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To celebrate Labour Day, here is our annual list of fall workhorse reds doing the job of being widely available, tasty and affordable.
Anthony Gismondi: Workhouse reds to celebrate Labour Day
It's the Labour Day long weekend, a national holiday that celebrates working folks that dates back to 1872, when a parade was held in support of the Toronto Typographical Union's fight for a 58-hour workweek.
That was in December, but by the next September the Toronto Trades Assembly called out its 27 unions to further support the Typographical Union. Police arrested numerous union leaders, prompting another demonstration on September 3 to protest the arrests. By the time it was all resolved in 1894, parliament declared Labour Day to be an official holiday in Canada.
This week we introduce our annual fall workhorse reds to celebrate Labour Day. Unlike the old-fashioned tradition that frowns upon the wearing of white after Labour Day, there is no need to panic: we will remain fans of white wine throughout the winter.
The job of any workhorse red is to be widely available, tasty and affordable; no easy task in the modern wine business. Sources of such wines lead us to grapes like Malbec from Argentina; Garnacha/Monastrell or Grenache/Mourvèdre from Spain and France, respectively; and Shiraz and Syrah from Chile, the south of France and Australia.
The styles all differ, but the texture and tannins for the most part are soft and round and inviting. They are often better served with food, usually something like grilled chicken or beef or even a piece of cheese. The protein helps to mitigate any youthful tannins or rough edges that tend dry out the palate, especially in the finish.
Here is a short list of recommendation to enjoy this autumn, and we have taken the same tack with our five weekend picks.
We love the value from Spain, and the many inexpensive red blends that dot our store shelves. At $8.99 (yes $8.99!) the Castano La Casona and the Lujuria are amazing value. Soft, juicy and fresh and using some combination of Monastrell, Merlot and Garnacha, these are true workhorse party wines.
France remains the master of the red blend, especially in the south. Languedoc is the home of Cote Mas ($12.99), Paul Mas Malbec ($13.99), and Chapoutier Bila Haut ($15.79), to name but a few blends that mix and match Syrah, Grenache, Carignan and Mourvèdre — over-delivering in flavour and price.
Argentina has the U.S. dollar to keep it in line, but you can still find some bargains in the Malbec department offering fairly suave tannins and juicy black fruit flavours. Some of our favourites include Norton Barrel Select Malbec ($12.49), Malbec Pure ($13.99), Malbec Tinto Negro ($14.99) and the Crios Malbec by Susana Balbo ($16.99). Grilled steaks anyone?
For Syrah/Shiraz lovers things are turning around in Australia at the entry level, with better balanced bottles with less added acid and more fruit. Chile can nail Syrah from time to time at great prices, as can the Languedoc. Our picks would include Gayda Three Winds Syrah, (Languedoc, $11.49), Jacob's Creek Reserve Shiraz, (Barossa Valley, Australia, $13.49), Emiliana Adobe Reserva Syrah (Colchagua, Chile, $13.49), Henry's Morse Code Shiraz Padthaway (Australia, $13.49) and Chapoutier Tournon Mathilda Victoria (Australia, $18. 49).
Enjoy the last few days of summer. As I write this I'm wrapping up a 75-plus hour work week in the high-tech age, showing you just how far we have come since the original Labour Day riots.
The Match
Hot peppery, sweet sauce, and chicken wings will all benefit from a chilled bottle of Riesling. — Anthony Gismondi
Spierhead Riesling GFV Saddle Block 2015, Okanagan Valley, $20
Rich peach, melon and green apple all with a hit of residual sugar tackle the spicy, peppery sauce to freshen each bite of the wings. Winery direct.
Dr. L Riesling 2014, Mosel-Saar-Ruwer, Germany, $15.99
Ripe off-dry red apple, lime, orange and honey flavours are the perfect foil to spicy chicken wings.
Weekend Picks
Familia Castaño C Monastrell Vinas Viejas en Altura 2015, Yecla, Valencia and Murcia, Spain
$11.29 | 87/100
Ample black peppercorns, black cherry and perfumed black plum fill the bright core of this compact, old vine Monastrell from Yecla. Grippy and stony on the finish, this would be a natural for grilled poultry or pork chops. Great value.
Doña Paula Los Cardos Malbec 2015, Mendoza, Argentina
$12.29 | 87/100
Floral violet notes imbue this full and round Mendoza Malbec, seasoned with black pepper and dried herbs. Soft and silky on the palate it is anchored by the clay soils and perfect acidity that comes at 1000 metres of altitude. There is great value, considering all that goes into this wine. Try it with grilled ribs.
El Esteco Don David Cabernet Sauvignon Reserve 2013, Calchaqui Valley, Salta, North, Argentina
$13.99 | 87/100
Roasted onions, cured meats and freshly ground coffee fill this fuller Calchaqui Valley Cabernet Sauvignon. Earthy, cassis and black cherry fruit back it up, while rustic tannins frame it all. Twelve months in new barrels explain the oak intensity. A warm rush of heat flecked espresso beans perfect for grilled meats. Simple but effective.
Pascual Toso Limited Edition Malbec 2012, Maipú, Mendoza, Argentina
$16.99 | 89/100
Ripe, baked black cherry, lifted kirsch and coffee mark this full bodied Malbec. Fleshy tannins preview warm, black licorice flavours and a coffee/chocolate finish. Drinking well now, and widely available.
Famille Perrin Rasteau L'Andéol 2013, Côtes du Rhône Villages, Rhone Valley, France
$19.99 | 88/100
Rasteau L'Andéol comes off a two-hectare, bowl-shaped vineyard that faces south. Dark cherry, black raspberry and florals fill this meaty Rasteau. On the wild side there is a garrigue and white pepper herbaceousness that filters throughout the fleshy palate of red fruits and dark cocoa and textured tannins on a drying finish. Honest and rustic pair with lamb or a rotisserie chicken dish.


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- (noun) an unmarried girl or young woman. "two knights fought to win the hand of a fair maiden"
- (noun) an over in which no runs are scored.
- (adj) (of an older woman) unmarried. "a maiden aunt"
- (adj) (of a female animal) not having mated. "the top-priced maiden heifer"
- (adj) being or involving the first attempt or act of its kind. "the Titanic's maiden voyage"
- (adj) denoting a horse that has never won a race, or a race intended for such horses. "the Beckhampton Maiden Stakes"
- (adj) (of a tree or other fruiting plant) in its first year of growth.
Maiden meaning in Hindi (English to Hindi meaning)
- प्रथम, कुंवारी, कुमारीई, अविवाहिता, मेडन बिना रन दिये, मेडन्, युवती
Maiden origin
- Old English mægden, from a Germanic diminutive meaning 'maid, virgin'; related to German Mädchen, diminutive of Magd 'maid', from an Indo-European root shared by Old Irish mug 'boy, servant'.
Maiden in a sentence (word usage in recent Hindu newspaper)
- UNIQLO turns to ethnic wear for India launch, Interestingly, UNIQLO's India collaboration stands apart as not all … Ltd announced a three-store line-up for India starting with its maiden store …
- India vs West Indies: Ishant Sharma hits maiden fifty in 92nd Test, Ishant Sharma scored his maiden Test and second first class fifty to help India post a strong total on Day 2 of the second and final Test against …
- Governors of Five US States to Visit India Over Next Two Months to …, The unprecedented move of five American governors visiting India in quick … on his maiden trip to India with a high-powered trade delegation.
- Avesh Khan hits maiden fifty, denies India Green lead, Avesh Khan hogged the limelight with his maiden first class half-century in an incredible rearguard action as India Red and India Green set up …
- Bumrah's hat-trick, Vihari's maiden ton take India to commanding …, Jasprit Bumrah became only the third Indian to scalp a hat-trick in five-day cricket after Hanuma Vihari scored a maiden ton to take the visitors …
Maiden pronunciation

subset: commoncrawl


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Packaging & Shipping
Pack and ship stations can be designed per your specifications. Just let us know what your requirements are. Here's a few options we can offer
- Dividers for carboard
- Overhead/Undermount LED lighting
- Power strip
- Paper spool
- Utility drawers
- Upper/lower shelves
- Monitor arm/Keyboard pullout trays/document tray
- Bin rail
- Custom scale cut outs and much more
We can help create a ergonomic workstation for all your pack and ship requirements.


