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After major adversity, some people rely on their religious faith and networks for comfort, support, and material goods and services. Consistent with this behavior are findings that adversity has a positive causal effect on the importance of religion in people's lives. Using a large high‐frequency US dataset, we estimate the causal effects of natural disasters on stated religious importance and attendance at religious services. Effects are identified by comparing changes in outcomes over time within counties affected by a natural disaster with changes over time in other counties from the same state. We find that most estimates are near‐zero in magnitude; for the full sample, for subgroups defined by religious affiliation, demographics, and income, and for different disaster types. However, significant negative effects are found immediately postdisaster, suggesting a short‐term crowding‐out effect in which recovery activities limit time for worship. This explanation is supported by a finding that people are less "well rested" in the first weeks postdisaster. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Understanding the interplay of ocean physics and biology at the submesoscale and below (<30 km) is an ongoing challenge in oceanography. While poorly constrained, these scales may be of critical importance for understanding how changing ocean dynamics will impact marine ecosystems. Fronts in the ocean, regions where two disparate water masses meet and isopycnals become tilted toward vertical, are considered hotspots for biophysical interaction, but there is limited observational evidence at the appropriate scales to assess their importance. Fronts around western boundary currents like the Gulf Stream are of particular interest as these dynamic physical regions are thought to influence both productivity and composition of primary producers; however, how exactly this plays out is not well known. Using satellite data and 2 years of in situ observations across the Gulf Stream front near Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, we investigate how submesoscale frontal dynamics could affect biological communities and generate hotspots of productivity and export. We assess the seasonality and phenology of the region, generalize the kilometer‐scale structure of the front, and analyze 69 transects to assess two physical processes of potential biogeochemical importance: cold shelf filament subduction and high salinity Sargasso Sea obduction. We link these processes observationally to meanders in the Gulf Stream and discuss how cold filament subduction could be exporting carbon and how obduction of high salinity water from depth is connected with high chlorophyll‐a. Finally, we report on phytoplankton community composition in each of these features and integrate these observations into our understanding of frontal submesoscale dynamics. Plain Language Summary: The interplay of physics and biology in determining the biomass and composition of phytoplankton communities is poorly understood and is key to understanding marine ecosystem resilience and structure in a changing ocean. In this work we investigated the impact of physics and biology on phytoplankton across scales focusing on the Gulf Stream front. Fronts in the ocean are where lines of equal density go from being horizontal to having a vertical tile, and because of this can enable nutrients and plankton to move from depth to the surface and vice versa. The objective of this work is to understand how physics might drive important changes in phytoplankton biomass and composition in the Gulf Stream front, which is amongst the sharpest gradients in temperature, density, and current speed in the global ocean. We find two frequent processes at the front, the apparent downward movement of cold filaments along the edge of the Gulf Stream, associated with meander troughs, and upward movement of high salinity Sargasso Sea water into the front linked to meander crests. While ephemeral, these processes are frequent and could have a large impact on local phytoplankton biomass, phytoplankton composition, and the export of organic matter to depth. Key Points: The frontal zone of the Gulf Stream has an interface water mass with different origins and a range of biogeochemical impactsMeanders appear to control the front interface: troughs lead to shelf filament subduction and crests lead to high salinity water obductionSubduction and obduction appear to be common at the front and could lead to ephemeral kilometer‐scale export and productivity [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although many medium-to-large terrestrial vertebrates are still counted by ground or aerial surveys, remote-sensing technologies and image analysis have developed rapidly in recent decades, offering improved accuracy and repeatability, lower costs, speed, expanded spatial coverage and increased potential for public involvement. This review provides an introduction for wildlife biologists and managers relatively new to the field on how to implement remote-sensing techniques (satellite and unoccupied aircraft systems) for counting large vertebrates on land, including marine predators that return to land to breed, haul out or roost, to encourage wider application of these technological solutions. We outline the entire process, including the selection of the most appropriate technology, indicative costs, procedures for image acquisition and processing, observer training and annotation, automation, and citizen science campaigns. The review considers both the potential and the challenges associated with different approaches to remote surveys of vertebrates and outlines promising avenues for future research and method development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pinniped species undergo uniquely amphibious life histories that make them valuable subjects for many domains of research. Pinniped research has often progressed hand‐in‐hand with technological frontiers of wildlife biology, and drones represent a leap forward for methods of aerial remote sensing, enabling data collection, and integration at new scales of biological importance. Drone methods and data types provide four key opportunities for wildlife surveillance that are already advancing pinniped research and management: 1) repeat and on‐demand surveillance, 2) high‐resolution coverage at large extents, 3) morphometric photogrammetry, and 4) computer vision and deep learning applications. Drone methods for pinniped research represent early stages of technological adoption and can reshape the field as they scale towards the full potential of their techniques. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The combination of very high resolution (VHR) satellite remote sensing imagery and deep learning via convolutional neural networks provides opportunities to improve global whale population surveys through increasing efficiency and spatial coverage. Many whale species are recovering from commercial whaling and face multiple anthropogenic threats. Regular, accurate population surveys are therefore of high importance for conservation efforts. In this study, a state‐of‐the‐art object detection model (YOLOv5) was trained to detect gray whales (Eschrichtius robustus) in VHR satellite images, using training data derived from satellite images spanning different sea states in a key breeding habitat, as well as aerial imagery collected by unoccupied aircraft systems. Varying combinations of aerial and satellite imagery were incorporated into the training set. Mean average precision, whale precision, and recall ranged from 0.823 to 0.922, 0.800 to 0.939, and 0.843 to 0.889, respectively, across eight experiments. The results imply that including aerial imagery in the training data did not substantially impact model performance, and therefore, expansion of representative satellite datasets should be prioritized. The accuracy of the results on real‐world data, along with short training times, indicates the potential of using this method to automate whale detection for population surveys. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An acoustic record from Cross Seamount, southwest of Hawaii, revealed sounds characteristic of beaked whale echolocation at the same relative abundance year-around !270 of 356 days", occurring almost entirely at night. The most common sound had a linear frequency upsweep from 35 to 100 kHz !the bandwidth of recording", an interpulse interval of 0.11 s, and duration of at least 932 !s. A less common upsweep sound with shorter interpulse interval and slower sweep rate was also present. Sounds matching Cuvier’s beaked whale were not detected, and Blainville’s beaked whale sounds were detected on only one occasion.