The sponge Halichondria okadai is one of the most common sponges in the intertidal zone in Peng-Hu, Taiwan. And their juveniles are found on the back side of rocks in the period of July to October. In the present study, changes of juvenile morphology with their growth and the contents of photoprotective materials were examined. In adults, the thickness of the black surface layer did not correlate with their surface area. In juveniles, changes of their color were not correlated with their surface area neither. In juveniles, the structure of the tissues in the mesoyl layer were looser than the surface layer and there were more black chromatocytes in the surface layer than the mesohyl layer. The compositions of spicules were different in various stages of the sponge. There were no spicules in embryos and larvae. In juveniles, microscleres were the main components. However, megascleres of oxea and strongyle were the major types in adult. When the juveniles exposed to different light treatments, their color changed gradually from white to black. In adults, the total contents of melanin were more in the surface layer than the mesoyl layer. And comparison, the contents of melanin were more in adults (0.074-0.115 mg/protein) than in juveniles (0.028-0.036 mg/protein).

Made available in DSpace on 2014-06-11T19:32:17Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 2010-09-02Bitstream added on 2014-06-13T19:42:48Z : No. of bitstreams: 1 kuerten_s_dr_rcla.pdf: 2917154 bytes, checksum: 1fef4e00aa5e9313d624978f26a3f118 (MD5) / Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq) / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES) / O megaleque fluvial do Nabileque é um sistema deposicional que vem sendo construído pelo rio Paraguai na borda sudoeste do Pantanal Mato-Grossense desde tempos pleistocênicos. É um sistema aluvial peculiar, pois não está associado a rios oriundos de relevos altos situados nos planaltos adjacentes à planície. Trata-se de um megaleque fluvial construído pelo rio Paraguai, rio-tronco coletor das águas do todo sistema hidrográfico do Pantanal, na saída do rio para a planície do Chaco, onde coalesce com o megaleque do Pilcomayo. Com base em dados de sensores remotos e verificação de campo, foi realizada compartimentação e caracterização geomorfológica do megaleque, que ocupa área de aproximadamente 9100 km². Descrição e datação dos depósitos dos compartimentos identificados permitiram elaborar modelo evolutivo para a área, cuja maior parte é ocupada por vasta planície aluvial pleistocênica (idades LOE entre 57,8 e 12,8 Ka AP), marcada pela presença de intrincada rede de paleocanais distributários de baixa sinuosidade a meandrantes. Feições fluviais erosivas e redes de canais tributários superimpostos evidenciam que as áreas de ocorrência dos depósitos pleistocênicos se encontram em degradação, embora sujeitas a frequentes inundações, responsáveis pela deposição de delgadas e irregulares coberturas de sedimentos mais recentes. Um aspecto notável é a existência de dois cinturões de meandros formados no Holoceno, em vales incisos na planície de depósitos pleistocênicos. O rio Paraguai corre hoje em um destes vales, que corta longitudinalmente o megaleque, ajustado a padrões de fratura NE associados ao lineamento Transbrasiliano, com deflexão para SSE ao se encontrar com o rio Negro (Bolívia), com o qual compõe a drenagem periférica do leque. No cinturão de meandros abandonado... / The Nabileque fluvial megafan is depositional system that has been built by the Paraguay River at the southwestern border of the Pantanal wetland since Pleistocene times. With an area of approximately 9100 km², it is a peculiar fan system because it is not associated with rivers flowing from adjacent plateaus. The Nabileque megafan has been forming by Paraguay River at the exit of the Pantanal wetland, in lateral coalescence with the Pilcomayo megafan of the Chaco basin. It is important to emphasize that, although the name is also used to name a small river within the wetland, the name Nabileque was adopted to designate the megafan because the whole area is known as the Pantanal of Nabileque. The establishement of its geomorphologic evolution was based on remote sensing data interpretation with field ground truthing, sediment vibrocore-sampling and optical luminescence dating (OSL). Most of the area is covered by alluvial deposits, which dating has revealed ages spanning from 57.8 to 12.8 ka BP, but probably older deposits are present that were not reached by vibrocoring. Distributary, low-sinuosity to meandering paleochannels are visible as ancient depositional geoforms, but the Pleistocene alluvial surface is degradational and the alluvial deposits have being affected by pedogenesis and dissected by tributary small channels. Despite its degradational nature, the area is inundated during exceptional flooding events; this process is responsible for reworking and depositing of thin and irregular layer of Holocene sediments capping the oldest deposits. Two Holocene meander belts, confined in broad and shallow incised-valleys, are conspicuous features and record paleo-hydrologic changes. One of them is an abandoned N-S meander belt, in which runs the Nabileque River that has a channel much smaller... (Complete abstract click electronic access below)

