Variety in evolutionary strategies favours biodiversity in habitats of moderate productivity

The mechanism whereby biodiversity varies between habitats differing in productivity is a missing link between ecological and evolutionary theory with vital implications for biodiversity conservation, management and the assessment of ecosystem services. A unimodal, humped-back relationship, with biodiversity greatest at intermediate productivities, is evident when plant, animal and microbial communities are compared across productivities in nature. However, the mechanistic, evolutionary basis of this observation remains enigmatic. We show, for natural and semi-natural plant communities across a range of bioclimatic zones, that biodiversity is greatest where communities include species with widely divergent values for phenotypic traits involved in resource economics and reproductive timing, coinciding with intermediate biomass production, whilst each productivity extreme is associated with small numbers of specialised species with similar trait values. Our data demonstrate that evolution can generate a greater range of phenotypes where large, fast-growing species are prevented from attaining dominance and extreme adaptation to a harsh abiotic environment is not a prerequisite for survival

Seeing through Sound

Linfield College webmaster Jonathan Pierce explains the opportunity he had to learn what Linfield\u27s website looks like to someone who can\u27t see

Using Experiential Client-Based Projects in Sport Sales Courses

Sales has gradually gained traction in the sport management programs over the past 15 years. This article examines the extent to which client-based experiential projects are used in sport sales courses and determines if teaching practices are different in client-based and non-client-based courses. Online survey responses were received from 36 of 85 sport management programs that offer a sport sales course. Results indicated that 58.3% of sport sales courses utilized a client-based experiential sales project. The sports properties that partner with sales classes the most are college athletics, minor league teams, and Big Five professional sports teams. Clients provided students with leads in 55% of the projects. The most popular organizational model was the independent model, which was employed by 70% of the courses engaging in a client-based project, followed by the on-campus and in-venues models. Client-based courses were more likely to use mock sales calls, guest speakers, and the Sales Huddle game. Implications for teaching client-based experiential courses are addressed

Advice from the Webmaster: Be Paranoid

In the 17+ years I’ve been webmaster at Linfield College, I have learned the internet can hurt you anonymously, quickly and painfully. There isn’t enough space in this magazine to cover the topic in detail. But if I had to give an elevator pitch about what you should worry about and what you should do based on my experiences and what Linfield’s Information Technology support desk deals with, it would be this

Music and Islamic Reform

Music in the Islamic world is being used as a tool for change. Islam is going though a period of major reform, and music is a way to get people all over the world to listen. Though music is prohibited among conservative groups, the Sufis and Islamic youth are spreading ideas of nonviolence and love both to audiences within the religion and to outsiders. The introduction of music has been met with heavy resistance by orthodox members of the religious community, but it has also brought change and success

Linear modelling of attentional resource allocation

Eight subjects time-shared performance of two compensatory tracking tasks under conditions when both were of constant difficulty, and when the control order of one task (designated primary) was varied over time within a trial. On line performance feedback was presented on half of the trials. The data are interpreted in terms of a linear model of the operator's attention allocation system, and suggest that this allocation is strongly suboptimal. Furthermore, the limitations in reallocating attentional resources between tasks, in response to difficulty fluctuations were not reduced by augmented performance feedback. Some characteristics of the allocation system are described, and reasons for its limitations suggested