Social and ecological dimensions of urban conservation grasslands and their management through prescribed burning and woody vegetation removal

Natural grasslands are threatened globally. In south-eastern Australia, remnants of critically endangered natural grasslands are increasingly being isolated in urban areas. Urbanisation has led to reduced fire frequency and woody plant encroachment in some patches. Grasslands are currently being managed under the assumption that desirable management actions to address these threats (prescribed burning and removing woody vegetation) (1) lead to improved conservation outcomes and (2) are restricted by negative public attitudes. In this study, we tested these two assumptions in the context of native grassland conservation reserves in Melbourne, Australia. Firstly, we investigated differences in species and functional trait composition between patches that had been recently burnt, patches that were unburnt and patches subject to woody vegetation encroachment. We found that the functional traits of species converged in areas subject to woody plant encroachment and areas frequently disturbed by fire. Burning promoted native species, and patches of woody plants supressed the dominant grass, providing a wider range of habitat conditions. Secondly, we surveyed 477 residents living adjacent to these grassland conservation reserves to measure values, beliefs and attitudes and the acceptance of prescribed burning and removing woody vegetation. We found conflict in people's attitudes to grasslands, with both strongly positive and strongly negative attitudes expressed. The majority of residents found prescribed burning an acceptable management practice (contrary to expectations) and removing trees and shrubs from grasslands to be unacceptable. Both cognitive factors (values and beliefs) and landscape features were important in influencing these opinions. This research provides some guidance for managing urban grassland reserves as a social-ecological system, showing that ecological management, community education and engagement and landscape design features can be integrated to influence social and ecological outcomes

Performing celebrity motherhood on Twitter: courting homage and (momentary) disaster - the case of Peaches Geldof

It sickens me to see just how far the cult of celebrity and super fandom has come when grown women are passing their own kids round. I hate the world sometimes. (@peaches-g) (cited in Halliday 2013) This quote was part of a Twitter message that Peaches Geldof published in November 2013. In the message she also named the two women who had allowed the Lost Prophets singer Ian Watkins to abuse their babies. What became key elements focused upon by journalists in the newspaper debate that followed her subsequent deletion of the message and apology were the purpose of Twitter as a form of communication, and the celebritisation of public discourse. This tweet was constructed as an empty-headed, gossipy, childish and hence feminised intervention into the public sphere.1 Also tied up with this debate was the ongoing narrative of the ‘non-functionality’ of celebrity culture and its ‘reflexive exhibitionism’ (Hyde 2013). Yet Geldof had, until this point, used a combination of Twitter and Instagram to enact a self-transformation from girlhood to motherhood that had drawn critical affirmation from both media pundits and female followers via the social media sites. It is this image of motherhood that has informed the reporting of her sudden death of a heroin overdose at the age of 25 on 7 April 2014

Does a peer model's task proficiency influence children's solution choice and innovation?

This work was supported by a Durham Doctoral Fellowship to L.A.W.The current study investigated whether 4- to 6-year-old children's task solution choice was influenced by the past proficiency of familiar peer models and the children's personal prior task experience. Peer past proficiency was established through behavioral assessments of interactions with novel tasks alongside peer and teacher predictions of each child's proficiency. Based on these assessments, one peer model with high past proficiency and one age-, sex-, dominance-, and popularity-matched peer model with lower past proficiency were trained to remove a capsule using alternative solutions from a three-solution artificial fruit task. Video demonstrations of the models were shown to children after they had either a personal successful interaction or no interaction with the task. In general, there was not a strong bias toward the high past-proficiency model, perhaps due to a motivation to acquire multiple methods and the salience of other transmission biases. However, there was some evidence of a model-based past-proficiency bias; when the high past-proficiency peer matched the participants' original solution, there was increased use of that solution, whereas if the high past-proficiency peer demonstrated an alternative solution, there was increased use of the alternative social solution and novel solutions. Thus, model proficiency influenced innovation.PostprintPeer reviewe

The spread of a novel behaviour in wild chimpanzees : new insights into the ape cultural mind

TP was funded by the Canadian Research Chair in Continental Ecosystem Ecology, and received computational support from the Theoretical Ecosystem Ecology group at UQAR. The research leading to these results has received funding from the People Programme (Marie Curie Actions) and from the European Research Council under the European Union's Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007–2013) REA grant agreement n°329197 awarded to TG, ERC grant agreement n° 283871 awarded to KZ. WH was funded by a BBSRC grant (BB/I007997/1).For years, the animal culture debate has been dominated by the puzzling absence of direct evidence for social transmission of behavioural innovations in the flagship species of animal culture, the common chimpanzee. Although social learning of novel behaviours has been documented in captivity, critics argue that these findings lack ecological validity and therefore may not be relevant for understanding the evolution of culture. For the wild, it is possible that group-specific behavioural differences emerge because group members respond individually to unspecified environmental differences, rather than learning from each other. In a recent paper, we used social network analyses in wild chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes schweinfurthii) to provide direct evidence for social transmission of a behavioural innovation, moss-sponging, to extract water from a tree hole. Here, we discuss the implications of our findings and how our new methodological approach could help future studies of social learning and culture in wild apes.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

Statistically Stable Estimates of Variance in Radioastronomical Observations as Tools for RFI Mitigation

A selection of statistically stable (robust) algorithms for data variance calculating has been made. Their properties have been analyzed via computer simulation. These algorithms would be useful if adopted in radio astronomy observations in the presence of strong sporadic radio frequency interference (RFI). Several observational results have been presented here to demonstrate the effectiveness of these algorithms in RFI mitigation