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Flag of Christmas Island, 2009
Color flag of Christmas Island. Territorial flag; divided diagonally from upper hoist to lower fly; the upper triangle is green with a yellow image of the Golden Bosun Bird superimposed, the lower triangle is blue with the Southern Cross constellation, representing Australia, superimposed; a centered yellow disk displays a green map of the island.
banner, Christmas Island national flag, country flag, cx, standard, vexillology
Florida Center for Instructional Technology Clipart ETC (Tampa, FL: University of South Florida, 2009)


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This year is off to a promising start.
I have been approved for my new place, a place that allows pets, including big dogs! The location is perfect, only two miles from my job. I can either run to work or take the bus when I am lazy (let's be real – I'll be riding the bus! haha). A short walk from my place, the transit center stands, giving me the ability to get to just about anywhere in DFW, including downtown Dallas and home to East Dallas.
There are at least three or four nearby parks. The one closest to me holds concerts and salsa (as in the Latin dance) classes in the summer. In the fall, it hosts Shakespeare Dallas productions. The larger park, the one I have to cross a road to get to, holds the largest Fourth of July and Oktoberfest celebrations in the metroplex.
There is an abundance of retail spaces on the ground level of all the buildings in the area. A couple bars, several restaurants – including a pizzeria and a bakery that each have vegan options on their menus! – cafes, a yoga studio, you name it. The whole area is very dog-friendly, pooches allowed on patios and such.
Another short walk away is the town's convention center and theater. I am already eyeing a health expo to be held there in April.
Y'all, I am going to be walking everywhere! If I ever find myself bored, I will likely just march myself downstairs and outdoors, stroll around, and see what is going on!
By the way, my apartment is on the second floor, which means below me, there is not a residency. It will be retail space. I am going to stomp around (as I do with some of my home workouts) as I please! Hopefully, there will be no noise complaints!
I have mentioned dogs a couple times. Did you catch that?
That's a post in and of itself. Soon.
I hope everyone is off to an amazing start this week. Much love!


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Behind the kind eyes and the winning smile of NASSA's Head Coach Chris Facey and the UK Community Coach of the Year 2014 is a story of basketball heartbreak that few know.
It hides from view the devastating injury he suffered at the age of just 22 which denied him the playing career in professional basketball of which he had always dreamed.
Having risen through the ranks in his native Jamaica, Chris went to the United States to try out for the professional league which sits directly beneath the NBA and its superstars. In the trial game, he jumped for the ball in a challenge of the sort you witness 50 times every game.
A slight touch in mid-air knocked him off balance. He came down badly on both legs and then another player landed on him. Both of his legs were broken. He spent much of the next two years in a wheelchair, his playing ambitions crushed.
"The college in the States looked after me and put me back on my feet," said Chris. "My legs healed properly but I couldn't play the minutes that I wanted to play and it ended my ambitions to play professionally.
"I went back to Jamaica. Then when I was 30 I came to Britain to try to play again in the pro league here. I had a few trials but I didn't carry on and I got more into the teaching and the coaching."
A chance meeting with NASSA founder Natasha Hart in Balaam Park in Plaistow, east London seven years ago gave Chris the opportunity to make a difference.
As Head Coach for Junior Development, Chris has gained Levels 1 and 2 basketball coaching qualifications through NASSA and is as enthusiastic about shaping its young participants as outstanding young people as he is about turning them into league-winning basketball players.
Chris added: "When I met Natasha in the park, she told me what we could do as a club. I brought my experience. When we took off we didn't expect to win in the first year, but we did and that helped me to become stronger as a coach – to start to read more, to start to work with young people more on the academic side and to convince them to not get themselves into trouble, which is hard to do at that age.
"As a child you make a lot of mistakes and I'm trying to guide them so that those things do not happen. It is hugely rewarding. We have become stronger as a club, we are winning and I always think winning is a good thing. You can lose but when losing becomes a habit, you don't want to do it again so you have to find a way."
As with all of the NASSA coaches, Chris is paid for less than half of the time he commits to the charity.
In 2012 he was named as England Basketball's Volunteer Coach of the Year. This year he has eclipsed even that achievement. In June he was recognised as Coach of the Year in the prestigious London Awards for Sport & Physical Activity 2014 and then, in November, came ultimate recognition from his peers when he was named Community Coach of the Year in the UK Coaching Awards 2014 and was given a special trophy as runner-up in the overall Coach of the Year category.
In spite of the accolades, Chris insists his rewards come in much simpler forms. "The kids find a certain way to reward me. Sometimes I get a text to say: 'Coach, it's good.' That's good enough for me. There's nothing else I could want from them than to see them do well, respect what they are and where they are coming from.
"We are doing the right thing. It works for us. Kids are kids. They make mistakes, but if they can control their behaviour in the classroom, on and off the court, that's all we ask and we've got no trouble at all when it comes to practice. Everyone understands.
"We don't expect them to give us millions in the future but if there is a way they can grow up, do something good and help put back into what we do, that would be really great for us.
"And we have guys who have moved on and who are in the States playing basketball now. They come back every summer, work out with us and show the other kids that they have learned what we passed on to them. It's great."
Now 40, Chris is always willing to help coaches from other clubs and organisations, passing on tips and his passion. He wants NASSA to continue on its path.
NASSA is still growing. The one ambition I have now is to give all I've got. Natasha is pushing in the right direction but it's about sustaining it financially, too. The kids are getting older so we need facilities and new equipment to always push forward.
"We also need a minibus because the important thing is how kids get home from school and to training, their safety. That's one of the things that bothers us as much as coaching basketball."


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ServerUtilities v.85
by Dave Buchhofer on Jun.23, 2009, under Batching, maxscript, vray
Its been a while since I've posted anything, so its time for the habitual blog sorry/script update!
We recently picked up VrayRT, and i found myself again vnc'ing over to farm machines to restart services and well, that just wont do!
So I did a small update to the ServerUtilities script adding a few services, and doing a little work on the underbelly of it to make it a bit more stable. also packaged it into an installer because I was getting a few people that had just installed it strangely and were having issues.
— .65 – added vray 2010 to services
— .75 – added vrayRT
— .75 – convert to simpler dos prompt
— .75 – added an optional pause to the end of the commandline based tools
— .75 – fixed the invert button in server selection
— .75 – prints the commandline to the listener
— .80 – convert to dos based loop for multiple systems (if pause: hit enter to advance to next machine in loop..)
— .85 – update to support spaces in the max file path! oops!
Maxscript: ServerUtilities v0.5 beta
by Dave Buchhofer on Dec.07, 2008, under Admin, Batching, maxscript, utility, vray
This handles the services perfectly for me here, I'm doing a little more work on it to support using the server.exe and vrayspawner exe versions as well, but that wont be finished for a while as its a spare time project. I'm really looking for feedback in terms of platforms you're looking to use it on, and what features would be nice to see in addition.
Install is pretty straightforward, simply unzip into your Scripts directory.. after a bit more testing for various people I'll throw together an installer, but for now its slightly manual.
after you unzip it, assuming your max is installed in say, C:\3dsmax08\ you should see several files
Maxscript files: Access them as Maxscript Pulldown, Run Script.
C:\3dsMax08\server_tool_lite_05.mcr — Run this to install the script into the Customize UI, under category dbScripts.
C:\3dsMax08\ServerUtilities\server_tool_lite_05.ms — Run this to try out the tool without installing it into the Customize ui..
C:\3dsMax08\ServerUtilities\… There will be a few other exe's in this directory, mostly commandline utilities that the script calls to batch modify things.
After you run the script the first time, it will create a file C:\3dsMax08\ServerUtilities\ServerToolLite.ini which will save your settings. In the script, it might be easier for you to add 1 server, and then browse to the ServerToolLite.ini file and manually add the other 19 servers in notepad.
Maxscript: Vray Light Calc Filenames
by Dave Buchhofer on Nov.02, 2008, under maxscript, vray
Here's a relatively simple script thats already saved me many headaches.
Basic Gist: as its set up It will create a directory called 'Calcs' under the directory where your maxfile is at, and will switch your filenames for vray irradiance maps and light cache back and forth between saving to, and loading from file in that directory, it will save the calcs as "maxfilename_cameraname.vrlmap/vrmap'
its set to use a UNC directory where possible, and to use irradiance map and light cache. Theres not much error checking in it, its currently set up to work for us internally, If anyone has issues with it, you can contact me. I think its helpful, but not 'solid?' enough to drop up onto scriptspot as yet.


