it reached East Asia by 9,000–8,000 before present (B.P.) and had a broad New World distribution by 8,000 B.P. Here we integrate genetic and archaeological approaches to address a set of long-standing core questions regarding the introduction of the bottle gourd into the Americas. Did it reach the New World directly from Africa or through Asia? Was it transported by humans or ocean currents? Was it wild or domesticated upon arrival? Fruit rind thickness values and accelerator mass spectrometer radiocarbon dating of archaeological specimens indicate that the bottle gourd was present in the Americas as a domesticated plant by 10,000 B.P., placing it among the earliest domesticates in the New World. Ancient DNA sequence analysis of archaeological bottle gourd specimens and comparison with modern Asian and African landraces identify Asia as the source of its introduction. We suggest that the bottle gourd and the dog, two “utility” species, were domesticated long before any food crops or livestock species, and that both were brought to the Americas by Paleoindian populations as they colonized the New World.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

An Asian origin for a 10,000-year-old domesticated plant in the Americas

Erickson

Smith

Clarke

et al. 2005

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

252

145

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show abstract

“…Nevertheless, microplastics harbor the risk of transporting POPs to human food (Engler 2012). Because of their long residence time at sea plastics can travel long distances (Ebbesmeyer and Ingraham 1994) and thus function as vectors for dispersal of toxins and/or pathogenic microorganisms (Harrison et al 2011;Zettler et al 2013). However, although the potential risks associated with marine microplastics have recently been acknowledged the manifold impacts of microplastics on the ecosystems of the oceans have not been investigated in detail and are thus only poorly understood.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Methodology Used for the Detection and Identification of Microplastics—A Critical Appraisal

Löder

Gerdts

2015

Marine Anthropogenic Litter

403

320

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Microplastics in aquatic ecosystems and especially in the marine environment represent a pollution of increasing scientific and societal concern, thus, recently a substantial number of studies on microplastics were published. Although first steps towards a standardization of methodologies used for the detection and identification of microplastics in environmental samples are made, the comparability of data on microplastics is currently hampered by a huge variety of different methodologies, which result in the generation of data of extremely different quality and resolution. This chapter reviews the methodology presently used for assessing the concentration of microplastics in the marine environment with a focus on the most convenient techniques and approaches. After an overview of non-selective sampling approaches, sample processing and treatment in the laboratory, the reader is introduced to the currently applied techniques for the identification and quantification of microplastics. The subsequent case study on microplastics in sediment samples from the North Sea measured with focal plane array (FPA)-based micro-Fourier transform infrared (micro-FTIR) spectroscopy shows that only 1.4 % of the particles visually resembling microplastics were of synthetic polymer origin. This finding emphasizes the importance of verifying the synthetic polymer origin of potential microplastics. Thus, a burning issue concerning current microplastic research is the generation of standards that allow for the assessment of reliable data on concentrations of microscopic plastic particles and the involved polymers with analytical laboratory techniques such as micro-FTIR or micro-Raman spectroscopy.

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“…Over scales of tens to thousands of kilometers, the motions of oil spills, bath toys, and the larvae of fish and invertebrates depend on coastal and ocean-scale circulation [Ebbesmeyer and Ingraham, 1994;Dever et al, 1998;Gaylord and Gaines, 2000]. However, transport over the inner shelf determines whether a given object actually hits the beach and may significantly affect our perceptions of larger scale processes.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Subtidal inner‐shelf circulation near Point Conception, California

2005

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[1] We discuss connections between inner-shelf and mid-shelf circulation near Point Conception, California, as well as the wind forcing of inner-shelf circulation. Point Conception marks the southern edge of a major upwelling zone that extends from Oregon to central California. The coastline makes a sharp eastward turn at Point Conception, and the Santa Barbara Channel to the east is generally assumed to be an upwelling shadow. Consistent with this regional division, inner-shelf currents are strongly correlated with wind north of Point Conception, but not in the Santa Barbara Channel. One exception to this generalization is a location in the Santa Barbara Channel, near a pass that cuts through the coastal mountains, where local winds have a dominant cross-shore component and directly drive cross-shore currents over the inner shelf. Inner-shelf currents in the Santa Barbara Channel, when compared with mid-shelf currents in that area, are weaker, but strongly correlated. By contrast, inner-shelf currents north of Point Conception show a far greater incidence of poleward flow than is seen over the mid-shelf in that area. Poleward flow events, lasting 1-5 days, transport warm water from the Santa Barbara Channel around Point Conception to the central California coast. These events are associated with relaxation of the generally equatorward wind, but not always with mid-shelf flow reversals.

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Pacific toy spill fuels ocean current pathways research

Cited by 41 publications

References 2 publications

An Asian origin for a 10,000-year-old domesticated plant in the Americas

An Asian origin for a 10,000-year-old domesticated plant in the Americas

Methodology Used for the Detection and Identification of Microplastics—A Critical Appraisal

Subtidal inner‐shelf circulation near Point Conception, California

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