Ticker for January 31, 2003

                
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January 31, 2003   January 31, 2003   January 31, 2003   January 31, 2003



First Things First

Yesterday's Ticker needs a few corrections, and our attempts to fix
it got lost in the internet ether somewhere.

The second link in yesterday's Ticker was wrong.  The two pictures
should be:



Also, we forgot to thank OCS's Billy McPherson for pointing out that
only one side of our trees were getting rimed.  The entire Ticker
staff lives south of the Ticker Building, and saw only the south side
of trees on the drive to work: so we thought everything was icy!


It's Not Easy Being Piscine

We spent some time a few weeks back about the value of data packed into
the humble wind rose.  Today, a fun application of that data.

Wind rose data from the Oklahoma Mesonet recently gave a small assist
to research led by Dr. Mike Eggleton of the University of Oklahoma's
Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of Natural History.  In conducting research
on fish communities in Lake Texoma, Dr. Eggleton has found strong
and consistent relationships between the structures of fish
communities and shoreline susceptibility to winds and waves.

During windy situations, it's not fun to be a little fish on the
windward shore of a lake.  The same winds that help stir up food can
pound on the shoreline, destroy fish habitat, slosh the poor little
guys around, or even wash them ashore!  To avoid being potentially
beaten to death, little fish can migrate to deeper waters, but there
they are more susceptible to predators.

But it's not all bad for all fishes.  Some species may benefit from
the bug larvae and plankton that get stirred up in the area.

Certain arms of the lake may be more susceptible to these effects,
depending on the frequency of certain wind regimes.  Part of
Dr. Eggleton's research considers the effects of the statistical
wind distribution on the fish comunities of these arms.  Really
interesting stuff!

So, the next time you have to walk into a stiff southerly breeze,
remember that it could be worse: you could be a silverside on the
northern shores of Lake Texoma!