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You know what I mean. Probably not out loud, but quietly. What can be silent to others' ears can be titanically amplified within. Bullhorn in an empty bathroom.
We can berate, scold. Yell, actually. It's the unwelcome "upsize" of doubting and questioning. But here we're talking beyond the playground of healthy self-criticism and challenge. Does this sound familiar? Calling yourself stupid for something you've done or for even who you are? The problem with voices like that—however boisterous or whispery; whether from someone else or yourself—is that after a while you start to believe them.
It happens too often.
If you want that to change, stop screaming. But sometimes we need some encouragement.
If you're someone who goes manic negative on yourself, perhaps your u-turn moment is this passage: It's one of the most famous things Jesus ever said: "Love your neighbour as yourself" (He's quoting Leviticus 19:18).
But what does that have to do with putting the brakes on screaming at yourself?
Usually we focus on the "love your neighbour" part. But if we follow the logic, it's also about the "as yourself" part. If you don't love yourself very well, you're really not doing anyone any favours by "loving your neighbour" because the example of your self-love stinks. It's like saying 'Hey, let me clean your house for you,' when your own is a cess pool of ripped-open garbage bags and broken windows. If you don't have a compass for loving yourself, your love for those around you will be corrupted. Not always, but often. You might have a virus. And when that happens, you usually get asked to stay home from school.
This isn't a warm, fuzzy self-love fest. I'm a disciple of Jesus, meaning that love for others is a serious thing, especially under the unique contours of a blood-stained cross. I'm not talking about the kind of love where we feel warm and cozy as we gaze in the mirror, happy that our friends call from time to time—but, taking seriously that you and I are made in the image of God (Genesis 1:27), the Lord of beauty and grace. If you keep screaming undeservedly at the Lord's handiwork, what does that say about your relationship with the One who made you? "Thanks for nothing; what's your return policy"?
Robert Alter translates the last line of Psalm 138 like this: "Do not let go of Your handiwork." And he doesn't.
I think a lot of people who really want to love others well are often those who build the house of their lives on top of a concrete foundation—and that foundation is a healthy confidence in their own belovedness in Jesus. "God made you alive together with him," as Paul pens in Colossians 2:13. Allen Wheelis puts it this way: "A time comes when one must take up hammer and nails. In building a house the making of blueprints may be delegated to an architect, the construction to a carpenter. In building the house of one's life or in its remodeling, one may delegate nothing; for the task can be done, if at all, only in the workshop of one's own mind and heart, in the most intimate rooms of thinking and feeling where one but one's self has freedom of movement or competence or authority."
But this is no "rugged individualism." It's just taking proactive ownership of you who want to be. It's just that we're the minority partner. When I was training for ministry someone came up with a slogan for our T-shirts as a play on the Home Depot slogan, changing it to: "God can do it—We can help!" And that's key. We need a constant and growing confidence of our own belovedness in Jesus, especially because we are made in the image of the One who set the stars in the constellations, tender heartbeats in babies and atoms everywhere. When we start to do that, it's funny how the volume starts to go down on screaming at ourselves. And another voice gets louder: 'Hey voices, shut it.'
At first, it's hard. Part of the illusion many of us have is that some profound insight all on its own will make us change for the better. But it's usually physically doing something over and over again which creates attitudinal change. And behavioural change. Repetition and pattern. First spend quality time with your family, and then you will start to value it. First make worship a priority, and then you will start to want and be centred by it. First stop over-spending, then you will start to feel less compelled to need and lust both things and souls who are not you.
What many people don't realize is that in the pursuit of growth, it is often the strong people who seek out therapists and mentors (not the weak ones); it is often the change-agents who seek out pastors and poets (not the weak ones); it is the courageous who seek out a community of help (not the weak ones). Taking proactive ownership of who you want to be doesn't mean being a lone soldier. It simply means that you have the wisdom to know you're not alone, and that others might respect your belovedness too.
I realize there is illness and circumstance which make the self-screaming near impenetrable, plus people and events in the past that are booming. But for many, it's often that we simply don't challenge the screams.
If you're still screaming, perhaps this final word will help.
This past week I re-read the simple-yet-profound classic The Little Prince. So refreshing. He lives on a little planet, so small that there's only room for one person. It's so small that he sits in his chair and watches the sun set. But the planet is so miniscule that he can just shuffle his chair forward a few feet, and watch it set again. One day he watched the sun set 44 times. The magic of the Little Prince is that all alone on his planet, he has learned to cultivate a profound love for the simplest things—flowers, questions, routine. It gives him perspective. The awe of a child.
In your life, if you're that self-defeating person, change 44 screams to 44 reminders of your belovedness. Not because we like to puff ourselves up, but because you are made in the image of God. If you do that, and someone drops by your planet-of-1 to make it a planet-of-2, you'll most likely have a better time at "loving your neighbour as yourself."
Why? Because you actually do.


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Last night I was re-watching the new Spike Jonze remake of the children's classic Where the Wild Things Are.
The first time I saw it was at the Imax downtown, and as I left the theater I was engulfed by a sea of grumbling parents. The movie, in their opinion, was too depressing, and therefore not suitable for their children.
For those of you who are unfamiliar with this story, Maurice Sendak's original book is about an unruly child named Max who is sent to bed without supper as punishment for his bad behavior. Max, who dons a wolf costume not dissimilar to footy pajamas, uses his imagination to enter the land where the wild things are.
Now the movie adaptation is a little different, and Spike Jonze (who is famous primarily for the films Adaptation and Being John Malkovitch) is notorious for intricate layering of themes. Let me just describe to you what this film said to me.
In the beginning of Where the Wild Things Are we watch Max doing the usual kid stuff, building snow forts, throwing snowballs, but he is alone. He can't get the attention of his sister or mother, and when he becomes upset his temper explodes. He destroys things, makes a huge mess, and at one point even bites his mother. After these tantrums you can watch him come back down to earth, realizing what he'd done, and becoming depressed about his actions and how he can't seem to control them.
Instantly I was invested in this film because I saw myself in this child. I too had a wicked temper, and beyond explosively breaking a number of things I shouldn't have as a child, the minutes afterward are what I remember best. Suddenly realizing what I had done and that I couldn't undo it, and being upset that I didn't have control over myself.
Max's mother shouts, "What is wrong with you?"
To which Max replies, "It's not my fault."
Max sees himself as a "wild thing" -as a monster basically. He can't control himself, and that's why he runs away to live among other wild things.
And this is where one might argue that meeting and befriending these monsters suggest Max is familiarizing himself with the monsters within himself, the part of him that makes him act out or feel depressed.
When he meets these monsters, Max is elated (and a little frightened) so he composes grandiose lies about himself until they crown him king. He promises to unite the monsters (whom have been having fights lately) so they can all live peacefully.
Joy, adventures, and impulsiveness ensues.
Sound familiar? This portion appears very similar to mania to me. Max makes himself the king of the world, then creates grandiose plans to build the most epic fort ever built.
The monsters biggest concern for Max is this,
"Will you keep the sadness away?"
The sadness in the film is very much like depression for those of us with bipolar disorder. It shows up no matter what we might do to combat it sometimes, but it can be easy in times of mania to think we have the power to keep it at bay.
As you can imagine, as hard as Max tries, he can't keep the sadness away. It creeps back into the story until the monster's turn on both him and each other, and then another destructive outburst takes place.
The expansive loneliness and sadness that Spike Jonze depicts hits depression right on the nose to me, and the whole story felt so familiar and true that I was surprised to hear the parents exclaim the movie was too depressing for their children.
This film is a perfect representation of what it felt like to be a child to me, and the subsequent struggle of wrestling with those "inner monsters" that kept turning on me.
No, there are no musical numbers, no brightly-colored cartoon characters, but there is humor. It may not distract from the difficulty of being a child (or in my case the difficulty of mental illness) but I consider that valuable.
When the monsters turn on him, Max returns home with a suggested new-found appreciation for his mother. He's had to spend time looking closely at those monsters so he can now appreciate how difficult it can be to parent him.
Now, I'm sure my interpretation isn't the singular interpretation of this story, and Spike Jonze stories always have more interpretations than most. Maybe he meant to capture something of bipolar disorder in this film, but it is just as likely that he didn't. What I do know, though, is that it says something pretty bluntly about how I grew up and how I still feel. If that makes this inappropriate or dangerous for children to watch by normal standards, all the better.


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Winner of the Facebook competition announced!
Nowadays, all major things happen online. The virtual world awaits you, and it's all there happening on Facebook! If you want to become part of the Armada Music society, be sure to add yourself as a fan to our page: facebook.com/armadamusic.
After passing the magic 100.000 on our Armada Music Facebook page, we decided to give you guys a little treat. We gave you the chance to win an exclusive Armada album package, by posting our page on your wall. Winner of this competition is Cody Sargant from Salt Lake City, USA. We would once again like to thank him for the support and take the opportunity to show off his commitment to Armin. Cody tattooed Armin van Buuren on his forearm…ain't that a sign of dedication!
Hope you enjoy your package, Cody! If you want to win an Armada package yourself, or stay up to date on all our releases, latest news and artists, become part of the Armada Music Facebook page!


