Terrestrial mesopredators did not increase after top-predator removal in a large-scale experimental test of mesopredator release theory

Removal or loss of top-predators has been predicted to cause cascading negative effects for ecosystems, including mesopredator release. However, reliable evidence for these processes in terrestrial systems has been mixed and equivocal due, in large part, to the systemic and continued use of low-inference study designs to investigate this issue. Even previous large-scale manipulative experiments of strong inferential value have been limited by experimental design features (i.e. failure to prevent migration between treatments) that constrain possible inferences about the presence or absence of mesopredator release effects. Here, we build on these previous strong-inference experiments and report the outcomes of additional large-scale manipulative experiments to eradicate Australian dingoes from two fenced areas where dingo migration was restricted and where theory would predict an increase in extant European red foxes, feral cats and goannas. We demonstrate the removal and suppression of dingoes to undetectable levels over 4–5 years with no corresponding increases in mesopredator relative abundances, which remained low and stable throughout the experiment at both sites. We further demonstrate widespread absence of negative relationships between predators, indicating that the mechanism underpinning predicted mesopredator releases was not present. Our results are consistent with all previous large-scale manipulative experiments and long-term mensurative studies which collectively demonstrate that (1) dingoes do not suppress red foxes, feral cats or goannas at the population level, (2) repeated, temporary suppression of dingoes in open systems does not create mesopredator release effects, and (3) removal and sustained suppression of dingoes to undetectable levels in closed systems does not create mesopredator release effects either. Our experiments add to similar reports from North America, Asia, Europe and southern Africa which indicate that not only is there a widespread absence of reliable evidence for these processes, but there is also a large and continually growing body of experimental evidence of absence for these processes in many terrestrial systems. We conclude that although sympatric predators may interact negatively with each other on smaller spatiotemporal scales, that these negative interactions do not always scale-up to the population level, nor are they always strong enough to create mesopredator suppression or release effects

Public opinions on seven different stray cat population management scenarios in Flanders, Belgium

Stray cat population management is an important worldwide issue. Understanding citizen attitudes towards stray cat control options is vital to the success of controlling stray cat numbers, as public perception affects the acceptance of, support for and collaboration in stray cat management policies. Audience segmentation, as to enable each group to be engaged in the stray cat management policy, is important for the success of the interventions. Therefore a web-based survey was conducted among Flemish citizens in order to examine differences in acceptance towards seven management scenarios: household cat neutering with financial support for the owner, household cat neutering without financial support for the owner, encouraging responsible household cat ownership, trapping stray cats and taking them to a shelter, trapping and neutering stray cats for release into a managed & ldquo;cat colony & rdquo; (composed by so called & ldquo;community cats & rdquo;), trapping and killing of stray cats, and undertaking no action. A total of 4059 valid responses were collected and the proportions of agreement were compared across the different management scenarios using the two-sample z-test. Interactions among factors that influenced each management scenario were investigated using the CHAID (Chi-squared Automatic Interaction Detection) analysis and visualized on a tree. Our results showed that fostering responsible household cat ownership (89.9%) and conversion of stray cats to & ldquo;community cats & rdquo; (76.3%) were most supported by respondents in our sample (which consisted mainly of females, cat-lovers, and families without children). Least supported were the killing of stray cats (7.7%) and undertaking no action (3.3%). The demographic analyses revealed that for the acceptance of management scenarios there were three important factors (attitude towards cats, area of residence, and gender), two weaker factors (education and having children) and two which had almost no impact (age and cat ownership). We propose that future studies should focus on the effect of & lsquo;area of residence & rsquo;, & lsquo;having children & rsquo; and & lsquo;education & rsquo;. In conclusion, our research confirms that management of and communication on stray cat strategies should not be developed with a one-size-fits-all approach. Efforts should be tailored to each audience segment, thus adapted to the area of residence and human characteristics

Building leadership capacity in undergraduate students: Final report for ALTC Teaching Fellowship