Chimpanzees demonstrate individual differences in social information use

Studies of transmission biases in social learning have greatly informed our understanding of how behaviour patterns may diffuse through animal populations, yet within-species inter-individual variation in social information use has received little attention and remains poorly understood. We have addressed this question by examining individual performances across multiple experiments with the same population of primates. We compiled a dataset spanning 16 social learning studies (26 experimental conditions) carried out at the same study site over a 12-year period, incorporating a total of 167 chimpanzees. We applied a binary scoring system to code each participant’s performance in each study according to whether they demonstrated evidence of using social information from conspecifics to solve the experimental task or not (Social Information Score—‘SIS’). Bayesian binomial mixed effects models were then used to estimate the extent to which individual differences influenced SIS, together with any effects of sex, rearing history, age, prior involvement in research and task type on SIS. An estimate of repeatability found that approximately half of the variance in SIS was accounted for by individual identity, indicating that individual differences play a critical role in the social learning behaviour of chimpanzees. According to the model that best fit the data, females were, depending on their rearing history, 15–24% more likely to use social information to solve experimental tasks than males. However, there was no strong evidence of an effect of age or research experience, and pedigree records indicated that SIS was not a strongly heritable trait. Our study offers a novel, transferable method for the study of individual differences in social learning

Genesis and pathogenesis of the 1918 pandemic H1N1 influenza A virus

The source, timing, and geographical origin of the 1918–1920 pandemic influenza A virus have remained tenaciously obscure for nearly a century, as have the reasons for its unusual severity among young adults. Here, we reconstruct the origins of the pandemic virus and the classic swine influenza and (postpandemic) seasonal H1N1 lineages using a host-specific molecular clock approach that is demonstrably more accurate than previous methods. Our results suggest that the 1918 pandemic virus originated shortly before 1918 when a human H1 virus, which we infer emerged before ∼1907, acquired avian N1 neuraminidase and internal protein genes. We find that the resulting pandemic virus jumped directly to swine but was likely displaced in humans by ∼1922 by a reassortant with an antigenically distinct H1 HA. Hence, although the swine lineage was a direct descendent of the pandemic virus, the post-1918 seasonal H1N1 lineage evidently was not, at least for HA. These findings help resolve several seemingly disparate observations from 20th century influenza epidemiology, seroarcheology, and immunology. The phylogenetic results, combined with these other lines of evidence, suggest that the highmortality in 1918 among adults aged ∼20 to ∼40 y may have been due primarily to their childhood exposure to a doubly heterosubtypic putative H3N8 virus, which we estimate circulated from ∼1889–1900. All other age groups (except immunologically naive infants) were likely partially protected by childhood exposure to N1 and/or H1-related antigens. Similar processes may underlie age-specific mortality differences between seasonal H1N1 vs. H3N2 and human H5N1 vs. H7N9 infections

Swine Influenza A Outbreak, Fort Dix, New Jersey, 1976

Published literature and events surrounding the outbreak are reviewed

Robust retention and transfer of tool construction techniques in chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes)

Long-term memory can be critical to a species’ survival in environments with seasonal and even longer-term cycles of resource availability. The present, longitudinal study investigated whether complex tool behaviors used to gain an out-of-reach reward, following a hiatus of about 3 years and 7 months since initial experiences with a tool use task, were retained and subsequently executed more quickly by experienced than by naïve chimpanzees. Ten of the 11 retested chimpanzees displayed impressive long-term procedural memory, creating elongated tools using the same methods employed years previously, either combining 2 tools or extending a single tool. The complex tool behaviors were also transferred to a different task context, showing behavioral flexibility. This represents some of the first evidence for appreciable long-term procedural memory, and improvements in the utility of complex tool manufacture in chimpanzees. Such long-term procedural memory and behavioral flexibility have important implications for the longevity and transmission of behavioral traditions

Long-term survival after CABG in diabetics with aggressive risk factor management

Objectives: Diabetes is a well-established risk factor for cardiovascular disease, and diabetics have a threefold increase in risk of death from cardiovascular disease compared to non-diabetics. Following coronary artery bypass grafting, tight glycemic control improves short-term outcomes, however limited data exist for long-term outcomes. Here we examine these outcomes in diabetics using aggressive risk factor management. Methods: A retrospective review of all patients under-going coronary artery bypass between 1991 and 2000 at a single Veterans Affairs Medical Center was undertaken. 973 patients were included, 313 with diabetes and 660 without. Strict glucose control was maintained for all patients. Additional risk factor modification, including anti-platelets medications, statins, and beta blockers were also used. Survival analysis was performed. Results: The diabetic group was at higher risk, with age, BSA, and NYHA class all being greater (p \u3c 0.05). The mean follow-up time was 6.7 ± 3 years. There were 28 deaths/1000 person-years for non-diabetics, and 48 deaths/1000 person-years for diabetics. Survival rates were significantly higher for non-diabetics (72% versus 58% in the diabetic group, p \u3c 0.001). Cox proportional hazard analysis demonstrated mortality risk was 57% higher for diabetic patients (hazard ratio = 1.57; CI: 1.19 - 2.09; p = 0.002). The mortality risk in diabetics with and without prior MI was similar (HR = 0.83; CI: 0.54 - 1.28; p = 0.40). Conclusions: Diabetics undergoing coronary bypass have poorer long-term survival than non-diabetics despite perioperative glycemic control and risk factor modification. The long-term survival decrease in diabetics with history of MI is attenuated with surgical revascularization