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The green sturgeon (Acipenser medirostris) is a highly migratory, oceanic, anadromous species with a complex life history that makes it vulnerable to species-wide threats in both freshwater and at sea. Green sturgeon population declines have preceded legal protection and curtailment of activities in marine environments deemed to increase its extinction risk. Yet, its marine habitat is poorly understood. We built a statistical model to characterize green sturgeon marine habitat using data from a coastal tracking array located along the Siletz Reef near Newport, Oregon, USA that recorded the passage of 37 acoustically tagged green sturgeon. We classified seafloor physical habitat features with high-resolution bathymetric and backscatter data. We then described the distribution of habitat components and their relationship to green sturgeon presence using ordination and subsequently used generalized linear model selection to identify important habitat components. Finally, we summarized depth and temperature recordings from seven green sturgeon present off the Oregon coast that were fitted with pop-off archival geolocation tags. Our analyses indicated that green sturgeon, on average, spent a longer duration in areas with high seafloor complexity, especially where a greater proportion of the substrate consists of boulders. Green sturgeon in marine habitats are primarily found at depths of 20–60 meters and from 9.5–16.0°C. Many sturgeon in this study were likely migrating in a northward direction, moving deeper, and may have been using complex seafloor habitat because it coincides with the distribution of benthic prey taxa or provides refuge from predators. Identifying important green sturgeon marine habitat is an essential step towards accurately defining the conditions that are necessary for its survival and will eventually yield range-wide, spatially explicit predictions of green sturgeon distribution.
Citation: Huff DD, Lindley ST, Rankin PS, Mora EA (2011) Green Sturgeon Physical Habitat Use in the Coastal Pacific Ocean. PLoS ONE 6(9): e25156. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0025156
Editor: Sharyn Jane Goldstien, University of Canterbury, New Zealand
Received: June 7, 2011; Accepted: August 29, 2011; Published: September 22, 2011
This is an open-access article, free of all copyright, and may be freely reproduced, distributed, transmitted, modified, built upon, or otherwise used by anyone for any lawful purpose. The work is made available under the Creative Commons CC0 public domain dedication.
Funding: The authors' research was supported by funds from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, California Current Integrated Ecosystem Assessment Program (http://www.st.nmfs.noaa.gov/iea/index.html) and a Species of Concern Program (http://www.nmfs.noaa.gov/pr/species/concern/grant.htm) grant to S.T.L. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.
Competing interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.
The green sturgeon's (Acipenser medirostris) complex life history causes it to be vulnerable to numerous threats in both freshwater and at sea [1], [2]. It is a highly oceanic and migratory, anadromous species [3], [4] that is captured as bycatch in white sturgeon commercial and sport fisheries, tribal salmon gillnet fisheries, and coastal groundfish trawl fisheries [1]. Population declines have preceded legal protection and subsequent curtailment of activities deemed to increase extinction risk [1], [5]. Yet, green sturgeon coastal habitat is poorly understood [4], [6], [7]. At present, the marine habitats of oceanic anadromous sturgeon species have been characterized only generally, and specific information regarding marine habitat associations of green sturgeon is almost totally lacking [8].
Inadequate knowledge of green sturgeon ecology may necessitate overly restrictive measures by fishery managers who must choose more conservative options for protection in the absence of specific information regarding habitat requirements. For green sturgeon, a lack of knowledge may be especially problematic because it is the most widely distributed and marine oriented member of the sturgeon family [3]; consequently, unnecessarily encumbering regulations could have broad-scale effects. Currently, 30,890 km of coastal marine habitat extending to the 110 m isobath along the West Coast of the United States has been designated as "critical" for green sturgeon under the United States Endangered Species Act (ESA) [5]. Improved knowledge of green sturgeon habitat within these waters could lead to more geographically or temporally specific protection.
Although green sturgeon use various environments throughout their life cycle, they spend most of their lives in the coastal ocean [3]. Green sturgeon generally spend their first two years in freshwater rivers before they migrate to marine habitats [6], [9]. At about age 15, they return to their natal rivers to spawn in the spring, and depart for marine waters the following autumn. They will continue to spawn every 2–4 years afterwards [10], [11], [12]. Subadults and adults also commonly visit bays and estuaries during summer and early autumn [13], [14]. Recent investigations have elucidated the ocean distribution of green sturgeon and have revealed some remarkable migration and aggregation behaviors during ocean residence [4], [6]. They remain in relatively shallow depths (40–100 m) and may travel long distances (>40 km/day, up to 1000 km) that include northward migrations in the winter followed by southward migrations in the summer [4], [8]. Green sturgeon from different natal rivers also congregate in great numbers at specific sites, presumably to exploit superior foraging opportunities [4]. Recurrent concentrations of sturgeon in nearshore zones indicate that suitable areas are likely limited in number [6].
Characterizing sturgeon habitat in marine environments presents unique challenges. In order to quantify habitat associations, sturgeon must be observed directly, captured, or monitored with electronic devices such as pop-off archival geolocation tags (PATs) and acoustic tags. Direct observation is not feasible because sturgeon are relatively rare, occur at great depths, and swim too rapidly for SCUBA divers or remotely operated vehicles to follow, especially in low light or turbid conditions. Habitat associations have formerly been inferred from bottom trawl capture records [6], [15], [16], but bottom trawls are inappropriate for delineating the full range habitat use because they do not perform well on complex bottom topography, or where the slope is very steep [17]. The use of gill nets in combination with non-electronic tags is feasible, but this usually requires large sample sizes because the majority of tagged fish are never recaptured, and is therefore not practical for rare species such as green sturgeon. Furthermore, non-electronic tags provide little information regarding the duration of residence in a specific location. Electronic devices such as pop-off archival tags (PATs) and acoustic tags have proven useful for habitat studies of marine fishes [18], [19], but success has been limited with sturgeon in marine habitats [6], [7]. The primary restrictive factors for PATs have been cost, which usually limits the sample size [6], and difficulties in calculating day length or time of zenith caused by complex topography, turbidity, or other factors associated with deep, benthic habitats that may interfere with light detection [20]. Alternatively, acoustic tags that emit an ultrasonic signal may prove to be a viable option for delineating nearshore benthic marine habitats, especially when used in conjunction with multiple stationary data logging hydrophones [19], [21], [22], [23].
Coastal tracking arrays designed as acoustic "grids" or "gates" that consist of numerous hydrophones arranged in patterns to record the passage of acoustically tagged animals have been deployed on the continental shelf of western North America [24], [25]. Our objective was to characterize green sturgeon habitat using detection data collected in 2006 for 37 acoustically tagged green sturgeon from one such array, located along the Siletz Reef near Newport, Oregon (Figure 1). The Siletz Reef has a highly variable bathymetry and variable bottom topography. We classified seafloor physical habitat features with broad-scale, high-resolution bathymetric and backscatter data from sonar survey of the Siletz Reef [26], [27]. We then described the distribution of selected habitat components and their relationship to green sturgeon presence across the study area with a multivariate analysis, non-metric multidimensional scaling (NMS). We also constructed generalized linear models (GLMs) to describe the mean response of sturgeon in our study to physical habitat features, identify habitat components that are important to green sturgeon, and compare and corroborate patterns detected in the multivariate analysis. Finally, we summarized data from eight green sturgeon tagged with PATs and released near the Oregon coast in 2004. We used these data to confirm previous studies describing depth and water temperatures inhabited by green sturgeon, in addition to the timing of movements from bays and estuaries to oceanic habitats [6], [11], [28].
Top-left inset: Overview of Oregon and Washington, USA coast with hydroacoustic receiver array area outlined in green. Red triangles indicate PAT detachment locations. Top-right inset: overview of hydroacoustic receiver array with black dots that represent individual hydrophones sized proportionally so that larger dots indicate greater duration of green sturgeon presence (min = 1, max = 19, mean = 8.2 days per station). Dotted lines indicate 40 m bathymetric depth contours. The tan-colored outline box indicates the area shown in the bottom inset. Bottom inset: detailed view of a portion of the study area with hill shaded bottom topography overlaid with substrate type. Circumscribed black dots indicate hydrophone locations with 250 m buffers.
We detected thirty-seven green sturgeon (Table 1) at twenty hydrophones where reclassified side-scan sonar data and high-resolution bathymetry data were available, for a sum of 163 detection-days. Sturgeon detected in the hydrophone array were originally tagged and released in various locations from San Pablo Bay, California in the south to Grays Harbor, Washington in the north (Table 1). We recorded relatively fewer detection-days (46 d, 28%) within the receiver array area from 27 June to 24 September 2006; the remaining detection-days (117 d, 72%) occurred from 26 September to 26 October 2006 (Figure 2). The mean number of detection-days per fish was 4.4 (Min = 1, Max = 12, SD = 3.5) and each sturgeon visited a mean of 4 (Min = 1, Max = 11, SD = 3) hydrophones. Six sturgeon visited a given hydrophone for more than one day; four of these fish spent two days at a single hydrophone and two sturgeon spent from one to three days at a single hydrophone.
Frequency (left vertical axis) and cumulative percentage (right vertical axis) of detection-days by date for 37 sturgeon detected among 20 hydroacoustic receivers used in this analysis.
There was no observable bias in the spatial distribution of sturgeon presence within the hydrophone array without reference to bottom type; except that a greater number of detection-days tended to occur along the north to south, 40 m depth contour (Figure 1). Visual inspection of habitat maps (e.g. Figure 1, bottom inset) and quantification of habitat components (Table 2) confirmed that hydrophone buffers included a high degree of habitat heterogeneity representative of the study area. Of the substrate types in the receiver buffer areas, sand (40%) and low relief rock (38%) occurred in the greatest proportions, while boulders (5%) and high relief rock (12%) were the least prevalent. For benthic position index (BPI) categories, upper slope habitat (3%) was the least abundant, while flat/plain habitat (36%) formed the greatest percentage. The remaining BPI categories occurred in roughly equivalent proportions (∼10%). The study area had a predominantly west/southwest aspect consistent with westerly ocean depth increase from the coastline (Figure 1). Rugosity values indicated, on average, a low to medium degree of relief in the hydrophone buffer zones [29].
We described the relationship of individual sturgeon encountered in our study to habitat features by positioning them on a non-metric multidimensional scaling (NMS) plot according to covariation and association among the cumulative duration of presence within the hydrophone areas. We chose a three dimensional solution for the NMS ordination by examining scree plots, and after Monte Carlo runs obtained a p-value = 0.004, suggesting that the final stress value had a low probability of occurring by chance [30]. Stress for the final solution after 122 iterations was 15. The proportion of variance represented by three axes between the original distance matrix and the ordination distances was R2 = 0.814.
