Aerial migrants commonly face atmospheric dynamics that may affect their movement and behaviour. Specifically, bird flight mode has been suggested to depend on convective updraught availability and tailwind assistance. However, this has not been tested thus far since both bird tracks and meteorological conditions are difficult to measure in detail throughout extended migratory flyways. Here, we applied, to our knowledge, the first comprehensive numerical atmospheric simulations by mean of the Regional Atmospheric Modeling System (RAMS) to study how meteorological processes affect the flight behaviour of migrating birds. We followed European bee-eaters (Merops apiaster) over southern Israel using radio telemetry and contrasted bird flight mode (flapping, soaring -gliding or mixed flight) against explanatory meteorological variables estimated by RAMS simulations at a spatial grid resolution of 250 Â 250 m 2 . We found that temperature and especially turbulence kinetic energy (TKE) determine bee-eater flight mode, whereas, unexpectedly, no effect of tailwind assistance was found. TKE during soaring -gliding was significantly higher and distinct from TKE during flapping. We propose that applying detailed atmospheric simulations over extended migratory flyways can elucidate the highly dynamic behaviour of air-borne organisms, help predict the abundance and distribution of migrating birds, and aid in mitigating hazardous implications of bird migration.

[1] Many studies have shown that air pollutants concentrations in coastal cities may be gravely affected by coastal recirculation. In this study an attempt is made to examine the properties of coastal recirculation over a long period (5 yrs) at multiple sites along the East Mediterranean Sea (EMS). For this purpose, a single station quantitative measure of horizontal recirculation is used based on wind field measurements over periods of 1-96 hrs. The horizontal recirculation is examined with respect to the integration time period, synoptic flow, seasonality, coastline variations, elevation, and air pollutants concentrations. The interaction between synoptic and mesoscales is shown to be a governing factor by allowing or overruling the land sea breeze winds. Favorite conditions for coastal recirculation are shown to be light or variable winds such as under a Cole or a High-Pressure system. The monthly distribution of the recirculation potential has a bimodal behavior with two peaks during the transitional seasons and October in particular. This is as a result of the annual cycle of night-time land-sea temperature difference driving the land breeze and the more frequent passage of synoptic scale flows with an easterly wind component at the EMS. Two factors leading to variations along the coastline are the urban heat island, weakening the breeze winds and reducing recirculation potential, and the concaved shape of the southern shoreline that causes a convergence and strengthening of the land breeze, thus supporting recirculation. The primary pollutants NO x and SO 2 have the highest concentrations during weak daily mean wind speeds. O 3 levels depict an almost opposite image of NO x , with higher values for both high and low recirculation, possibly resulting from either long range transport or coastal recirculation.Citation: Levy, I., U. Dayan, and Y. Mahrer (2008), A five-year study of coastal recirculation and its effect on air pollutants over the East Mediterranean region,

No abstract

No abstract

Structural (space) solarization of a closed, empty greenhouse for sanitation involves dry heating to 60 degrees C and higher and low relative humidity (RH), under a fluctuating temperature and RH regime. Survival of inocula of Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. radicis-lycopersici and Sclerotium rolfsii during structural solarization was studied for 4 years (total of 12 experiments) in an attempt to develop a dynamic model for expressing the thermal inactivation of the pathogens. After 20 days of exposure, the populations of F. oxysporum f. sp. radicis-lycopersici and S. rolfsii were reduced by 69 to 95% and by 47.5 to 100%, respectively. The Weibull distribution model was applied to describe pathogen survival. The Weibull rate parameter, b, was found to follow an exponential (for F. oxysporum f. sp. radicis-lycopersici) and the Fermi (for S. rolfsii) functions at constant temperatures. To improve the applicability of the model, fluctuating conditions of both temperature and RH were utilized. The Weibull distribution derivative, expressed as a function of temperature and moisture, was numerically integrated to estimate survival of inocula exposed to structural solarization. Deviations between experimental and calculated values derived from the model were quite small and the coefficient of determination (R (2)) values ranged from 0.83 to 0.99 in 9 of 12 experiments, indicating that ambient RH data should be considered. Structural solarization for sanitation could be a viable component in integrated pest management programs.