Dark-active North American fireflies emit green bioluminescence and dusk-active species emit yellow, in general. Yellow light and yellow visual spectral sensitivity may be adaptations to increase the signal-to-noise (that is, foliage-reflected ambient light) ratio for sexual signaling during twilight. The peaks of the electroretinogram visual spectral sensitivities of four species tested, two dark- and two dusk-active, correspond with the peak of their bioluminescent emissions.

In 1984, four climatic sequences combined to produce what may be a major anoxic catastrophe in the northern Chesapeake Bay, sufficient to severely threaten the major benthic species. These sequences are (i) the highest late-winter streamflow on record from the Susquehanna River watershed; (ii) streamflows from the Susquehanna River for the consecutive months of June, July, and August that are higher by 2 standard deviations than the respective monthly mean values measured over the last 34 years; (iii) a stationary high in August off the Atlantic Coast; and (iv) an absence of strong storm events in summer. An empirical equation is proposed for the prediction of the monthly trend of dissolved oxygen decrease in terms of a temperature-dependent subpycnoclinal respiration and a modified estuarine Richardson number. As of 23 August 1984, the summer pycnocline of the northern bay had eroded upward from its historically recorded depth below 10 meters to an abnormally shallow 5 meters, with higher stratification than in earlier years. Dissolved oxygen concentrations directly below the pycnocline decreased to zero during June, 2 months earlier than for previous wet years. At present, oxygen-deficient waters containing significant concentrations of hydrogen sulfide have penetrated into Eastern Bay and the Choptank and Potomac rivers. Because most remaining shellfish-spawning and seed-bed areas in these tributaries are located at depths between 4 and 8 meters, the continued absence of major destratifying events will prolong the present anoxic trend and may result in high benthic mortalities.

P. bahamense, G. polyedra, and P. lunula exhibit interspecies differences in stimulable and spontaneous bioluminescence. For each species the total number of photons that can be emitted upon mechanical stimulation is a constant, regardless of the time during scotophase at which stimulation occurs. Ratios of stimulable bioluminescence per organism during scotophase and photophase are as high as 950:1 for laboratory cultures and have been observed as high as 4000: 1 for natural populations of P. bahamense. Spontaneous emission in darkness shows flashing as well as low-level continuous emission. Natural populations of P. bahamense, placed in darkness during natural photophase, exhibit a dual character to their stimulable bioluminescence. Mechanical stimulation techniques are described for rapid and reproducible stimulation of bioluminescence. I N T R O D U C T I O NIn previous papers dealing with the natural rhythms of bioluminescence of the tropical marine dinoflagellate Pyrodinium bahamense (Seliger et al., 1962;Taylor et al., 1966; Seliger and McElroy, 1968), both the shapes of the daily stimulable bioluminescence curves and the night-to-day ratios of stimulable bioluminescence differed markedly from the results reported by Hastings