In general, the NMS analysis demonstrated that habitat components associated with greater seafloor complexity were positively related to sturgeon presence, whereas one component, proportion of sand, which exemplified reduced seafloor complexity, was negatively associated with sturgeon presence. Our indirect gradient analysis using NMS-fitted contour plots identified both strong linear and non-linear relationships between the green sturgeon presence gradient and different habitat components (Figure 3). Rotating the NMS plot to maximize the linear correlation of sturgeon detection-days with NMS (horizontal) Axis 1 scores resulted in a coefficient of determination (R2) of 0.392, and negligible variance in sturgeon detection-days was represented on the other two axes. Habitat component gradients represented on axes 2 and 3 therefore have a negligible linear relationship to green sturgeon detection-days. Higher R2 for fitted contours (non-linear) than for horizontal axis scores (linear) indicated a strong (R2>0.5) non-linear response of sturgeon detection-days (fitted surface R2 = 0.609) depth, high relief rock, low relief rock, valley/crevice and peak/ridge (R2 values in Table 2). Duration of sturgeon presence, characterized by the non-linear surface in the top-left contour plot in Figure 3, generally increased from left to right. All of the habitat components except three (depth, eastern aspect, and sand) exhibited an increasing relationship (both linear and non-linear) with the horizontal axis scores from left to right, and therefore duration of sturgeon presence. The strongest positive relationship with the horizontal axis by linear correlation was rugosity (R2 = 0.641), which represented structural complexity. The strongest non-linear positive relationship was the proportion high relief rock (R2 = 0.790), which is defined as hard surface with a greater than 45° angle. The strongest negative linear relationship with the horizontal axis, was the proportion of sand (R2 = 0.644), whereas the strongest negative non-linear variable was depth (R2 = 0.576). The BPI categories all had positive relationships with the horizontal axis, the strongest of these was the proportion of habitat that are upper slopes (linear R2 = 0.629), also known as escarpments [29], and peak/ridges (non-linear R2 = 0.733) which are simply high points in the terrain.
Non-metric multidimensional scaling (NMS) ordination with fitted regression surfaces that describe the responses of green sturgeon hydrophone detections to habitat variables in the Siletz Reef array. The isolines represent the predicted smooth trends by general additive model (GAM) between environmental variables and plot scores. We rotated NMS plots to maximize the linear correlation of sturgeon detection-days with NMS horizontal axis (axis 1) scores from left to right. Sturgeon presence at the hydrophones therefore tends to increase from left to right along the horizontal axis. Negligible variance in sturgeon presence is represented on the vertical axis (axis 2). We omitted NMS plot score points to improve clarity.
Our underlying motive for constructing and selecting GLMs was to identify habitat components that are of biological importance to green sturgeon and produce a model that may be used to identify likely sturgeon habitat at some point in the future. Of the 5036 models evaluated using qAIC values, green sturgeon detection-days was best explained by a GLM of the following form (Table 3):This model received far more support than any other model; it ranked first with the lowest qAIC value and was attributed nearly all of the Akaike weight (w = 0.9996), indicating that it was very likely the best model for the observed data, given the candidate set of models [31]. With clear support for this single model, it was unnecessary to consider model averaging to reduce model selection bias and uncertainty [32]. Each of the terms in the model led to significant reductions in model deviance, except Rugosity2, which was only marginally significant, and the null model deviance was reduced from 96.0 to 21.9 in the final model (Table 3). The cross-validated R2 for this model, generated by leave-one-out jackknifing, was 0.73 and the jackknifed root mean squared error was 3.95 detection-days. Marginal model plots that showed the marginal response between the response and each predictor reproduce non-linear marginal relationships for the predictors (Figure 4). Although the mean function is a linear function of the predictors, the curvature in the smoothed plots is a result of non-linear mean functions among the predictors and does not indicate a faulty model [33]. On the contrary, the model, as represented by dashed lines in Figure 4, clearly matches the marginal relationships of the data represented by the solid lines.
Four marginal model plots for green sturgeon detection data showing the response variable (Detection-Days) on the vertical axes and the horizontal axes denote numeric predictor values (plotted points) in the final GLM model. Margin model plots provide a graphical representation of model fit by showing the marginal relationships between the response and each predictor. We fitted a regression function for each of the plots using a lowess smooth function for the data (solid blue line) and for the fitted values (dashed red line).
Total lengths for eight green sturgeon fitted with PATs ranged from 158 to 222 cm. After leaving the Columbia and Rogue Rivers, sturgeon spent most time at depths from 20 to 60 m and at water temperatures from 16 to 9.5°C. Sturgeon moved progressively deeper throughout the study period until they reached a depth of about 60 m, which they tended to maintain for the remainder of the winter (Figure S1). Mean depths for PAT-fitted sturgeon were greater than 20 m after 20 September 2004 and depths were in the 50 to 60 m range from 15 October through 30 November 2004 (Figure 5). Mean temperatures experienced by individual sturgeon (12.3 to 10.8°C, SE = 0.07) were less variable than mean depths (17.1 to 57.1 m, SE = 0.47). Mean monthly ocean isothermal layer depth below sea surface (http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd, accessed 22 March 2011) during the study period indicates that sea temperatures were relatively uniform over the depths where the PAT fitted sturgeon were present. All PATs detached and downloaded inside of the 115 m depth contour from Coos Bay, Oregon, USA in the south to the northern tip of Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada in the north (Figure 1).
Mean temperature and depth for eight green sturgeon fitted with pop-off archival tags (PAT) by date (left panels) and by individual sturgeon (right panels). Data points in the left panels indicate 5-day moving averages with standard deviations (whiskers). Data points in the right panels indicate means, bars denote 95% confidence intervals about the mean, and whiskers specify standard deviations.
In many disciplines, making inferences by model selection is replacing the null hypothesis testing approach because it offers a robust framework for choosing from among multiple competing hypotheses without being restricted to evaluating the significance of a single model by an arbitrary probability threshold [32]. We used GLM selection to investigate the mean response of green sturgeon to components of seafloor physical habitat. GLMs are an extension of linear models that allow non-normal distributions of the response variable and have been used extensively in fisheries science [34]. Initially, we were naïve regarding the ecological relevance and appropriateness of the various seascape metrics available for inclusion in the model selection process. Nevertheless, we recognized that our measured seafloor components primarily characterized seafloor complexity in terms of variation in geographic relief and sediment size. Therefore, our implicit null hypothesis was that on average, green sturgeon utilized areas with seafloor complexity in equal proportion to that which was available. If the null hypothesis were true, then none of the variables should have had a strong relationship with sturgeon presence and the best models would still have weak predictive ability. The selected "best" GLM had both strong predictive ability and identified informative variables that suggested an optimal level of seafloor complexity for green sturgeon that was greater than the mean complexity available in the coastal study area. Our NMS analysis was consistent with GLM results and improved our understanding of the shape, strength, and direction of the habitat component gradients in the study area. By encapsulating the sturgeon site-duration gradient on a single axis or non-linear surface, it was straightforward to ascertain positive relationships with rugosity and other complexity surrogates, and a negative relationship with the proportion of sand substrate that is indicative of reduced seafloor complexity. Our statistical model of habitat use described the distribution of individual sturgeon across various habitat component gradients and provides a starting point for future habitat studies in which hypotheses regarding fine-scale habitat choices may be examined.
Because they are highly migratory, green sturgeon may experience environments ephemerally and choose to move to different locations depending on the timing of seasonal environmental variations. We detected most individuals for only a few days within the hydrophone array, indicating that they move extensively. Based on detachment locations of our PAT fitted sturgeon and previous studies, many, but not all, acoustically tagged sturgeon were likely migrating in a northward direction and moving deeper during our study period [4], [6]. It is evident that the behavior of green sturgeon regarding the depth they inhabit may vary greatly. For example, one individual (PAT serial number 43034) remained shallower than 20 m throughout the study period and did not migrate substantially while its PAT was attached. Detections recorded before mid-September must have been from sturgeon that were either residing in the coastal ocean or moving between spawning or summer estuarine holding areas and winter-feeding grounds. The period after mid-September is a period of ocean residence for all green sturgeon except for the very young that have not left their natal rivers and the remaining over-summering migrants from the previous spawning cycle.
The primary limitation of our study is that the spatial scale of our habitat analysis represents only a portion of the green sturgeon range, and late winter to early spring data are absent. Although we have no basis to presume that green sturgeon marine habitat preferences differ greatly during other times of year or in other locations, additional year-round, range wide data may corroborate our current results. In describing habitat utilized by sturgeon on an individual basis, summarized by weighted-averaging habitat values across all hydrophones, we essentially decomposed any spatial structure that may have existed in our dataset. Observations at geographic distances that are more or less similar to one another than expected by chance may increase errors and bias in GLMs [35], [36], [37]. However, the potential for spatial bias among detections for individuals is low because green sturgeon commonly travel daily distances that are many times farther than the length of our entire hydrophone array [4]. Furthermore, we analyzed averaged habitat values, rather than habitat values associated with individual detections.
Although differences in detection densities among physical habitat types should generally reflect differences in habitat quality, there are potential alternative and not mutually exclusive explanations for these differences [19], [38]. For example, sturgeon may spend more time in areas with high relief rock, boulders, and a complex ocean bottom because these features comprise navigational impediments. Yet, in this case, sturgeon should easily be able to avoid these rocky areas because this habitat is only intermittently distributed along the western coast of North America [39]. Regardless of the mechanism or cause of differences in habitat quality, models of habitat use overwhelmingly predict that there will be lower turnover rates among individuals occupying optimal habitats [40]. Therefore, our finding of a greater duration of sturgeon residence in areas with greater seafloor complexity likely indicates greater habitat quality such areas. Species characteristics that may decouple habitat quality and the density of individuals include: social dominance interactions, high reproductive capacity, and generalist habitat predilections [38]. But these characteristics tend to be less closely associated and less influential with large animals that occur at low densities such as green sturgeon, that also have no known social dominance interactions [38].
Anadromy in sturgeons is thought to be a secondary adaptation that facilitates exploitation of abundant benthic invertebrates in coastal marine habitats [41]. Fluctuating food resources in the coastal areas between spawning rivers and presumed rich feeding grounds to the north [4] could provide an explanation for observed differential migration, which has previously been observed in birds and fish [23], [42]. Most adult sturgeons fast continuously for several months and feed intensively for just a few months per year; for green sturgeon, feeding likely only occurs in marine or estuarine habitats [13], [41]. Prey availability appears to drive the marine distributions of Atlantic (Acipenser oxyrinchus) and Gulf (Acipenser oxyrinchus desotoi) sturgeon [43], [44]. Atlantic sturgeon have shown little or no habitat selection based on other factors, rather they only occur where they find prey [43]. Gulf sturgeon have been suggested to forage in a manner consistent with a Lévy search pattern in which they disperse in a random direction and continue until suitable prey patches are found [44], [45]. Other studies have suggested that Gulf sturgeon are distributed according to the presence of prey taxa, but they tend to have a highly structured spatial distribution wherein they pass over less favorable foraging areas directly toward preferred shallow sandy sites [46], [47], [48], [49]. European sturgeon (Acipenser sturio) have been reported over sandy areas as well, but they were also found in deeper waters over coarse, and sometimes rocky areas [16]. Green sturgeon disperse widely along the west coast, but in marine environments they may preferentially reside in areas that provide superior foraging opportunities such as in the estuarine environments at the mouths of large rivers or in the nearshore coastal ocean [4], [6], [28]. Because migratory behavior is likely an adaptation for exploiting seasonally available resources, sturgeon may spend more time in topographically complex areas in the coastal ocean when foraging among the soft sediments between rocky areas provides a substantial enough energetic advantage. However, there may be an additional pressure to forage in complex areas if it provides refuge from predators relative to open, soft bottom areas.
