UPGro Hidden Crisis Research Consortium : project approach for defining and assessing rural water supply functionality and levels of performance

This technical brief is aimed at sharing the learning and approaches developed by the UPGro Hidden Crisis Research Project to look at how the functionality and performance levels of boreholes equipped with handpumps (HPBs), can be assessed using a common set of definitions and methods. A tiered approach to defining and measuring functionality is found to be useful to examining functionality for different scales and purposes of monitoring. This report is aimed at national and regional actors involved in the provision and monitoring of rural water supply functionality. The brief sets out the tiered functionality definitions, and accompanying survey methods, which were developed by the project and have been applied in functionality surveys across Ethiopia, Uganda and Malawi [5-7]. The brief provides a summary of: • The tiered approach to defining and measuring the functionality and performance levels of boreholes equipped with handpumps (HPBs). • A series of survey methods which were found to be useful by the Hidden Crisis project to collect sufficient data to assess HPB functionality across the tiered definition approach. • A series of guidelines which could form core criteria for assessing functionality and performance levels of water points . This summary should be read in conjunction with the appendices which provide details of the methods and approaches described

Relationship between capitulum size and pre-dispersal seed predation by insect larvae in common Asteraceae

The evolution of a showy floral display as an advertisement to pollinators could simultaneously advertise the availability of resources to pre-dispersal seed-predators. The hypotheses tested here are that the incidence of seed predation by bud-infesting insect larvae in capitula of Asteraceae is positively related to (1) capitulum size among species, (2) capitulum size within species, (3) capitulum lifespan, and (4) the degree of flowering asynchrony on individual plants. Three populations of each of 20 common herbaceous species of Asteraceae from disturbed ground and grassland habitats were monitored for the presence of pre-dispersal, seed-eating insect larvae. Mean capitulum size (receptacle width) of each species was measured. In a sub-set of eight species, individual capitula were tagged to determine their flowering phenology and lifespan (from anthesis to seed shedding). From these data an index of flowering synchrony on individual plants was derived. Among species, the incidence of larval infestation increased with capitulum size. Small-flowered species such as Achillea millefolium were largely free of bud-infesting larvae, whilst large-flowered species such as Arctium minus were heavily infested. In three cases investigated in greater detail, bud infestation was found to increase with capitulum size within species, suggesting a potential for natural selection to favour smaller capitula. No relationship was found between infestation levels and either capitulum lifespan or degree of flowering synchrony, and there was no evidence that the relationship between capitulum size and infestation was confounded by correlations with these other features. The results support hypotheses I and 2, but not 3 and 4. It is suggested that the characteristic capitulum size of each species may represent a trade-off between the opposing selection pressures of pollinators and pre-dispersal seed predators. <br/

Groundwater infiltration into foul sewers and its influence on the design, construction and maintenance of sewerage systems

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