Developing Student Engagement in China Through Collaborative Action Research

As its market and society open up, China has transformed itself from a closed agrarian socialist economy to an urban state and an economic force. This has released accumulated tourism demand, led to the development of a diversified industry, and the spread of university and vocational courses in this field. However, the industry faces challenges to recruit and retain staff, with tourism education in higher education blamed for the shortfall in numbers and quality of candidates with suitable purpose, knowledge, and passion to serve. This chapter provides a background to the development of and problems facing tourism education in China, and suggests how to support student engagement and hence the future workforce

The search for translational pain outcomes to refine analgesic development: Where did we come from and where are we going?

Pain measures traditionally used in rodents record mere reflexes evoked by sensory stimuli; the results thus may not fully reflect the human pain phenotype. Alterations in physical and emotional functioning, pain-depressed behaviors and facial pain expressions were recently proposed as additional pain outcomes to provide a more accurate measure of clinical pain in rodents, and hence to potentially enhance analgesic drug development. We aimed to review how preclinical pain assessment has evolved since the development of the tail flick test in 1941, with a particular focus on a critical analysis of some nonstandard pain outcomes, and a consideration of how sex differences may affect the performance of these pain surrogates. We tracked original research articles in Medline for the following periods: 1973-1977, 1983-1987, 1993-1997, 2003-2007, and 2014-2018. We identified 606 research articles about alternative surrogate pain measures, 473 of which were published between 2014 and 2018. This indicates that preclinical pain assessment is moving toward the use of these measures, which may soon become standard procedures in preclinical pain laboratories.FPU grant from the Spanish Ministry of Education, Culture and SportsSpanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (MINECO, grant SAF2016-80540-R)Ramón Areces FoundationJunta de Andalucía (grant CTS 109)Esteve PharmaceuticalsEuropean Regional Development Fund (ERDF

Mechanisms of Resilience to Megafire in Californian Wildlife Communities

Anthropogenic pressures continue to shift the patterning and intensity of ecological disturbances globally. These changes in disturbance dynamics threaten conservation efforts of biodiversity in ecosystems around the world. One of the most conspicuous examples of this are novel, rapid changes in global fire regimes that have increased the frequency and severity of wildfires in fire-prone ecosystems. These megafires have the potential to quickly and dramatically change entire landscapes in ways that may impact the natural resilience of ecosystems and their wildlife communities. In this dissertation, I explore the potential mechanisms in which ecological resilience to severe fire may be facilitated and potentially enhanced in Californian wildlife communities, predominantly in oak woodland savannas. This work addresses the interaction between principles of resilience and fire disturbance at multiple ecological scales. In Chapter 1, I present an overview of the ways wildfire in California spatially overlaps areas of conservation priority as well as broad categories of land cover types. In Chapters 2-4, I then zoom into a specific case study to address how a specific megafire, the 2018 Mendocino Complex Fire, impacts the resilience of wildlife communities (Chapter 2 and Chapter 4) and the adaptive capacity and behaviors of an ecologically dominant ungulate species (Chapter 3). Specifically, in Chapter 2, I examine the impacts of this fire on the recovery and response of mammal species using an array of trail cameras before, during, and after this fire event. In Chapter 3, I focus on the specific behavioral responses of a single species (Odocoileus hemionus columbianus) to this wildfire event and discuss how these behaviors may influence interspecies interactions at broader ecological scales. Finally, in Chapter 4 I examine the impacts of this wildfire event on broad patterns of species diversity and community assemblages across bird and bat communities using a set of acoustic monitors. Understanding how these qualities of resilience are realized, and potentially enhanced by human action, will become increasingly critical as fire regimes across the state, and globally, continue to change in response to anthropogenic pressures

Data from: Survival by genotype: patterns at Mc1r are not black and white at the White Sands ecotone

Measuring links among genotype, phenotype and survival in the wild has long been a focus of studies of adaptation. We conducted a 4-year capture–recapture study to measure survival by genotype and phenotype in the Southwestern Fence Lizard (Sceloporus cowlesi) at the White Sands ecotone (transition area between white sands and dark soil habitats). We report several unanticipated findings. First, in contrast with previous work showing that cryptic blanched coloration in S. cowlesi from the heart of the dunes is associated with mutations in the melanocortin-1 receptor gene (Mc1r), ecotonal S. cowlesi showed minimal association between colour phenotype and Mc1r genotype. Second, the frequency of the derived Mc1r allele in ecotonal S. cowlesi appeared to decrease over time. Third, our capture–recapture data revealed a lower survival rate for S. cowlesi individuals with the derived Mc1r allele. Thus, our results suggest that selection at the ecotone may have favoured the wild-type allele in recent years. Even in a system where a genotype–phenotype association appeared to be black and white, our study suggests that additional factors – including phenotypic plasticity, epistasis, pleiotropy and gene flow – may play important roles at the White Sands ecotone. Our study highlights the importance of linking molecular, genomic and organismal approaches for understanding adaptation in the wild. Furthermore, our findings indicate that dynamics of natural selection can be particularly complex in transitional habitats like ecotones and emphasize the need for future research that examines the patterns of ongoing selection in other ecological ‘grey’ zones