Predation or competition among other species may also influence sturgeon habitat preferences. For species such as the Gulf sturgeon, feeding only occurs during the winter months when there is the lowest predation potential from sharks and when there is less seasonal competition for food from teleost fishes [41]. Although almost nothing is known regarding green sturgeon natural predators in the ocean [50], one of the authors (STL) has observed injuries on green sturgeon captured in gill nets consistent with shark bites, and pinniped predation on sturgeon has also been reported [51], [52]. Green sturgeon may have evolved behaviors that reduce the risk of predation by creatures such as pinnipeds or sharks by avoiding detection while foraging in highly structured areas, and by migrating in a direction (overwintering at high latitudes) that contrasts with other temperate marine animals [4]. The decline of large, pelagic, predatory sharks and the subsequent increase in abundance of pinnipeds and demersal sharks could increase predation pressures and risk effects on green sturgeon, influencing feeding behavior, habitat use, distribution, and their associated food webs [53].
Our findings that green sturgeon are preferentially utilizing complex seafloor habitats gives rise to the possibility that although green sturgeon commonly occur at low densities in the coastal marine environment, specialized habitat requirements could have the potential to reduce green sturgeon fitness in suboptimal habitats and limit their geographic expansion [54]. Identification of green sturgeon physical habitat use patterns is a necessary step towards accurately defining the conditions that are essential for the survival of this species. We specifically addressed if green sturgeon occurrence differed among various substrate types and aspects of seafloor complexity. Our aim was to identify habitat components that best explained inter-habitat variability in green sturgeon distribution, and characterize features that define important coastal areas. Our statistical model, which identified a tendency for green sturgeon to be positively associated with complex benthic habitat during ocean residence, will provide valuable insight regarding the consequences of fisheries management actions, changes in marine environment conditions, and will eventually yield range-wide spatially explicit predictions of sturgeon distributions. Our analysis, in which we describe the average behavior of individuals across a stationary acoustic detection array, allowed us to characterize specific habitat components that are important to green sturgeon. We believe this is a novel approach that will lead to testable hypotheses concerning sturgeon foraging and predation avoidance, and may be readily applied to other comparable datasets.
Materials and Methods
Hydrophone arrays and habitat analysis
We conducted the hydrophone portion of the study at the Siletz Reef complex located off Lincoln City, OR (Figure 1). The site is characterized by extensive bedrock formations (0.75–200 ha), with stretches of high relief columnar structures and ridges interspersed with deep channels [55]. Water depth in the study area ranged from 20–69 m. In the summer of 2006, an array of moored Vemco VR2 and VR2W single channel acoustic receivers (Manufactured by Vemco®) was deployed at the Siletz Reef complex and at Government Point Reef, located 4 km south of Siletz Reef. The array was designed by Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife to study acoustically tagged rockfish (Sebastes spp.) [56], but was also monitored for the presence of green sturgeon. Twenty receiver moorings were deployed on 15 June 2006 at Siletz Reef, three were deployed on Government Point Reef on 17 July 2006, and an additional eight were deployed 25 August and September 15 2006 within the existing Siletz array, to increase detection capability. The Siletz Reef grid encompassed 15 km2 and the Government Point grid covered 3.2 km2. Acoustic receivers were downloaded and removed on 26 October 2006.
We described habitat characteristics within a 250 m radius of the hydrophones using a two meter resolution bathymetric digital elevation model (DEM) and reclassified side-scan sonar data [57]. This radius for habitat description was chosen based on prior testing of acoustic detections within this grid (350–500 m detection range) [56], [58] which indicated that 250 m is a conservative distance for consistent valid acoustic detections. DEM derived variables included depth, aspect, rugosity and bathymetric position index (BPI), whereas reclassified side-scan sonar data quantified substrate types categorized as sand (0.06–2 mm dia., 40% of total area), high relief rock (>45° slope, 40% of total area), low relief rock (0–45° slope, 15% of total area), or boulder (0.25–3 m dia., 5% of total area). Cobble (64–250 mm dia., 0.01% of total area) and gravel (2–64 mm dia., 0.04% of total area) were also quantified as a part of the sonar image habitat interpretation, but occurred in negligible amounts within the region and were not included in the habitat analysis [57]. Aspect (i.e. cardinal direction of the pixel plane), which represents a proxy for exposure [59] was calculated using the Aspect tool in ArcToolbox (ESRI™ ArcMAP® v.10). The mode of aspect values within the buffer was transformed to the degree of eastness to account for circularity in this 360 degree directional measurement [60]. We calculated both rugosity and BPI using the Benthic Terrain Modeler extension (ESRI™ ArcMAP® v.10) [26], [61]. We calculated rugosity, a measure of the relative relief of an area, as the ratio of the area represented by a pixel to the planar area of a complex surface described by the relative elevations of the eight immediately neighboring pixels [29]. BPI is a scale dependent measure of the relative position of a location with regard to the surrounding topology. We calculated it as the ratio of elevations to that of the mean elevation within a given annulus of the location. BPI value grids were standardized to control for scale dependence and reclassified to produce a raster of categorical topographic positions [62]. We calculated the proportional area of six BPI classifications within a 250 m buffer of each hydrophone, these included: "peak/ridge," "upper slope," "middle slope," "flat/plain," "lower slope," and "valley/crevice." All proportional values were subsequently arcsine square root transformed prior to statistical analysis.
Fish tagging
Thirty-seven adult green sturgeon were captured by various researchers in spawning rivers, bays, and estuaries with gill nets or by angling and were acoustic tagged and released from August 2003 to October 2005 (Table 1). Coded ultrasonic pinger tags (Vemco V16-6H) with a tag life of 3–5 years were implanted surgically into the abdominal cavity. An additional eight green sturgeon (Table 1) were captured in the mouth of the Columbia River (n = 7) or Rogue River (n = 1) in July and August 2004 and externally fitted with PATs (Microwave Telemetry® model PTT-100) that recorded temperature and depth at one hour intervals. The PATs released, ascended to the ocean surface and transmitted data to NOAA satellites from January to December 2005. We summarized temperature and depth data from September to December 2004 for comparison with the acoustic tag data set during a period in which all of the PAT fitted fish were consistently recorded in a marine environment. Specific fish tagging and handling details are given by Erickson and Webb (2007), Kelly et al. (2007), Moser and Lindley (2007) and Lindley et al. (2008) for acoustic tags [4], [7], [12], [13], and are given by Erickson and Hightower (2007) for PATs [6].
Data Analysis
We quantified the cumulative number of days that tagged sturgeon were present in the vicinity of hydrophones by summing the time elapsed between detections at each hydrophone in which at least two sequential detections occurred with no intervening detections at another hydrophone. We objectively described the relationship among the 37 acoustically tagged sturgeon and the hydrophone locations using NMS [63], [64] implemented with PC-ORD software [65]. We positioned individual fish (rows) by average Bray-Curtis dissimilarity distances [66] according to covariation and association among cumulative duration of individual sturgeon presence at the hydrophones (columns). We began with a random initial starting configuration and determined the appropriate number of dimensions for the best ordination by examining stress versus dimension plots. We determined the best solution when the standard deviation in stress over the preceding 10 iterations reached 0.00001. We rotated our final NMS plot so that the horizontal axis represented the direction of the maximum linear correlation of sturgeon detection-days with the NMS plot scores. We performed an indirect gradient analysis of the relationship among the habitat variables and the duration of sturgeon presence by representing each habitat variable as a contour gradient overlaid on top of the previously constructed NMS ordination plot [67], [68] using R software [69], [70]. We calculated habitat variable ordination scores by weighted averaging site score values for each variable. We constructed habitat variable contours with non-parametrically smoothed surfaces that were fitted from general additive models (GAM, Gaussian error distribution with identity link) with thin plate splines [71]. The degree of smoothing was determined using cross-validated r2 to determine goodness-of-fit. We tested the significance of each contour surface with an ANOVA in GAM. We also constructed a similar contour plot using NMS site ordination scores with contours based on sturgeon detection-days at each site. We calculated coefficients of determination (R2) for NMS horizontal axis scores (linear) and for fitted contours (non-linear).
We then calculated the average proportion of time that fish spent associated with each habitat type by weighting the habitat values within each hydrophone buffer by its proportion of the total duration at all hydrophones to produce a weighted average for each habitat type for each fish. This calculation for a given habitat variable, is:where x is the environmental variable, xi is the value of x at hydrophone i, and yik is the amount of time spent by individual k at hydrophone i. This procedure generated a set of average habitat component values unique to each fish that we used to construct GLMs [72] of physical habitat use with a quasi-Poisson error distribution to allow for overdispersion in inferences and a log link [73], [74]. Our response variable was the total duration in days that we detected a tagged fish at all hydrophones (detection-days). We chose candidate variables for the GLMs by visually examining plots of all variables against one another and the response variable to identify plausible relationships between species and environmental variables. We incorporated quadratic variable counterparts in the GLM process for candidate variables with a theoretical rationale (i.e. a hypothetical optimal value) indicating a nonlinear relationship (i.e. depth, rugosity, sand, low relief rock, high relief rock, boulders) with the response variable, resulting in 19 total candidate variables. We selected GLMs based on lowest qAIC values using R (Version 2.12.1) software [69] and the MuMIn package [75]. Because each of the variables that we selected had a biologically realistic basis for being included and there was no rational justification for excluding more variables, we constructed all subsets of potential models, but we allowed a maximum of four variables in any given model to help avoid model overfitting. We used the variance inflation factor to measure possible collinearity among explanatory variables, where a value >10 was considered indicative of collinearity [76]. We calculated jackknifed R2 and RMSE values for the best models and constructed marginal model plots of predictor variables using the car package in R [33], [77] to evaluate model fit. In both the GLM and the NMS analyses, we accounted for the fact that receivers were deployed for variable lengths of time by dividing the total number of detection-days for each receiver by the number of days the receiver was deployed.
We calculated 5-day moving averages for temperature and depth for seven PAT monitored sturgeon from the 15 September to 30 November 2004. This time period was summarized to exhibit typical temperatures and depths that sturgeon experience upon returning to the open ocean from a summer spent in bays or estuaries (mid-September to mid-October) and conditions in the open ocean (mid-October to mid-November).
Supporting Information
Figure S1.
Temperature (top panel) and depth (bottom panel) recorded by pop-off archival tags for green sturgeon in this study from January 2004 to January 2005.
We gratefully acknowledge Arliss J. Winship and Christopher J. Chizinski for statistical advice and Brian K. Wells, Isaac Schroeder and an anonymous reviewer for critical reviews of earlier versions of the manuscript. We thank Peter Klimley and David Vogel for providing a portion of the tag metadata and numerous Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, Wildlife Conservation Society, Natural Resource Scientists Incorporated, and University of California at Davis personnel for tagging assistance in the field.
Author Contributions
Conceived and designed the experiments: DDH STL PSR. Performed the experiments: STL. Analyzed the data: DDH. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: STL EAM. Wrote the paper: DDH PSR EAM.
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Manchester City visit relegation threatened Sunderland this Sunday, facing a former bogey team and former bogey manager. Sunderland were a constant menace to Manchester City during the Roberto Mancini era, while City had a poor record against Moyes' Everton. Since then, City's record has improved dramatically against the Black Cats, while Moyes' Manchester United were regularly manhandled by City.
City won the reverse fixture 2-1 back in August but can expect a Sunderland side sitting rock bottom of the Premier League and fighting for their lives this weekend.
The experienced Martin Atkinson has been named referee for this encounter, his first City appointment since the 2-1 win over Arsenal at the Etihad Stadium in December.
The match officials for Sunday's game in full are:
Referee: Martin Atkinson
Assistants: S Child, A Holmes
Fourth official: P Tierney


