Postgraduate writing groups as spaces of agency development

AbstractAcademic writing is a peculiar phenomenon – it varies greatly from discipline to discipline and its requirements are rarely made overt. Taking on the writing practices of the academy has implications for identity and it is thus unsurprising that it is seen to be a risky endeavour. This article analyses the experiences of postgraduate scholars who have participated in writing groups that meet weekly to read each other’s work and provide supportive critique. Thirty-two people provided detailed, anonymous evaluations of their writing groups and these were analysed using a discourse analysis. Three main findings are discussed here. Firstly, writing circles allowed for academic writing development to be engaged with as a social practice, where the disciplinary norms could be made more explicit through peer deliberation, and where they could also be challenged. Secondly, the lack of hierarchical power in the writing groups was key to making safe spaces for agency development, and also for providing positive peer pressure whereby participants were spurred on to work on their writing. Thirdly, the fact that the groups were interdisciplinary, within cognate disciplinary families, provided an interesting challenge in that the students had to consider what these non-specialist readers would or would not understand. This process assisted students in clarifying their writing. Participants’ evaluation of the writing groups revealed an overall sense that these contributed to postgraduate student wellbeing and were places of significant agential development

Social circumstances and cultural beliefs influence maternal nutrition, breastfeeding and child feeding practices in South Africa:

Maternal and child undernutrition remain prevalent in developing countries with 45 and 11% of child deaths linked to poor nutrition and suboptimal breastfeeding, respectively. This also has adverse effects on child growth and development. The study determined maternal dietary diversity, breastfeeding and, infant and young child feeding (IYCF) practices and identified reasons for such behavior in five rural communities in South Africa, in the context of cultural beliefs and social aspects

Voices of the hungry: a qualitative measure of household food access and food insecurity in South Africa

South Africa is rated a food secure nation, but large numbers of households within the country have inadequate access to nutrient-rich diverse foods. The study sought to investigate households’ physical and economic access and availability of food, in relation to local context which influences households’ access to and ability to grow food which may affect the dietary quality. We sought to understand self-reported healthy diets, food insecurity from the perspective of people who experienced it, barriers to household food security and perceptions and feelings on food access as well as strategies households use to cope with food shortages and their perceptions on improving household food security

The status and distribution of newly identified endemic galaxiid in the eastern Cape Fold Ecoregion, of South Africa

1. DNA‐based studies have uncovered cryptic species and lineages within almost all freshwater fishes studied thus far from the Cape Fold Ecoregion (CFE) of South Africa. These studies have changed the way the CFE is viewed, as almost all stream fishes that were previously considered to be of low conservation priority, because they were perceived to have broad geographical ranges, contain multiple historically isolated lineages, many of which are narrow‐range endemics. 2. As stream fishes of the CFE are of conservation concern owing to threats mainly posed by habitat degradation, invasion by alien species and hydrological modification, re‐evaluation of the distribution and conservation status of newly identified unique lineages is required to inform the development and implementation of effective conservation and management strategies. 3. The present study conducted an IUCN Red List conservation assessment of a newly identified lineage of the Galaxias zebratus species complex (hereafter referred to as Galaxias sp. ‘Joubertina’) to identify key threats and provide recommendations to conservation authorities on appropriate measures to reduce extinction risk. 4. The lineage met the qualifying threshold for the Endangered category because of its very restricted geographic range, few remaining secure populations, small known population sizes and the intensity of threats to most of the populations. Only six populations remain, one of which could be an ‘extralimital’ population potentially established through an inter‐basin water transfer scheme. 5. Galaxias sp. ‘Joubertina’ is threatened by invasive piscivores, habitat degradation and excessive water abstraction. These impacts have fragmented remnant populations, raising concerns about potential long‐term adverse impacts on genetic diversity and evolutionary potential of this lineage. 6. Immediate conservation measures should protect remnant populations from further impacts, while long‐term measures should aim to restore historical connectivity to reduce the potential deleterious effects of inbreeding in the small isolated populations

