Sistema Regional de Información
en línea para Revistas Científicas de América Latina,
el Caribe, España y Portugal

Los microplásticos son contaminantes emergentes con una distribución global amplia y representan un riesgo para la biodiversidad y el sustento de comunidades humanas. Estas partículas son mayormente transportadas por los ríos desde el continente hacia los ecosistemas marino-costeros, en donde se acumulan y afectan su calidad ambiental. El objetivo de este estudio fue evaluar la contaminación por microplásticos en manglares y playas del área marina protegida de Cispata, Caribe colombiano. En mayo de 2018, se seleccionaron tres estaciones en los manglares y dos en las playas turísticas, en donde se muestrearon microplásticos en el agua superficial y sedimentos, los cuales se identificaron visualmente bajo el estereoscopio, se contaron para determinar su abundancia y se clasificaron según sus formas. La abundancia de microplásticos fue mayor en los manglares (de 13 a 123 ítems/m3 de agua; de 72 a 1 668 ítems/m2 o de 42 a 1 825 ítems/kg de sedimentos) en comparación con las playas (de 0 a 0.13 ítems/m3 de agua; de 8 a 36 ítems/m2 de sedimentos). En ambos ecosistemas, las películas, las espumas y los fragmentos fueron las formas más comunes, relacionándose con la deficiente gestión de residuos domésticos, del turismo y la pesca en la zona. Este estudio aporta al conocimiento sobre la distribución, la abundancia y las características de los microplásticos en manglares y playas de la región, para generar conciencia ambiental sobre sus riesgos y promover acciones que permitan prevenir y mitigar sus impactos negativos, especialmente, en las áreas marinas protegidas.

Almost 25% of skates and rays’ information worldwide is insufficient to assess their extinction risk. We reported the first seven confirmed records of the rough eagle ray (Aetomylaeus asperrimus) along the north Pacific coast of Costa Rica. These findings suggest that encounters with this species are rare, possibly associated with oceanographic patterns. More information is needed to make accurate assumptions on the species’ abundance, ecology, and conservation needs.  

On March 4, 2021 a Mw=8.1 earthquake at the Tonga-Kermadec Trench generated a tsunami threat warning from the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center (PTWC).  Costa Rica’s National Tsunami Monitoring System (Sinamot), acting as the National Tsunami Warning Center (NTWC), issued a warning about the possibility of a tsunami. The travel time  of approximately 15 hours allowed the use of tsunami (flooding) numerical modeling as an additional decision support tool. The modeled tsunami heights agreed well with the records from two Costa Rican tide gauges. The tsunami reached a maximum height of 17.6 cm at Quepos (Pez Vela Marina) and 6.1 cm at the Chattam Bay tide gauge at Cocos Island, which was the first tsunami recorded at this gauge since its deployment in March 2018. At Wafer Bay on Cocos Island witnesses filmed the tsunami running upriver and reported strong currents which were not predicted by the model. The contrast between these effects and the small height recorded at the nearby gauge, together with the effects of previous tsunamis, such as the one that occurred in Japan in 2011, confirmed a local effect at Wafer Bay.  For the rest of the country the PTWC forecast overestimated the tsunami heights that were actually recorded, which in turn agreed with the first threat analysis carried out by the Sinamot.

The objective of this contribution is to present new records of the occurrence of Sphoeroides pachygaster, based on 8 specimens deposited in a scientific collection of 175-313 mm in standard length weighing 178.7-1 010 g, which were captured south of Veracruz, southwestern Gulf of Mexico. In addition, meristic and morphometric data of the captured specimens are given and discussed as support for identification.

El pez Taractichthys steindachneri se distribuye en el océano Indo-Pacífico, y en el océano Pacífico oriental se restringe hasta el sur del golfo de California, México. Sin embargo, en noviembre del año 2020 se registró, por primera vez, la captura de forma incidental en la pesquería artesanal frente a la costa de El Salvador. Esto puede deberse al enfriamiento de aguas superficiales marinas, a causa del fenómeno de La Niña.