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The International Energy Agency (IEA) predicts that the natural gas market's traditional trade routes are set to change course completely due to oversupply, which is being fueled by increased production and falling demand…
The International Energy Agency (IEA) predicts that the natural gas market's traditional trade routes are set to change course completely due to oversupply, which is being fueled by increased production and falling demand…
In June 2016 the IEA released its 2016 Medium-Term Gas Market Report showing what it believes the world can expect to happen in the liquid natural gas (LNG) market over the next five years. According to the IEA, supply and demand developments are showing that new LNG supplies are coming online as growth in some major markets slows, which will lead to major shifts in global gas trade patterns.
While production and export capacity in the United States and Australia is ramping up, Japan and Korea—which together account for almost half of global LNG trade—are seeking to import less. Elsewhere in Asia, abundant LNG supplies are expected to make gas seem like a good long-term strategic option, but the IEA says that growing demand in developing Asian countries alone will not be sufficient to bring LNG markets back into balance in the near future. Previously, Europe has been the last resort buyer of "unwanted" LNG supplies but it is not expected to save the day this time due to low coal prices powering the continent.
Last year, the IEA predicted that global demand for LNG would rise by 2 percent a year by the end of the forecast period, but this has now dropped to an expected 1.5 percent rise per year. So what does this mean for LNG buyers and sellers?
The report says that the increase in LNG available combined with the diversification of supply sources will bring major supply security benefits to end-consumers. But that complacency should not set in as threats to gas supply security remain substantial—recent history has shown that threats to the security of supply come along unexpectedly, in the form of natural disasters, adverse weather, political instability and technical failures. The IEA says that these risks could potentially become even worse over the next five years with the downturn in oil and gas prices seeing producers slash investments and refocus on making cost reductions.
An increasingly interconnected world also means that demand and supply shocks that used to hit just one region could spread further afield into other regions as well. All of these factors, which are happening within a rapidly evolving wider energy landscape, mean that the IEA has called for the development of a new, broader approach to gas security as soon as possible.
SEE MORE: The rise of natural gas by Peter Ward


