Ontogenetic Niche Shifts Within Floodplain Meadow Species

Ontogenetic niche shifts, (ONSs), or changes in niche breadth or position during development, can be a critical component of effective target-species conservation, as long-term survival demands that the intergenerational requirements of species be fully met. However, although ONSs could occur in 80% of animal taxa, previous studies have rarely involved plants, and those that do exist have often been hampered by the lack of long-term, field-based data or appropriate measures. Analysis of the twenty years of botanical and hydrological data collated by the Floodplain Meadow Partnership, in combination with a multi-site, fully factorial planting experiment with two levels of competition, allows the following questions to be addressed; a) are ONSs occurring within floodplain meadow species, including the scarce Fritillaria meleagris, and how can the hydrological regime driving such shifts be quantified? b) Does flooding enhance recruitment within a range of meadow species? and, c) what are the mechanisms underlying flood-related gap creation? Results revealed that occurrence of ONSs varies according to species. Abundance of juvenile fritillaries was correlated with interquartile range in water-table depth prior to parental seed dispersal, suggesting micro-site limitation, with subsequent generations associated with predominantly dry conditions. Further differences in associate species and community membership of juveniles versus flowering adults were detected, which, results suggested, may be due to differential soil profile characteristics or other legacy effects. Seasonal as opposed to annually-derived hydrological variables were of particular relevance to the study of ONSs, and spring of the year before survey identified as the critical period for germination of all the selected species. Whereas flooding enhances recruitment and appears to drive ONSs within both Fritillaria meleagris and Leontodon autumnalis, germination of the obligate hemi-parasite Rhinonathus minor decreased in gaps lacking host species. A correlation between die-back of flood-sensitive grasses following flood-events and increased fritillary juvenile abundance was established

Factors Affecting the Non-Selection of Year Eleven Physical Education Studies by Female Students in a Rural Western Australian High School

This study of year eleven female students at a rural Western Australian high school, focused firstly on why students were choosing not to enrol in Physical Education Studies (PES) and secondly what students believed would improve student enrolment. A two-stage qualitative research approach was utilised. The first stage involved creating a school profile and conducting a survey of 71 year eleven females. The second stage involved a three-step process of interviewing three year eleven females who were selected on the basis of not enrolling in PES and their responses on the survey slips. Findings suggested that the major factors effecting PES non-selection were that students believed PES was irrelevant to their future career choices, did not provide a structure to their liking, had negative prior experiences with PE classes, felt participation in community sport made PES unnecessary, did not want coeducational PE classes and perceived PES as being too competitive/stressful. Student-generated strategies for improving the PES unit were based on the premise that students should have more say over the structure of the subject and that changes should be made to the sports available, the theory studied, the coeducational and stressful/competitive nature of the classes, the promotion of the subject, students\u27 confidence in their ability, the PES uniform, the teachers\u27 authoritarian stance and that community involvement in classes should be encouraged

From mitigation to creativity: the agency of museums and science centres and the means to govern climate change

Climate change as a complex, scientific, cultural, ideological, and transnational issue poses a new set of challenges for museums and science centres as places to inform, and as information sources in debates and decision processes. In this paper, I draw on quantitative and qualitative research from the Australian Research Council funded Linkage project, Hot Science, Global Citizens: the agency of the museum sector in climate change interventions, to interrogate the potentialities for institutions to operate meaningfully and in new ways in complex media ecologies and dense mediations of political, social, scientific discourses, and expertize. In developing the concepts liquid governmentalities and liquid museums, I pose new leverage points for institutions to operate within these pluralistic and complex governmental assemblages from one of the production of science statements to reform behaviour, to systems of open peer review and as places for facilitating complex reflexivity and creative dispositions for the future in the present

Museums and science centres as sites for deliberative democracy on climate change

This paper addresses the position of the museum sector in relation to public policy-making about climate change. It is informed by the perspectives of museum and science centre visitors and leaders canvassed as part of the Australian Research Council Linkage project, ‘Hot Science, Global Citizens: the agency of the museum sector in climate change interventions’. We apply complexity theory to evaluate the claim that museums are a site for the enaction of deliberative democracy. In doing so, we reveal a cultural opportunity for cultural institutions to play a more expansive and explicit role in brokering social futures for communities confronted by climate change

Museum, Field, Colony: collecting, displaying and governing people and things

The papers selected for this special issue of Museum and Society have their beginnings in the workshop, ‘Colonial Governmentalities’, held in late October 2012 and hosted by the Institute of Culture and Society, University of Western Sydney, followed by the seminar ‘Reassembling the material,’ hosted by the Museum and Heritage Studies programmes at Victoria University of Wellington in early November. The stimulus for these events was the international research collaboration, ‘Museum, Field, Metropolis, Colony: Practices of Social Governance funded by the Australian Research Council’

The azimuthal component of Poynting's vector and the angular momentum of light

The usual description in basic electromagnetic theory of the linear and angular momenta of light is centred upon the identification of Poynting's vector as the linear momentum density and its cross product with position, or azimuthal component, as the angular momentum density. This seemingly reasonable approach brings with it peculiarities, however, in particular with regards to the separation of angular momentum into orbital and spin contributions, which has sometimes been regarded as contrived. In the present paper, we observe that densities are not unique, which leads us to ask whether the usual description is, in fact, the most natural choice. To answer this, we adopt a fundamental rather than heuristic approach by first identifying appropriate symmetries of Maxwell's equations and subsequently applying Noether's theorem to obtain associated conservation laws. We do not arrive at the usual description. Rather, an equally acceptable one in which the relationship between linear and angular momenta is nevertheless more subtle and in which orbital and spin contributions emerge separately and with transparent forms

De-Anonymising Sperm Donors in Canada: Some Doubts and Directions

This paper addresses whether sperm donor anonymity should continue in Canada and what the effects might be of abolishing anonymity, particularly for marginalized groups such as lesbian mothers. The first part of the paper outlines the legislative and historical context surrounding the donor anonymity debate in Canada. The second part of the paper addresses the interests of the various social and legal stakeholders, including donor conceived offspring, the social and biological parents of those offspring, and sperm donors. The final segment outlines a twofold law reform agenda. First, it is proposed that Canada prospectively abolish donor anonymity in an effort to meet the health and psychological needs of donor conceived children. Second, it is recommended that legal parentage laws be simultaneously amended so that the legal vulnerabilities women-led families currently experience, and which would be exacerbated by the de-anonymizing of donors, are removed

Patterns of self-monitoring of blood glucose (SMBG) in insulin-treated diabetes: analysis of a Scottish population over time

Analysis of a diabetes clinical information system in Tayside, Scotland, shows that a significant proportion of insulin-treated patients with diabetes are not self-monitoring blood glucose according to current clinical guidance and recommendations, with some not self-monitoring their blood glucose at all. Although there has been an increase in the numbers of reagent strips dispensed over the past decade, this increase is mainly accounted for by increased testing frequency among people with diabetes already testing.Output Type: Research Lette