Minuca osa had been previously thought to be endemic to Pacific Costa Rica (Golfo Dulce). However, specimens fitting the description were sampled in April 2021 and August 2022 in two sites in the Eastern Montijo Gulf, Panama. Based on the morphological character correspondence between the specimens collected and the original species description, it can be concluded that Minuca osa is also present in the Eastern Montijo Gulf.

Este estudio reporta la composición de especies de picnogónidos asociados a la fauna incrustante de muelles de una marina turística recolectadas en septiembre y octubre del año 2011, y en abril y junio del año 2012, y las muestras de algas, coral muerto y de tubos de quetopteridos, anélidos tubícolas recolectados mediante buceo libre en sitios de playa de febrero a abril del 2018.  Los sitios estudiados, la marina de la Cruz de Huanacaxtle y playas aledañas se localizan en el Pacífico mexicano, en la costa norte de la bahía de Banderas en el estado de Nayarit. Se examinaron en total 78 especímenes que pertenecen a cinco familias, seis géneros y nueve especies; se presenta una lista sistemática; para cada especie se incluye una descripción breve, información de su distribución y abundancia en los sitios estudiados. En los muelles de la marina de la Cruz de Huanacaxtle se registraron 56 especímenes correspondientes a tres especies. En las playas La Manzanilla, Burros, La Lancha y playa de la Isla María Cleofás se presentaron ochos especies, seis de ellas no presentes en los muelles. Las especies más abundantes fueron Anoplodactylus sp. con 32 especímenes (41%) y Nymphon lituus con 24 (31%), esta última fue dominante en los muelles de la marina. El estudio provee los primeros registros de picnogónidos para la costa norte de la bahía de Banderas, México, contribuye al conocimiento de la biodiversidad del Pacífico mexicano y documenta la pycnofauna asociada a comunidades bioincrustantes de una marina náutica.

Having a biodiversity register is important for any region. In this paper, Pentaceraster cumingi is incorporated to El Salvador’s marine wealth. The objective was to document its presence in the Salvadoran Pacific. Based on photographic material, there is evidence of the existence of P. cumingi in a national reef since 2017. This species is vulnerable to be trapped in trawling nets. The densities and the ecological role it plays should be known.

Currently, many studies are already available on people’s theoretical knowledge about climate change. The results of some of these studies show the existence of serious confusion regarding certain phenomena and basic concepts of great importance, even despite the fact that, in recent years, the problem regarding climate change has become increasingly relevant in different media, and it is also present in school curricula as a fundamental part of Education for Sustainability. Some of these confusions constitute true alternative ideas. This paper first analyses the incidence and strength of five of these ideas in students of Compulsory Secondary Education (CSE) and in various groups of teachers in training. Then, a didactic proposal is made to achieve change in one of those ideas, which involves various concepts and principles of Physics.

Evolutionary computation algorithms allow solving optimization problems through defined iterations and stages. One of the most commonly employed techniques for this type of problem is differential evolution, which contains properties of small-world complex networks, whose study is important because of the results they generate for optimization problems. Considering the results obtained in previous works, which propose an evolutionary algorithm guided by complex small-world networks, a proposal is defined which contains complex scale-free networks, with the purpose of validating the averages generated by complex networks against the results obtained by the traditional evolutionary algorithm. An experiment was defined which allows evaluating the performance of the proposed model and that of the evolutionary algorithm by means of statistic indicators. Four optimization problems (Ackley, Beale, Camel, and Sphere) were also used to evaluate the hypothesis in the proposed model, its convergence, and the reduction of execution times compared to the base model. It was observed that the scale-free complex networks generated better averages than the traditional evolutionary algorithm and the small-world networks because they use a connection preferential mechanism between their nodes and guide the combination of individuals (solutions), thus improving the convergence rate and the performance of the evolutionary algorithm in general.