Éditeur(s) : HAL CCSD
Résumé : International audience
Sciences curriculum, official instructions and scholar books are the same for all French pupils. Some official scientific aims of secondary schools (11–18 years old) like seasons and moon observation may not fit with nature observation in French West Indies. To overcome this obstacle and improve sciences education in French West Indies, a better understanding of representation of students seems necessary. A questionnaire was fulfilled by 124 first year students from Guadeloupe. European seasons descriptions are significantly more precise than Caribbean ones in year period as in climatic characteristics (temperature and humidity). More than 75% of answers do not take in account the relationship between moon orientation and latitude. The majority of students seem to perceive the moon as represented in the models of education or cultural product from temperate areas and not as they see it. Here we seem to face a kind of inverted obstacle in the epistemological sense. It is not the naive observation of nature that makes it more difficult to understand scientific concepts but universal selection of content (examples, models, order of ideas) that explains science taught imperfectly observable in specific educational setting.
ESERA 2011 Science Learning and Citizenship
Lyon, France

Droits : info:eu-repo/semantics/OpenAccess
hal-01539485
https://hal.univ-antilles.fr/hal-01539485
https://hal.univ-antilles.fr/hal-01539485/document
https://hal.univ-antilles.fr/hal-01539485/file/ESERA2011.pdf

Éditeur(s) : Inter-Research
Résumé : We studied the foraging rhythms of green sea turtles Chelonia mydas on the seagrass beds of N'Gouja Bay, Mayotte Island (Comoros Archipelago) with acoustic transmitters and moored listening stations. We monitored 8 tagged turtles (4 probable males, 3 probable females and 1 immature), from 70 to 109 cm curved carapace length (CCL), for durations ranging from 5 to 92 d. The turtles exhibited a regular diel pattern: they foraged mainly during the day (on average 87% of seagrass detections were between 06:00 and 18:00 h) and rested on the inner reef slope during the night. Night time feeding activities were observed on the seagrass bed when the night light was high. The presence of turtles on the seagrass bed at night was significantly correlated with a night light index (r = 0.54, p = 0.002), which included both moon light and cloudiness indices. Behaviour of the only immature individual observed was similar to adult turtles, although it rested more frequently around noon. All turtles displayed a high fidelity to 1 foraging site within the seagrass bed. Acoustic transmitters and permanent listening stations are an appropriate technique for long-term behavioural studies of turtles, with no human interaction with turtles during tracking, and represent a suitable technique to assess the possible effects of environmental changes or human activities upon green turtle behaviour.
Marine Ecology Progress Series (0171-8630) (Inter-Research), 2006 , Vol. 306 , P. 295-302

Droits : Inter-Research 2006
http://archimer.ifremer.fr/doc/2006/publication-3616.pdf
DOI:10.3354/meps306295
http://archimer.ifremer.fr/doc/00000/3616/

Éditeur(s) : HAL CCSD Cambridge University Press
Résumé : International audience
The reproduction of Rhinecanthus aculeatus (Linnaeus,1758), a tropical Indo-Pacific reef fish, occurs aroundthe full and new moon (Kuwamura 1997). Spawningbegins 16 to 45 min before the sunrise. The courtshipsbegin 7 to 27 min before the spawning. A specific behaviourof the courtships is when the male places itsrostrum against the caudal peduncle of the female(Kuwamura 1997).Observations have been recorded in the lagoon ofTiahura [shallow sandy area (0.5 - 2 m deep) withalgae Hypnea spinella (C.Agardh) Kützing, 1847 -Moorea, French Polynesia; 17°29′27′ S, 149°53′32″O]in March and April 2015. Fifteen R. aculeatus (fivemales and ten females) lived in this area where themales have territories, which included the subterritoriesof the females. During video-recorded courtships,in addition to the behaviour described byKuwamura (the nuzzling), two new behaviours havebeen observed: circling and touching. During the circling,the male and the female swim to the surface inprogressively larger circles (Fig. 1). The circling behaviourhas been observed in other Balistidae such asPseudobalistes flavimarginatus (Rüppell, 1829) andBalistapus undulatus (Park, 1797) (Lobel andJohannes 1980). During the touching, the abdomensof the male and the female’s touch each other withoutgametes emission (Fig. 2). The touching has been reportedfor Xanthichthys mento (Jordan and Gilbert1882) (Kawase 2003).Although Balistidae present different reproductivestrategies, they have common reproduction features,such as the time and the day of hatching andspawning (Kawase 2003). Our observations are innovativebecause the courtship of R. aculeatus is morecomplicated than previously described. This resultsuggests, thus, that Balistidae have also some commoncourtship behaviour features. These behaviours mayfacilitate the release of gametes, as with the nuzzling(Kuwamura 1997) or can convince the partner to mate.We do not know if these patterns are phylogeneticallyrelated. But as the egg care strategy of Balistidae (biparentalvs maternal) appears to be related to the distributionof food and breeding sites, more than by thephylogeny (Kuwamura 1997), more studies on thistopic will be useful to better understand the establishement of these behaviours.
EISSN: 1755-2672

hal-01562097
https://hal-univ-perp.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01562097
DOI : 10.1007/s12526-016-0464-7