This Fellowship addressed the significant issue of leadership. Its primary focus was researching and developing leadership skills in undergraduate students. The Fellowship was designed to develop and trial a leadership program specifically to enhance the competencies and skills of undergraduate students beyond their discipline knowledge. A group of universities across Australia agreed to participate in a pilot program to respond to the following identified issues. • The area of leadership development in undergraduates has been under-researched and under-debated in recent work about graduate attributes, generic skills, and work integrated learning. • There has been considerable focus on leadership development for staff within the higher education sector, however not specifically for undergraduate students. • There appears to have been no national review, synthesis or analysis or any formal collective discussion about leadership development for students, the existing leadership development programs, and what might constitute good practice in leadership development for students. • There is a lack of evaluation of leadership development programs for students. • The majority of leadership development programs are often housed in student support units rather than an academic unit and are characterised by their voluntary nature and competitive entry. • Participation may occur through extra-curricular activities such as student societies and clubs and may or may not include some form of formal skills development program. • Programs are often based in a specific discipline (e.g., the Science Mentoring and Leadership Program at the University of Sydney) and for specific populations (e.g., gifted/talented students or women). • Programs are often for all students (not specifically for undergraduate students)..

Lycium barbarum (wolfberry) polysaccharide facilitates ejaculatory behaviour in male rats

Poster Session AOBJECTIVE: Lycium barbarum (wolfberry) is a traditional Chinese medicine, which has been considered to have therapeutic effect on male infertility. However, there is a lack of studies support the claims. We thus investigated the effect of Lycium barbarum polysaccharide (LBP), a major component of wolfberry, on male rat copulatory behavior. METHOD: Sprague-Dawley rats were divided into two groups (n=8 for each group). The first group received oral feeding of LBP at dosage of 1mg/kg daily. The control group received vehicle (0.01M phosphate-buffered saline, served as control) feeding daily for 21 days. Copulatory tests were conducted at 7, 14 and 21 days after initiation of treatment. RESULTS: Compared to control animals, animals fed with 1mg/kg LBP showed improved copulatory behavior in terms of: 1. Higher copulatory efficiency (i.e. higher frequency to show intromission rather than mounting during the test), 2. higher ejaculation frequency and 3. Shorter ejaculation latency. The differences were found at all time points (Analyzed with two-tailed student’s t-test, p<0.05). There is no significant difference found between the two groups in terms of mount/intromission latency, which indicates no difference in time required for initiation of sexual activity. Additionally, no difference in mount frequency and intromission frequency was found. CONCLUSION: The present study provides scientific evidence for the traditional use of Lycium barbarum on male sexual behavior. The result provides basis for further study of wolfberry on sexual functioning and its use as an alternative treatment in reproductive medicine.postprintThe 30th Annual Meeting of the Australian Neuroscience Society, in conjunction with the 50th Anniversary Meeting of the Australian Physiological Society (ANS/AuPS 2010), Sydney, Australia, 31 January-3 February 2010. In Abstract Book of ANS/AuPS, 2010, p. 177, abstract no. POS-TUE-19

Merging morphology, molecules and modelling: A unifying approach for understanding the common cat flea (Ctenocephalides felis) and related species worldwide

The genus Ctenocephalides Stiles and Collins, 1930 contains the most ubiquitous and significant flea ectoparasites worldwide. The common cat flea Ctenocephalides felis (Bouché, 1835) is the most cosmopolitan species within the genus and invades human environments by infesting cats and dogs globally. This species causes significant dermatological pathology to pets and is a vector of zoonotic pathogens including Rickettsia felis, Bartonella spp. and the plague (Yersinia pestis) in endemic regions. Additionally, the costs to pet owners for annual flea control amounts to USD$15 billion worldwide. Despite the global medical, veterinary and economic significance of the cat flea, prior to this work little was known about its origins and how it came to be the most pervasive flea species on earth. The primary objective of this thesis was to amass a global collection of Ctenocephalides fleas from cats and dogs to fill the gaps in our knowledge relating to the taxonomy, phylogenetics and vector role of these important parasites. In this body of work, I demonstrate the importance of an integrated morphological and molecular approach for research on parasite and vector species. By marrying morphological taxonomy with molecular systematics and phylogeographic analyses, I resolve the taxonomy of C. felis and demonstrate cryptic diversity within the species that may have implications for zoonotic pathogen transmission. I show that from out-of-Africa origins, human movement and bioclimatic affinities define and conserve globally discrete lineages of C. felis. This work is the most comprehensive survey of global Ctenocephalides fleas thus far and the first to combine morphology with molecules for the analysis of the genus. The research provides a framework for the investigation of any unresolved taxa, particularly for globally distributed groups that impact upon human health, animal health, agriculture and global economics. The outcomes of this research make a significant contribution to the field of medical and veterinary entomology by providing taxonomic resolution of C. felis and by detailing the most effective and exhaustive technique for taxonomic inquiry of other medically or veterinary relevant arthropods. Using C. felis as a model, the work sheds light on the underlying mechanisms of evolutionary dispersal and population establishment of cosmopolitan insect species

