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1. Florida mangrove saltmarsh reference surface soils

   https://doi.org/10.6073/pasta/0e08cbe07c84488cb7b9dd16669946d0  

   Lewis, David Bruce ( January 2021 )

   Abstract

   Site description. This data package consists of data obtained from sampling surface soil (the 0-7.6 cm depth profile) in black mangrove (Avicennia germinans) dominated forest and black needlerush (Juncus roemerianus) saltmarsh along the Gulf of Mexico coastline in peninsular west-central Florida, USA. This location has a subtropical climate with mean daily temperatures ranging from 15.4 °C in January to 27.8 °C in August, and annual precipitation of 1336 mm. Precipitation falls as rain primarily between June and September. Tides are semi-diurnal, with 0.57 m median amplitudes during the year preceding sampling (U.S. NOAA National Ocean Service, Clearwater Beach, Florida, station 8726724). Sea-level rise is 4.0 ± 0.6 mm per year (1973-2020 trend, mean ± 95 % confidence interval, NOAA NOS Clearwater Beach station). The A. germinans mangrove zone is either adjacent to water or fringed on the seaward side by a narrow band of red mangrove (Rhizophora mangle). A near-monoculture of J. roemerianus is often adjacent to and immediately landward of the A. germinans zone. The transition from the mangrove to the J. roemerianus zone is variable in our study area. An abrupt edge between closed-canopy mangrove and J. roemerianus monoculture may extend for up to several hundred meters in some locations, while other stretches of ecotone present a gradual transition where smaller, widely spaced trees are interspersed into the herbaceous marsh. Juncus roemerianus then extends landward to a high marsh patchwork of succulent halophytes (including Salicornia bigellovi, Sesuvium sp., and Batis maritima), scattered dwarf mangrove, and salt pans, followed in turn by upland vegetation that includes Pinus sp. and Serenoa repens. Field design and sample collection. We established three study sites spaced at approximately 5 km intervals along the western coastline of the central Florida peninsula. The sites consisted of the Salt Springs (28.3298°, -82.7274°), Energy Marine Center (28.2903°, -82.7278°), and Green Key (28.2530°, -82.7496°) sites on the Gulf of Mexico coastline in Pasco County, Florida, USA. At each site, we established three plot pairs, each consisting of one saltmarsh plot and one mangrove plot. Plots were 50 m^2 in size. Plots pairs within a site were separated by 230-1070 m, and the mangrove and saltmarsh plots composing a pair were 70-170 m apart. All plot pairs consisted of directly adjacent patches of mangrove forest and J. roemerianus saltmarsh, with the mangrove forests exhibiting a closed canopy and a tree architecture (height 4-6 m, crown width 1.5-3 m). Mangrove plots were located at approximately the midpoint between the seaward edge (water-mangrove interface) and landward edge (mangrove-marsh interface) of the mangrove zone. Saltmarsh plots were located 20-25 m away from any mangrove trees and into the J. roemerianus zone (i.e., landward from the mangrove-marsh interface). Plot pairs were coarsely similar in geomorphic setting, as all were located on the Gulf of Mexico coastline, rather than within major sheltering formations like Tampa Bay, and all plot pairs fit the tide-dominated domain of the Woodroffe classification (Woodroffe, 2002, "Coasts: Form, Process and Evolution", Cambridge University Press), given their conspicuous semi-diurnal tides. There was nevertheless some geomorphic variation, as some plot pairs were directly open to the Gulf of Mexico while others sat behind keys and spits or along small tidal creeks. Our use of a plot-pair approach is intended to control for this geomorphic variation. Plot center elevations (cm above mean sea level, NAVD 88) were estimated by overlaying the plot locations determined with a global positioning system (Garmin GPS 60, Olathe, KS, USA) on a LiDAR-derived bare-earth digital elevation model (Dewberry, Inc., 2019). The digital elevation model had a vertical accuracy of ± 10 cm (95 % CI) and a horizontal accuracy of ± 116 cm (95 % CI). Soil samples were collected via coring at low tide in June 2011. From each plot, we collected a composite soil sample consisting of three discrete 5.1 cm diameter soil cores taken at equidistant points to 7.6 cm depth. Cores were taken by tapping a sleeve into the soil until its top was flush with the soil surface, sliding a hand under the core, and lifting it up. Cores were then capped and transferred on ice to our laboratory at the University of South Florida (Tampa, Florida, USA), where they were combined in plastic zipper bags, and homogenized by hand into plot-level composite samples on the day they were collected. A damp soil subsample was immediately taken from each composite sample to initiate 1 y incubations for determination of active C and N (see below). The remainder of each composite sample was then placed in a drying oven (60 °C) for 1 week with frequent mixing of the soil to prevent aggregation and liberate water. Organic wetland soils are sometimes dried at 70 °C, however high drying temperatures can volatilize non-water liquids and oxidize and decompose organic matter, so 50 °C is also a common drying temperature for organic soils (Gardner 1986, "Methods of Soil Analysis: Part 1", Soil Science Society of America); we accordingly chose 60 °C as a compromise between sufficient water removal and avoidance of non-water mass loss. Bulk density was determined as soil dry mass per core volume (adding back the dry mass equivalent of the damp subsample removed prior to drying). Dried