A deeper understanding of how clouds will respond to a warming climate is one of the outstanding challenges in climate science. Uncertainties in the response of clouds, and particularly shallow clouds, have been identified as the dominant source of the discrepancy in model estimates of equilibrium climate sensitivity. As the community gains a deeper understanding of the many processes involved, there is a growing appreciation...

Rheophilic cyprinids have been detrimentally affected by impoundments, which alter flow regimes, the physical environment and block migration routes. Initial evidence for a southern African cyprinid, smallmouth yellowfish Labeobarbus aeneus , suggested that dependence on riverine spawning areas limits their success within the turbid impoundments of the Orange River system. However, well‐established impoundment populations have...

Aim Glacial cycles had a major influence on the distribution of high‐latitude species, and while genetic consequences of these cycles have been well studied in the Circumpolar North, notably fewer studies have been undertaken in the Antarctic. Here, we use multilocus genetic data from the South Georgia pintail ( Anas georgica georgica ) as a proxy to study the presence and timing of ice‐free refugia on South Georgia, a glaciat...

The aim of this study was to use specimens of the largemouth yellowfish Labeobarbus kimberleyensis, southern Africa's largest cyprinid [IUCN red‐listed as Near Threatened (NT)], obtained from gillnet by‐catch to describe aspects of its biology in order to assist future conservation and management decisions. Ninety three L. kimberleyensis were collected between March 2007 and May 2008 from Lake Gariep, South Africa. Labeobarbus...

A total of 816 common carp Cyprinus carpio asteriscus otolith pairs were collected from Lake Gariep, South Africa. Otoliths were interpreted whole, submerged in methyl salicylate and viewed under transmitted light. The precision of growth zone counts of the primary reader was estimated at 5·54 and 7·03% using the average per cent error method and the coefficient of variation, respectively. Age‐bias plots indicated no systemati...

Angler counts, on‐lake interviews and a household survey were used to estimate angler effort and participation in Lake Gariep, South Africa’s largest inland water body. Annual fishing effort was estimated from instantaneous counts at 16392 angler day −1 yr −1 . Recreational and subsistence anglers contributed 41 and 59% to the total annual fishing effort, respectively. Household surveys in lakeshore settlements estimated that...

Theory predicts that parallel evolution should be common when the number of beneficial mutations is limited by selective constraints on protein structure. However, confirmation is scarce in natural populations. Here we studied the major haemoglobin genes of eight Andean duck lineages and compared them to 115 other waterfowl species, including the bar‐headed goose ( Anser indicus ) and Abyssinian blue‐winged goose ( Cyanochen c...