Biological Invasions and Ecological Restoration in South Africa

This chapter provides an overview of the researchers and research initiatives relevant to invasion science in South Africa over the past 130 years, profiling some of the more recent personalities, particularly those who are today regarded as international leaders in the field. A number of key points arise from this review. Since 1913, South Africa has been one of a few countries that have investigated and implemented alien plant biological control on a large scale, and is regarded as a leader in this field. South Africa was also prominent in the conceptualisation and execution of the international SCOPE project on the ecology of biological invasions in the 1980s, during which South African scientists established themselves as valuable contributors to the field. The development of invasion science benefitted from a deliberate strategy to promote multi-organisational, interdisciplinary research in the 1980s. Since 1995, the Working for Water programme has provided funding for research and a host of practical questions that required research solutions. Finally, the establishment of a national centre of excellence with a focus on biological invasions has made a considerable contribution to building human capacity in the field, resulting in advances in all aspects of invasion science—primarily in terms of biology and ecology, but also in history, sociology, economics and management. South Africa has punched well above its weight in developing the field of invasion science, possibly because of the remarkable biodiversity that provided a rich template on which to carry out research, and a small, well-connected research community that was encouraged to operate in a collaborative manner

An international comparison of the effects of HRM practices and organizational commitment on quality of job performances among European university employees

Item does not contain fulltextSocietal developments have forced universities all over Europe to replace their 'professional' strategies, structures, and values by organizational characteristics that could be stereotyped as 'private sector' features. This trend is known as 'managerialism'. Since university employees generally stick to professional values, a conflict may emerge between professional employee values and managerial organization values. This conflict can result in lower organizational commitment and, consequently, lower quality of job performances. Since managerialism is, however, aimed at efficient and effective quality improvement, this situation is what we regard as a managerialism contradiction. Affecting university employees' performances may solve or reduce such a contradiction. Since levels of managerialism differ among countries, this paper examines which factors affect the quality of job performances of 1,700 university employees in low-, middle- and high-managerialism countries. The analyses reveal that there are large differences and some similarities between the countries regarding which human resource management (HRM) practices affect the quality of employees' job performances. Furthermore, it appears that there are clear differences among the countries regarding how the HRM practices affect the quality of their job performances. The theoretical and practical implications of the findings are discussed.22 p

A few is enough: a low cover of a non-native seaweed reduces the resilience of Mediterranean macroalgal stands to disturbances of varying extent

There is increasing evidence that the severity of the ecological impact of non-native species does not necessarily scale linearly with their abundance in the introduced range. Nonetheless, the potential of low abundance invaders to alter the resilience of native communities to disturbance has been poorly explored. On Mediterranean rocky reefs, we tested the hypothesis that (1) a pulse disturbance opening gaps within canopy stands formed by the fucoid seaweed Cystoseira brachycarpa facilitates the establishment of the non-native seaweed Caulerpa cylindracea and that (2), once established, the seaweed can reduce the recovery of macroalgal canopies. In July 2011, C. cylindracea was experimentally transplanted in small and large plots that were either cleared of the canopy or left untouched. After 45 months, the cover of C. cylindracea was greatest in small canopy-removal plots, without, however, achieving values exceeding ~10%. Nonetheless, such a low abundance of C. cylindracea caused a threefold reduction in canopy recovery. The establishment of C. cylindracea in canopy-removal plots did not alter the structure of the understory assemblages or the cover of turf-forming, erect and encrusting algae and sessile invertebrates. Our results suggest that some non-native species may be stronger competitors than natives, despite their low abundance. This property has important implications for control programs since not achieving the total eradication of the targeted invader would make little progress towards the mitigation of its impacts. Finally, our results show that non-native species acting as passengers of change can ultimately promote the persistence of alternative degraded states