subsamples were obtained for determination of soil organic matter (SOM), mineral texture composition, and extractable and total carbon (C) and nitrogen (N) within the following week. Sample analyses. A dried subsample was apportioned from each composite sample to determine SOM as mass loss on ignition at 550 °C for 4 h. After organic matter was removed from soil via ignition, mineral particle size composition was determined using a combination of wet sieving and density separation in 49 mM (3 %) sodium hexametaphosphate ((NaPO_3)_6) following procedures in Kettler et al. (2001, Soil Science Society of America Journal 65, 849-852). The percentage of dry soil mass composed of silt and clay particles (hereafter, fines) was calculated as the mass lost from dispersed mineral soil after sieving (0.053 mm mesh sieve). Fines could have been slightly underestimated if any clay particles were burned off during the preceding ignition of soil. An additional subsample was taken from each composite sample to determine extractable N and organic C concentrations via 0.5 M potassium sulfate (K_2SO_4) extractions. We combined soil and extractant (ratio of 1 g dry soil:5 mL extractant) in plastic bottles, reciprocally shook the slurry for 1 h at 120 rpm, and then gravity filtered it through Fisher G6 (1.6 μm pore size) glass fiber filters, followed by colorimetric detection of nitrite (NO_2^-) + nitrate (NO_3^-) and ammonium (NH_4^+) in the filtrate (Hood Nowotny et al., 2010,Soil Science Society of America Journal 74, 1018-1027) using a microplate spectrophotometer (Biotek Epoch, Winooski, VT, USA). Filtrate was also analyzed for dissolved organic C (referred to hereafter as extractable organic C) and total dissolved N via combustion and oxidation followed by detection of the evolved CO_2 and N oxide gases on a Formacs HT TOC/TN analyzer (Skalar, Breda, The Netherlands). Extractable organic N was then computed as total dissolved N in filtrate minus extractable mineral N (itself the sum of extractable NH_4-N and NO_2-N + NO_3-N). We determined soil total C and N from dried, milled subsamples subjected to elemental analysis (ECS 4010, Costech, Inc., Valencia, CA, USA) at the University of South Florida Stable Isotope Laboratory. Median concentration of inorganic C in unvegetated surface soil at our sites is 0.5 % of soil mass (Anderson, 2019, Univ. of South Florida M.S. thesis via methods in Wang et al., 2011, Environmental Monitoring and Assessment 174, 241-257). Inorganic C concentrations are likely even lower in our samples from under vegetation, where organic matter would dilute the contribution of inorganic C to soil mass. Nevertheless, the presence of a small inorganic C pool in our soils may be counted in the total C values we report. Extractable organic C is necessarily of organic C origin given the method (sparging with HCl) used in detection. Active C and N represent the fractions of organic C and N that are mineralizable by soil microorganisms under aerobic conditions in long-term soil incubations. To quantify active C and N, 60 g of field-moist soil were apportioned from each composite sample, placed in a filtration apparatus, and incubated in the dark at 25 °C and field capacity moisture for 365 d (as in Lewis et al., 2014, Ecosphere 5, art59). Moisture levels were maintained by frequently weighing incubated soil and wetting them up to target mass. Daily CO_2 flux was quantified on 29 occasions at 0.5-3 week intervals during the incubation period (with shorter intervals earlier in the incubation), and these per day flux rates were integrated over the 365 d period to compute an estimate of active C. Observations of per day flux were made by sealing samples overnight in airtight chambers fitted with septa and quantifying headspace CO_2 accumulation by injecting headspace samples (obtained through the septa via needle and syringe) into an infrared gas analyzer (PP Systems EGM 4, Amesbury, MA, USA). To estimate active N, each incubated sample was leached with a C and N free, 35 psu solution containing micronutrients (Nadelhoffer, 1990, Soil Science Society of America Journal 54, 411-415) on 19 occasions at increasing 1-6 week intervals during the 365 d incubation, and then extracted in 0.5 M K_2SO_4 at the end of the incubation in order to remove any residual mineral N. Active N was then quantified as the total mass of mineral N leached and extracted. Mineral N in leached and extracted solutions was detected as NH_4-N and NO_2-N + NO_3-N via colorimetry as above. This incubation technique precludes new C and N inputs and persistently leaches mineral N, forcing microorganisms to meet demand by mineralizing existing pools, and thereby directly assays the potential activity of soil organic C and N pools present at the time of soil sampling. Because this analysis commences with disrupting soil physical structure, it is biased toward higher estimates of active fractions. Calculations. Non-mobile C and N fractions were computed as total C and N concentrations minus the extractable and active fractions of each element. This data package reports surface-soil constituents (moisture, fines, SOM, and C and N pools and fractions) in both gravimetric units (mass constituent / mass soil) and areal units (mass constituent / soil surface area integrated through 7.6 cm soil depth, the depth of sampling). Areal concentrations were computed as X × D × 7.6, where X is the gravimetric concentration of a soil constituent, D is soil bulk density (g dry soil / cm^3), and 7.6 is the sampling depth in cm.
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2. A Faster Solution to Smale's 17th Problem I: Real Binomial Systems