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A Local Economy is the Solution
Under this climate action platform, MSA Oregon will be advocating for policies that improve the sustainability of small businesses and strengthen the local economy. For a small business to be sustainable it must be integrated into the local economy, supporting and being supported by its neighbors. This integration should stretch from sourcing materials locally, all the way to increasing local civic engagement to make the economy work better for small businesses.
In a local economy, businesses use regional resources to meet their needs and in doing so become connected to the entire community. In this interconnection lies strength and resilience. Businesses that are integrated into the local community will last because they know what the community needs and wants and they are accountable to the people they serve. When local businesses support each other, buy from each other, and collaborate together they will each be stronger and more successful. A sustainable business understands its reliance on the environment and works to ensure that it is not exceeding its limits. When a local economy is made up of sustainable businesses, both in the environmental sense and the durability sense of the word, it is more resilient.
Small businesses must be the ones to define small business and define local economy instead of allowing others to set them and force us to conform.
MSA must ensure that small businesses are truly represented in policy development, especially when small businesses will be impacted.
- MSA will work to unify small contractor and retail businesses, trade unions and community partners to advance comprehensive public policy solutions that increase economic opportunities and accessibility for small businesses, trade unions and community organizations.


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A homicide inquiry has been launched after a woman's body was found yesterday on a rural Canterbury road where firefighters were battling a series of suspicious fires.
The body of the as yet unidentified woman, who police have told locals had been "missing for a little while", was discovered on Main Rakaia Rd, 500m from State Highway One, by a member of the public driving past at about 7.40pm.
Police say the death could be connected to a series of suspicious fires in the Selwyn area yesterday, and are hunting the occupants of two people in a 4WD.
"Police are still working to piece together exactly what has happened, and there are a number of enquiries which are still to be made," said Detective Inspector Darryl Sweeney in a statement tonight.
The woman's body has now been removed from the scene, however police and specialist staff will remain to complete further forensic examinations.
The road also remains closed.
"Police are still working to ascertain the cause of the woman's death, and a post-mortem is scheduled to take place tomorrow," Mr Sweeney said.
"However, the current circumstances lead us to believe this is a homicide investigation."
Police are still working to complete a formal identification of the victim.
"Until this has been done, and her family has been advised, police will not be in a position to release a name."
The manager of the dairy farm where the woman's body was found was told by police the woman had been "missing for a little while".
The farmer, who only wanted to be known as Jori, knew about the fires in the area last night.
But it wasn't until he got up about midnight that he saw police outside his property.
"I went to have a look and they told me there was a body there, a lady who had been missing for a little while," he said.
"[The body] was right by the boundary fence, between the farm and the road.
"They said they were looking for two occupants of a 4WD who had been in the Rakaia river."
Local dairy farmer Michael Norton said thieves stole two 20-litre containers of petrol from his farm on Main Rakaia Rd on Saturday night.
He said they smashed the lock off a shipping container and targeted the petrol, leaving behind tools, a water blaster and pump, of "more value than petrol".
Mr Norton noticed the break-in yesterday afternoon and reported it to police today.
"I thought with all these fires and the body, and having petrol stolen like that, it seemed like a strange thing," he said.
"So I put two and two together, thinking there could be a link there. Obviously we don't know that for sure, but it made me a bit nervous."
Earlier yesterday afternoon, a series of suspicious fires had been lit around 4pm in the Selwyn riverbed near State Highway 1, just north of Dunsandel.
It sparked a large emergency response, including four fire engines, 10 water tankers and three helicopters.
The Fire Service was first called to a fire at Selwyn river at 4.44pm.
When they arrived, they found two fires, one on either side.
"Obviously the guys were running around the river, lighting them," said Rakaia Volunteer Fire Brigade station officer Tyrone Burrowes, who was sure the fires had been started deliberately.
Two crews fought the fires, with assistance from a helicopter.
Later, at 7.37pm they were called to another scrub fire on Main Rakaia Rd.
The nearest unit was Kirwee Volunteer Fire Brigade.
As they were on their way, the member of the public, a "passer-by", rang back to give them a "heads up" that there was a body there.
Mr Burrowes wouldn't say whether the woman's body had been burned or was on fire.
He confirmed that Kirwee Volunteer Fire Brigade was first on the scene.
"They extinguished the grass fire and protected the scene for police," he said.
At 8.30pm, there were reports of yet another suspicious fire, this time at Overdale, south of Rakaia township.
A Rakaia tanker and Dunsandel fire crew responded.
Mr Burrowes believed that all of the fires were suspicious.
Police were yesterday asking for sightings of a 4WD vehicle that was seen in the Selwyn River in the vicinity of the fires when they were first lit.
Mr Sweeney referred queries to the police media headquarters in Wellington.
"We have released as much information as we have available at this stage," a media spokeswoman said at 10.30am today.
Canterbury police and forensic specialists are carrying out a detailed examination of the scene.
Drivers wanting to access a cordoned off section of Main Rakaia Rd are being told by the police scene guard it may be closed off for several days.
The road is closed between State Highway One and Old South Rd.
It's a stretch of road that looks very similar to any other in rural New Zealand, with a milking shed and irrigators visible in the cordoned off area.
The only thing to suggest it's far from normal is a bright fluorescent light, 300m from the cordon's edge which has been lighting the scene overnight.
Anybody with any information in regard to suspicious vehicles or people in the area are asked to contact Christchurch Central Police Station on 03 363 7400 or Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111.
Locals are upset by the grisly find - the second such disturbing body discovery in the rural Selwyn district in the last three weeks.
The badly bashed body of Marcus Luke Tucker was found burned, dumped, and wrapped in some material on Drain Rd, Doyleston by Lake Ellesmere on Anzac Day.
Peter John Carroll, 51, of Bishopdale, Christchurch has been charged with his murder. Three others have also been charged in connection with the case. All four are now before the courts.


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#664 : December 28, 2018
Libraries aren't just for books. They're often spaces that transform into what you need them to be: a classroom, a cyber café, a place to find answers, a quiet spot to be alone. It's actually kind of magical. This week, we have stories of people who roam the stacks and find unexpected things that just happen to be exactly what they required.