Orientador: Mario Luis Assine / Coorientador: Edna Maria Facincani / Banca: Sandra Baptista da Cunha / Banca: Mauro Parolin / Banca: Edvard Elias de Souza Filho / Banca: José Cândido Stevaux / Resumo: O megaleque fluvial do Nabileque é um sistema deposicional que vem sendo construído pelo rio Paraguai na borda sudoeste do Pantanal Mato-Grossense desde tempos pleistocênicos. É um sistema aluvial peculiar, pois não está associado a rios oriundos de relevos altos situados nos planaltos adjacentes à planície. Trata-se de um megaleque fluvial construído pelo rio Paraguai, rio-tronco coletor das águas do todo sistema hidrográfico do Pantanal, na saída do rio para a planície do Chaco, onde coalesce com o megaleque do Pilcomayo. Com base em dados de sensores remotos e verificação de campo, foi realizada compartimentação e caracterização geomorfológica do megaleque, que ocupa área de aproximadamente 9100 km². Descrição e datação dos depósitos dos compartimentos identificados permitiram elaborar modelo evolutivo para a área, cuja maior parte é ocupada por vasta planície aluvial pleistocênica (idades LOE entre 57,8 e 12,8 Ka AP), marcada pela presença de intrincada rede de paleocanais distributários de baixa sinuosidade a meandrantes. Feições fluviais erosivas e redes de canais tributários superimpostos evidenciam que as áreas de ocorrência dos depósitos pleistocênicos se encontram em degradação, embora sujeitas a frequentes inundações, responsáveis pela deposição de delgadas e irregulares coberturas de sedimentos mais recentes. Um aspecto notável é a existência de dois cinturões de meandros formados no Holoceno, em vales incisos na planície de depósitos pleistocênicos. O rio Paraguai corre hoje em um destes vales, que corta longitudinalmente o megaleque, ajustado a padrões de fratura NE associados ao lineamento Transbrasiliano, com deflexão para SSE ao se encontrar com o rio Negro (Bolívia), com o qual compõe a drenagem periférica do leque. No cinturão de meandros abandonado... (Resumo completo, clicar acesso eletrônico abaixo) / Abstract: The Nabileque fluvial megafan is depositional system that has been built by the Paraguay River at the southwestern border of the Pantanal wetland since Pleistocene times. With an area of approximately 9100 km², it is a peculiar fan system because it is not associated with rivers flowing from adjacent plateaus. The Nabileque megafan has been forming by Paraguay River at the exit of the Pantanal wetland, in lateral coalescence with the Pilcomayo megafan of the Chaco basin. It is important to emphasize that, although the name is also used to name a small river within the wetland, the name Nabileque was adopted to designate the megafan because the whole area is known as the Pantanal of Nabileque. The establishement of its geomorphologic evolution was based on remote sensing data interpretation with field ground truthing, sediment vibrocore-sampling and optical luminescence dating (OSL). Most of the area is covered by alluvial deposits, which dating has revealed ages spanning from 57.8 to 12.8 ka BP, but probably older deposits are present that were not reached by vibrocoring. Distributary, low-sinuosity to meandering paleochannels are visible as ancient depositional geoforms, but the Pleistocene alluvial surface is degradational and the alluvial deposits have being affected by pedogenesis and dissected by tributary small channels. Despite its degradational nature, the area is inundated during exceptional flooding events; this process is responsible for reworking and depositing of thin and irregular layer of Holocene sediments capping the oldest deposits. Two Holocene meander belts, confined in broad and shallow incised-valleys, are conspicuous features and record paleo-hydrologic changes. One of them is an abandoned N-S meander belt, in which runs the Nabileque River that has a channel much smaller... (Complete abstract click electronic access below) / Doutor