   https://doi.org/10.1145/3326229.3326267  

   Paouris, Grigoris ; Phillipson, Kaitlyn ; Rojas, J. Maurice ( July 2019 , ISSAC (International Symposium on Symbolic and Algebraic Computation) 2019)

   Suppose $F:=(f_1,\ldots,f_n)$ is a system of random $n$-variate polynomials with $f_i$ having degree $\leq\!d_i$ and the coefficient of $x^{a_1}_1\cdots x^{a_n}_n$ in $f_i$ being an independent complex Gaussian of mean $0$ and variance $\frac{d_i!}{a_1!\cdots a_n!\left(d_i-\sum^n_{j=1}a_j \right)!}$. Recent progress on Smale's 17$\thth$ Problem by Lairez --- building upon seminal work of Shub, Beltran, Pardo, B\"{u}rgisser, and Cucker --- has resulted in a deterministic algorithm that finds a single (complex) approximate root of $F$ using just $N^{O(1)}$ arithmetic operations on average, where $N\!:=\!\sum^n_{i=1}\frac{(n+d_i)!}{n!d_i!}$ ($=n(n+\max_i d_i)^{O(\min\{n,\max_i d_i)\}}$) is the maximum possible total number of monomial terms for such an $F$. However, can one go faster when the number of terms is smaller, and we restrict to real coefficient and real roots? And can one still maintain average-case polynomial-time with more general probability measures? We show the answer is yes when $F$ is instead a binomial system --- a case whose numerical solution is a key step in polyhedral homotopy algorithms for solving arbitrary polynomial systems. We give a deterministic algorithm that finds a real approximate root (or correctly decides there are none) using just $O(n^3\log^2(n\max_i d_i))$ arithmetic operations on average. Furthermore, our approach allows Gaussians with arbitrary variance. We also discuss briefly the obstructionsmore »to maintaining average-case time polynomial in $n\log \max_i d_i$ when $F$ has more terms.« less
3. Decidability of Non-Interactive Simulation of Joint Distributions

   Ghazi, Badih ; Kamath, Pritish ; Sudan, Madhu ( October 2016 , Annual Symposium on Foundations of Computer Science)