Land Use in Australia

"Land Use in Australia: Past, Present and Future, is a compilation of invited chapters from Australia’s leading specialists in land use policy and planning and land management. Chapters present many widely recognised issues involved in Australia’s land use policy and planning, including limited understanding and poor awareness of: the rich history of poor decisions on land use planning and management across different levels of government the discontinuities between providers of national biophysical information the tools, data and information to improve national land use decision-making outcomes the poor synthesis and integration between science to policy to natural resource management and resource condition the benefits of land use practitioners engaging in connection, cooperation, mutual inquiry and collective social learnings. The aims of the book are threefold: 1) provide a review of the current status of land use policy and planning in Australia; 2) provide a resource to inform and influence the development of land use policy and planning; and 3) provide a sound contribution to Australia’s public–private land use debates in the future. The audience for the book includes government and non-government land management agencies from state and national bodies, universities and researchers.

Modeling Content Lifespan in Online Social Networks Using Data Mining

Online Social Networks (OSNs) are integrated into business, entertainment, politics, and education; they are integrated into nearly every facet of our everyday lives. They have played essential roles in milestones for humanity, such as the social revolutions in certain countries, to more day-to-day activities, such as streaming entertaining or educational materials. Not surprisingly, social networks are the subject of study, not only for computer scientists, but also for economists, sociologists, political scientists, and psychologists, among others. In this dissertation, we build a model that is used to classify content on the OSNs of Reddit, 4chan, Flickr, and YouTube according the types of lifespan their content have and the popularity tiers that the content reaches. The proposed model is evaluated using 10-fold cross-validation, using data mining techniques of Sequential Minimal Optimization (SMO), which is a support vector machine algorithm, Decision Table, Naïve Bayes, and Random Forest. The run times and accuracies are compared across OSNs, models, and data mining algorithms. The peak/death category of Reddit content can be classified with 64% accuracy. The peak/death category of 4Chan content can be classified with 76% accuracy. The peak/death category of Flickr content can classified with 65% accuracy. We also used 10-fold cross-validation to measure the accuracy in which the popularity tier of content can be classified. The popularity tier of content on Reddit can be classified with 84% accuracy. The popularity tier of content on 4chan can be classified with 70% accuracy. The popularity tier of content on Flickr can be classified with 66% accuracy. The popularity tier of content on YouTube can be classified with only 48% accuracy. Our experiments compared the runtimes and accuracy of SMO, Naïve Bayes, Decision Table, and Random Forest to classify the lifespan of content on Reddit, 4chan, and Flickr as well as classify the popularity tier of content on Reddit, 4chan, Flickr, and YouTube. The experimental results indicate that SMO is capable of outperforming the other algorithms in runtime across all OSNs. Decision Table has the longest observed runtimes, failing to complete analysis before system crashes in some cases. The statistical analysis indicates, with 95% confidence, there is no statistically significant difference in accuracy between the algorithms across all OSNs. Reddit content was shown, with 95% confidence, to be the OSN least likely to be misclassified. All other OSNs, were shown to have no statistically significant difference in terms of their content being more or less likely to be misclassified when compared pairwise with each other

Revolutionising how we think about infrastructure

We need broad-scale revolutionary, rather than evolutionary, change if all seven billionpeople on the planet now, and those who follow us, are to have the opportunity to live well