Les éponges d'eau douce (Porifera) produisent des spicules siliceuses dont la morphologie a une valeur taxonomique et environnementale. Les sédiments très concentrés en spicules, dénommés spongilite, sont présents en abondance dans le nord-ouest du Minas Gerais (Brésil). Ils se sont formés au cours des derniers 28000 ans. Afin d'étudier l'aptitude de ces dépôts à enregistrer les paléoenvironnements, nous avons procédé, à partir des éponges produites actuellement dans un dans un petit lac du nord-ouest du Minas Gerais (Lagoa Verde), à 2 types de calibrations. (1) Le suivi écologique de M. spinata, éponge unique du lac, a été fait au cours de son cycle de vie annuel. L'éponge produit 4 catégories de spicules en lien avec les variations saisonnières de l'équilibre entre précipitation et évaporation, de la température de l'eau et de la concentration en silicium dissout. La mise en évidence de ces relations conforte les interprétations paléoenvironnementales précédemment tirées des assemblages de spicules fossiles. (2) La composition isotopique en oxygène (δ18O) des silicates biogéniques est communément utilisée comme marqueur paléoenvironnemental. Ce marqueur n'a jamais été calibré pour les spicules d'eau douce. Nous avons testé si M. spinata précipitait ses spicules en équilibre isotopique avec l'eau du lac. La composition δ18O des spicules montre une relation thermo-dépendante positive avec la composition δ18O de l'eau, inverse de ce qui est attendu pour une précipitation à l'équilibre isotopique. Ce résultat suggère un fractionnement cinétique d'origine biologique à déterminer en vue de reconstitutions paléoenvironnementales. / Freshwater sponges (Porifera) produce siliceous spicules with taxonomic and paleoenvironmental value. Sediments with high concentrations of spicules, called spongilite, are present in NW Minas Gerais (Brazil). They formed during the last 28000 years. In order to investigate the reliability of these deposits to record past environmental changes, we proceeded to two kinds of calibration, from sponges currently produced in a small lake of NW Minas Gerais (Lagoa verde). (1) The ecology of M. spinata, the only sponge of the lake, was monitored over its annual cycle. The sponge produced 4 spicules categories in relation with seasonal changes in precipitation, evaporation, water temperature and dissolved silicon content. These relationships confirm previous paleoenvironmental reconstructions from fossil spicule assemblages. (2) The oxygen isotopic composition (δ18O) of biogenic silica is commonly used as a paleoenvironmental proxy. This proxy has never been calibrated for fresh water sponge spicules. We checked whether M. spinata formed its spicules in isotopic equilibrium with the lake water. The δ18O signature of the spicules showed a positive thermo-dependent relationship with the δ18O of the lake water, conversely to what was expected for an equilibrium precipitation. This result suggests that a biological kinetic fractionation occurred. This kinetic fractionation needs to be systematically characterized for paleoenvironmental reconstruction purpose.

A total of 782 sea slug species (opisthobranch molluscs) within 161 genera, 56 families, and 7 orders are authentically recorded from Taiwan¡¦s Exclusive Economic Zone. Among these species, 459 species (58.7 %) are identified to species level and the other 323 species (41.3 %) are undescribed species. In terms of the whole Opisthobranchia fauna of the tropical western Pacific Ocean, approximately 1000 species are expected from Taiwan¡¦s EEZ. As most of the previous surveys on within-area species diversity were carried out in daytime, diel variation (i.e., day and night) in the species composition of sea slugs has been neglected. In order to assess whether such estimations for community diversity based only on daytime surveys are accurate, I undertook replicated diel surveys for 12 consecutive months (from December 2009 to November 2010) at Shilang Marine Reserve, Green Island (Lyudao), Taiwan. Phyllidiella pustulosa was observed most often during the daytime surveys, while Tritonia sp. 1 (an undescribed species) was the most abundant species at night. The results showed the species composition was clear different. During the field surveys, I found the difficult to identify the phyllidiid nudibranchs. Hence, I search for the additional taxonomic characters for phyllidiid nudibranchs base on integumentary spicules and gene sequences (COI and 16S genes). The results showed the spicules characters might provide the character to distinguish the Phyllidiella from other phyllidiid genera, but they were not informative at the species level. The results on molecular phylogeny showed that taxonomic status (both at the species and generic levels) of most phyllidiid genera, except Phyllidiella, received strong supports from COI gene and 16S gene. In contrast, each Phyllidiella species did not form a clade (suggesting the possibility of over estimating the species number in this genus). Finally, I described and illustrated three distinctive new species of Tambja (Nudibranchia: Polyceridae) from Taiwan and Australia. Among these three species, two of them were collected from Australia the other was collected from Taiwan. Tambja dracomus sp. nov. which is only distribution in cool temperate coastal waters in southeastern Australia and northern New Zealand; T. caeruleocirrus sp. nov. which is distributed in warm temperate coastal waters in eastern Australia, southeast Pacific Ocean. Tambja pulcherrima sp. nov. is widely distributed throughout the tropical, subtropical and warm temperate waters in western Pacific Ocean from Japan to northern New Zealand.