   We present decidability results for a sub-class of “non-interactive” simulation problems, a well-studied class of problems in information theory. A non-interactive simulation problem is specified by two distributions P(x, y) and Q(u, v): The goal is to determine if two players, Alice and Bob, that observe sequences Xn and Y n respectively where {(Xi, Yi)}n i=1 are drawn i.i.d. from P(x, y) can generate pairs U and V respectively (without communicating with each other) with a joint distribution that is arbitrarily close in total variation to Q(u, v). Even when P and Q are extremely simple: e.g., P is uniform on the triples {(0, 0), (0, 1), (1, 0)} and Q is a “doubly symmetric binary source”, i.e., U and V are uniform ±1 variables with correlation say 0.49, it is open if P can simulate Q. In this work, we show that whenever P is a distribution on a finite domain and Q is a 2 × 2 distribution, then the non-interactive simulation problem is decidable: specifically, given δ > 0 the algorithm runs in time bounded by some function of P and δ and either gives a non-interactive simulation protocol that is δ-close to Q or asserts thatmore »no protocol gets O(δ)-close to Q. The main challenge to such a result is determining explicit (computable) convergence bounds on the number n of samples that need to be drawn from P(x, y) to get δ-close to Q. We invoke contemporary results from the analysis of Boolean functions such as the invariance principle and a regularity lemma to obtain such explicit bounds.« less
4. Reduction of dynatomic curves

   https://doi.org/10.1017/etds.2017.140  

   DOYLE, JOHN R. ; KRIEGER, HOLLY ; OBUS, ANDREW ; PRIES, RACHEL ; RUBINSTEIN-SALZEDO, SIMON ; WEST, LLOYD ( October 2019 , Ergodic Theory and Dynamical Systems)

   In this paper, we make partial progress on a function field version of the dynamical uniform boundedness conjecture for certain one-dimensional families ${\mathcal{F}}$ of polynomial maps, such as the family $f_{c}(x)=x^{m}+c$ , where $m\geq 2$ . We do this by making use of the dynatomic modular curves $Y_{1}(n)$ (respectively $Y_{0}(n)$ ) which parametrize maps $f$ in ${\mathcal{F}}$ together with a point (respectively orbit) of period $n$ for $f$ . The key point in our strategy is to study the set of primes $p$ for which the reduction of $Y_{1}(n)$ modulo $p$ fails to be smooth or irreducible. Morton gave an algorithm to construct, for each $n$ , a discriminant $D_{n}$ whose list of prime factors contains all the primes of bad reduction for $Y_{1}(n)$ . In this paper, we refine and strengthen Morton’s results. Specifically, we exhibit two criteria on a prime $p$ dividing $D_{n}$ : one guarantees that $p$ is in fact a prime of bad reduction for $Y_{1}(n)$ , yet this same criterion implies that $Y_{0}(n)$ is geometrically irreducible. The other guarantees that the reduction of $Y_{1}(n)$ modulo $p$ is actually smooth. As an application of the second criterion, we extend results of Morton, Flynn, Poonen, Schaefer, andmore »Stoll by giving new examples of good reduction of $Y_{1}(n)$ for several primes dividing $D_{n}$ when $n=7,8,11$ , and $f_{c}(x)=x^{2}+c$ . The proofs involve a blend of arithmetic and complex dynamics, reduction theory for curves, ramification theory, and the combinatorics of the Mandelbrot set.« less
5. Information Design in Spatial Resource Competition

   Yang, Pu ; Iyer, Krishnamurthy ; Frazier, Peter I. ( December 2019 , Lecture notes in computer science)

   We consider information design in spatial resource competition, motivated by ride sharing platforms sharing information with drivers about rider demand. Each of N co-located agents (drivers) decides whether to move to another location with an uncertain and possibly higher resource level (rider demand), where the utility for moving increases in the resource level and decreases in the number of other agents that move. A principal who can observe the resource level wishes to share this information in a way that ensures a welfare-maximizing number of agents move. Analyzing the principal’s information design problem using the Bayesian persuasion framework, we study both private signaling mechanisms, where the principal sends personalized signals to each agent, and public signaling mechanisms, where the principal sends the same information to all agents. We show: 1) For private signaling, computing the optimal mechanism using the standard approach leads to a linear program with 2 N variables, rendering the computation challenging. We instead describe a computationally efficient two-step approach to finding the optimal private signaling mechanism. First, we perform a change of variables to solve a linear program with O(N^2) variables that provides the marginal probabilities of recommending each agent move. Second, we describe an efficient samplingmore »procedure over sets of agents consistent with these optimal marginal probabilities; the optimal private mechanism then asks the sampled set of agents to move and the rest to stay. 2) For public signaling, we first show the welfare-maximizing equilibrium given any common belief has a threshold structure. Using this, we show that the optimal public mechanism with respect to the sender-preferred equilibrium can be computed in polynomial time. 3) We support our analytical results with numerical computations that show the optimal private and public signaling mechanisms achieve substantially higher social welfare when compared with no-information and full-information benchmarks.« less