The CDM-Net Project: The Development, Implementation and Evaluation of a Broadband-Based Network for Managing Chronic Disease

Background. In Australia most chronic disease management is funded by Medicare Australia through General Practitioner Management Plans (GPMPs) and Team Care Arrangements (TCAs). Identified barriers may be reduced effectively using a broadband-based network known as the Chronic Disease Management Service (CDMS). Aims. To measure the uptake and adherence to CDMS, test CDMS, and assess the adherence of health providers and patients to GPMPs and TCAs generated through CDMS. Methods. A single cohort before and after study. Results. GPMPs and TCAs increased. There was no change to prescribed medicines or psychological quality of life. Attendance at allied health professionals increased, but decreased at pharmacies. Overall satisfaction with CDMS was high among GPs, allied health professionals, and patients. Conclusion. This study demonstrates proof of concept, but replication or continuation of the study is desirable to enable the impact of CDMS on diabetes outcomes to be determined

The role of personality variables in second language behavior

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/32874/1/0000252.pd

Mechanistic reconciliation of community and invasion ecology

CITATION: Latombe, G., et al. 2021. Mechanistic reconciliation of community and invasion ecology. Ecosphere, 12(2):e03359, doi:10.1002/ecs2.3359.The original publication is available at https://esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.comCommunity and invasion ecology have mostly grown independently. There is substantial overlap in the processes captured by different models in the two fields, and various frameworks have been developed to reduce this redundancy and synthesize information content. Despite broad recognition that community and invasion ecology are interconnected, a process‐based framework synthesizing models across these two fields is lacking. Here we review 65 representative community and invasion models and propose a common framework articulated around six processes (dispersal, drift, abiotic interactions, within‐guild interactions, cross‐guild interactions, and genetic changes). The framework is designed to synthesize the content of the two fields, provide a general perspective on their development, and enable their comparison. The application of this framework and of a novel method based on network theory reveals some lack of coherence between the two fields, despite some historical similarities. Community ecology models are characterized by combinations of multiple processes, likely reflecting the search for an overarching theory to explain community assembly and structure, drawing predominantly on interaction processes, but also accounting largely for the other processes. In contrast, most models in invasion ecology invoke fewer processes and focus more on interactions between introduced species and their novel biotic and abiotic environment. The historical dominance of interaction processes and their independent developments in the two fields is also reflected in the lower level of coherence for models involving interactions, compared to models involving dispersal, drift, and genetic changes. It appears that community ecology, with a longer history than invasion ecology, has transitioned from the search for single explanations for patterns observed in nature to investigate how processes may interact mechanistically, thereby generating and testing hypotheses. Our framework paves the way for a similar transition in invasion ecology, to better capture the dynamics of multiple alien species introduced in complex communities. Reciprocally, applying insights from invasion to community ecology will help us understand and predict the future of ecological communities in the Anthropocene, in which human activities are weakening species’ natural boundaries. Ultimately, the successful integration of the two fields could advance a predictive ecology that is urgently required in a rapidly changing world.https://esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/ecs2.3359Publisher's versio

Stories of a ruined space: filmic and sonic approaches to practice-as-research

This article reflects on the authors’ work in investigating how audiovisual practices might represent the experience of disused or ruined structures. With backgrounds in visual and sound practice respectively, the authors have, in their most recent experimental film project Coccolith [UK: Coccolith Productions], conceived the Ramsgate wartime tunnels in Kent as a point of collision for divergent artistic approaches to the representation of space. Challenging the site’s association with wartime mythology, the project sought to reconfigure the relationship between film and sound practice in order to articulate an alternative representation of the tunnels’ history, heritage and temporality. The article reflects on the role of the sound designer in developing soundscapes that embodied the ruined space, and on the role of the director in visually conceiving a spatial experience of the tunnels characterized by the absence of sound – silence. We argue that in conceiving an audiovisual project in terms of texture and gesture, it is possible to reconceptualize both the role of the soundtrack in relation to a film’s diegesis, and the role of the director in relation to sound design

Multidimensional responses of grassland stability to eutrophication

Eutrophication usually impacts grassland biodiversity, community composition, and biomass production, but its impact on the stability of these community aspects is unclear. One challenge is that stability has many facets that can be tightly correlated (low dimensionality) or highly disparate (high dimensionality). Using standardized experiments in 55 grassland sites from a globally distributed experiment (NutNet), we quantify the effects of nutrient addition on five facets of stability (temporal invariability, resistance during dry and wet growing seasons, recovery after dry and wet growing seasons), measured on three community aspects (aboveground biomass, community composition, and species richness). Nutrient addition reduces the temporal invariability and resistance of species richness and community composition during dry and wet growing seasons, but does not affect those of biomass. Different stability measures are largely uncorrelated under both ambient and eutrophic conditions, indicating consistently high dimensionality. Harnessing the dimensionality of ecological stability provides insights for predicting grassland responses to global environmental change

Multiple Facets of Biodiversity Drive the Diversity-Stability Relationship

A significant body of evidence has demonstrated that biodiversity stabilizes ecosystem functioning over time in grassland ecosystems. However, the relative importance of different facets of biodiversity underlying the diversity–stability relationship remains unclear. Here we used data from 39 biodiversity experiments and structural equation modeling to investigate the roles of species richness, phylogenetic diversity, and both the diversity and community-weighted mean of functional traits representing the ‘fast–slow’ leaf economics spectrum in driving the diversity–stability relationship. We found that high species richness and phylogenetic diversity stabilize biomass production via enhanced asynchrony. Contrary to our hypothesis, low phylogenetic diversity also enhances ecosystem stability directly, albeit weakly. While the diversity of fast–slow functional traits has a weak effect on ecosystem stability, communities dominated by slow species enhance ecosystem stability by increasing mean biomass production relative to the standard deviation of biomass over time. Our results demonstrate that biodiversity influences ecosystem stability via a variety of facets, thus highlighting a more multicausal relationship than has been previously acknowledged

TRY plant trait database – enhanced coverage and open access

Plant traits - the morphological, anatomical, physiological, biochemical and phenological characteristics of plants - determine how plants respond to environmental factors, affect other trophic levels, and influence ecosystem properties and their benefits and detriments to people. Plant trait data thus represent the basis for a vast area of research spanning from evolutionary biology, community and functional ecology, to biodiversity conservation, ecosystem and landscape management, restoration, biogeography and earth system modelling. Since its foundation in 2007, the TRY database of plant traits has grown continuously. It now provides unprecedented data coverage under an open access data policy and is the main plant trait database used by the research community worldwide. Increasingly, the TRY database also supports new frontiers of trait‐based plant research, including the identification of data gaps and the subsequent mobilization or measurement of new data. To support this development, in this article we evaluate the extent of the trait data compiled in TRY and analyse emerging patterns of data coverage and representativeness. Best species coverage is achieved for categorical traits - almost complete coverage for ‘plant growth form’. However, most traits relevant for ecology and vegetation modelling are characterized by continuous intraspecific variation and trait–environmental relationships. These traits have to be measured on individual plants in their respective environment. Despite unprecedented data coverage, we observe a humbling lack of completeness and representativeness of these continuous traits in many aspects. We, therefore, conclude that reducing data gaps and biases in the TRY database remains a key challenge and requires a coordinated approach to data mobilization and trait measurements. This can only be achieved in collaboration with other initiatives