The Sulaiy Formation, which is the oldest unit in the Lower Cretaceous succession, is conformably overlain by the Yamama Formation and it is a challenge to identify the precise age of the two formations using foraminifera and other microfossil assemblages. In the eastern side of Saudi Arabia, the Sulaiy Formation and the base of Yamama Formation are poorly studied. The main objectives of this study is to enhance the understanding of the Sulaiy Formation sequence stratigraphical correlation, regional lateral variations and palaeoenvironmental investigation. Lithological and semi-quantitative micropalaeontological analysis of 1277 thin sections taken from core samples from nine cored wells providing a geographically representative distribution from the Saudi Arabian Gulf. These cores intersected the base of the Yamama Formation and the Sulaiy Formation in the total thickness of cored wells of 843.23 meters (2766.5 feet). On the evidence provided by the foraminifera, the Sulaiy Formation is considered to represent the Berriasian to the lowermost Valanginian. The investigation of the micropalaeontology has provided considerable insights into the biocomponents of Sulaiy and the base of Yamama formations in order to identify their biofacies. These microfossils include rotalid foraminifera, miliolid foraminifera, agglutinated foraminifera, calcareous algae, calcispheres, stromatoporoids, sponge spicules, problematica (e.g. Lithocodium aggregatum), molluscs, corals, echinoderms and ostracods. Systematics of planktic and benthic foraminifera is accomplished using the foraminiferal classification by Loeblich and Tappan (1988) as the main source. The assemblage contains foraminifera that recorded for the first time in the Sulaiy Formation. Other microfossils were identified and recorded to help in the identification of the sedimentary environments. The investigation of the micropalaeontology and the lithofacies analysis have provided evidence the identification of the various lithofacies. About twenty four microfacies were identified on the basis of their bio−component and non-skeletal grains. The lithofacies and the bio−component results have provided the evidence of the sedimentary palaeoenvironmental model namely the Arabian Rimmed Carbonate Platform. This palaeoenvironmental depositional model is characterised by two different platform regimes. They are the Platform Interior and the Platform Exterior each of which have unique sedimentary lithofacies zones that produce different types of lithofacies. Each lithofacies is characterised by special depositional conditions and palaeobathymetry that interact with sea level changes and the accommodation space. The important palaeoenvironments are intertidal, restricted lagoon (subtidal), open marine, deeper open marine, inner shoal, shoal and platform margin. Generating, and testing, a depositional model as a part of formulating a sequence stratigraphical interpretation of a region is a key to understanding its geological development and – ultimately – reservoir potential. The micropalaeontology and sedimentology of the Sulaiy Formation in the subsurface have indicated a succession of clearly defined shallowing−upwards depositional cycles. These typically commence with a deep marine biofacies with wackestones and packstones, capped with a mudstone-wackestone maximum flooding zone and an upper unit of packstone to grainstones containing shallow marine biofacies. The upper part of the Sulaiy Formation is highstand-dominated with common grainstones that host the Lower Ratawi reservoir which is capped by karst that defines the sequence boundary. This karst is identified by its abundant moldic porosity that enhanced the the reservoir quality by increasing its porosities into greater values. Integration of the sedimentology and micropalaeontology has yielded a succession of shoaling−upwards depositional cycles, considered to be 4th order sequences, that are superimposed on a large scale 3rd order system tract shallowing−upwards, highstand-associated sequence of the Sulaiy Formation. The Lower Ratawi Reservoir is located within the latest high-stand portion of a third-order Sulaiy Formation sequence. The reservoir consists of a succession of several sequences, each of which is sub-divided into a lower transgressive systems tract separated from the upper highstand systems tract by a maximum flooding surface (MFS/Z). The last of these depositional cycles terminates in beds of porous and permeable ooid, or ooidal-peloidal, grainstone. The reservoir is sealed by the finer-grained sediments of the Yamama Formation.