Biomes, geology and past climate drive speciation of laminate-toothed rats on South African mountains (Murinae: Otomys)

Mitochondrial DNA sequences (1137 bp) of the cytochrome b gene and craniodental and craniometric data were used to investigate the evolutionary relationships of six putative rodent taxa of Otomys (family Muridae: subfamily Murinae: tribe Otomyini) co-occurring in the Western Cape and Eastern Cape provinces of South Africa. Phylogenetic analysis of 20 new sequences together with craniodental and craniometric characters of 94 adult skulls reveal the existence of a unique lineage of Otomys cf. karoensis (named herein Otomys willani sp. nov.) from the Sneeuberg Centre of Floristic Endemism in the southern Drakensberg Mountain Range. Craniometric analysis distinguished O. karoensis from O. willani and identified a further four localities in the range of the latter species. We document southern range extensions of both Sloggett’s ice rat, Otomys sloggetti, and the vlei rat Otomys auratus to the Sneeuberg Mountain Range, in addition to appreciable genetic divergence between Sneeuberg and southern and central Drakensberg populations of O. sloggetti. Our results demonstrate parallel patterns of cryptic speciation in two co-occurring species complexes (Otomys irroratus s.l. and O. karoensis s.l.) associated closely with the boundaries of biomes (fynbos vs. grassland biomes) and geological formations (Cape Fold Belt vs. Great Escarpment)

Reconstruction of the historical distribution ranges of imperilled stream fishes from a global endemic hotspot based on molecular data: Implications for conservation of threatened taxa

Understanding historical distribution patterns of freshwater fishes prior to human impacts is crucial for informing effective strategies for biodiversity conservation. However, incomplete information on species occurrence records, the existence of cryptic species and sensitivity to small sample sizes limit the application of historical records in natural history collections as well as conventional species distribution modelling algorithms to infer past distributions of species. This study used molecular data as an alternative and objective approach to reconstruct the historical distribution ranges of four stream fishes from the Breede River system in the Cape Fold Ecoregion, a global hotspot of imperilled endemic freshwater biodiversity in southern Africa. The study used 249 occurrence records and 208 mitochondrial cytochrome b sequences to reconstruct the potential historical ranges of four taxa: Galaxias sp. 'zebratus nebula', Galaxias sp. 'zebratus Riviersonderend', Pseudobarbus sp. 'burchelli Breede' and Pseudobarbus skeltoni. All four taxa historically had broader distribution ranges across the Breede River system before human impacts, but they have suffered severe attrition as the main-stem populations have been extirpated. The severe decline in the historical ranges of these four taxa is a result of multiple impacts, particularly hydrological modification, habitat degradation and the introduction of non-native species, which are also global challenges for freshwater ecosystems. The approach presented in this study has great potential for reconstructing historical ranges of stream-dwelling taxa from disparate regions where fragmentation has resulted from human-mediated impacts. This information is crucial for identifying appropriate conservation strategies such as river rehabilitation and eradication of non-native species, as well as guiding reintroductions and informing assisted gene flow where these are deemed necessary interventions

Integrative taxonomy reveals hidden diversity in the southern African darters genus Nannocharax Günther 1867 (Characiformes: Distichodontidae):

The present study explored the diversity of Nannocharax within southern Africa by implementing three species delimitation methods for a data set consisting of 37 mitochondrial cytochrome oxidase subunit I sequences. Two unilocus coalescent methods, the General Mixed Yule Coalescent (GMYC) and the Bayesian implementation of the Poisson Tree Processes (bPTP), and a genetic distance method, the Automatic Barcode Gap Discovery (ABGD), were applied. Both GMYC and bPTP delimited the same operational taxonomic units (OTUs), revealing a higher diversity for the genus in the region than previously recognised, whereas the ABGD failed to delimit the same candidate species