Community Funding: Rural Grocery Stores Like IKE!

IKE is the “Invest Kansas Exemption” for conducting a public offering of securities in a Kansas community without having to register with the Office of the Kansas Securities Commissioner (KSC). The Home Town Market in Minneola, KS used IKE to finance building renovations and equipment for the grocery store and deli. KSC presenters will explain how IKE and other alternatives for grocery store financing are possible under Kansas and federal securities laws. IKE is designed to assist small businesses and other organizations formed in Kansas raise up to a total of $1,000,000 during a 12-month period. Sales to any one purchaser are limited to$5,000 unless the purchaser is an accredited investor. There are no fee requirements; issuer’s only need to submit a one-page form for notice to KSC; and KSC staff is available to help with questions before and after an IKE offering. Following Kansas being the first state to enact an exemption like this, several other states have also formed similar exemptions and laws. You can go to our website and review more about IKE at www.ksc.ks.gov/IKE. Other common exemptions are listed on the left panel of this page

Larval growth history determines juvenile growth and survival in a tropical marine fish

Processes that occur around the transition between larval and juvenile life-stages can have a major effect on the population dynamics of organisms with complex life cycles.\ud We explore the roles of larval history and selective post-settlement mortality in determining the growth and survival of newly-settled individuals of the damselfish,\ud Pomacentrus amboinensis (Pomacentridae). Specifically, we determine whether the direction and intensity of selection on the recruits differs among various size-classes of\ud predators. A mark-recapture study showed that individuals who survived 9 or more days were significantly larger at settlement than those that died within the first day\ud (12.3 vs 11.9 mm SL), when mortality was highest (25% d1). Censuses revealed that the species and size composition of piscivores differed markedly between two reef habitats where P. amboinensis was common. A cage experiment, conducted in both habitats, manipulated the sizes of predators that could access newly settled P. amboinensis to determine whether the resulting mortality of the recently settled fish was influenced by larval growth history or size at settlement. Ten days after the start of the experiment individuals that grew slowly in the second half of their larval life had been lost from most of the experimental treatments. Small fish were also selectively lost from the coarse-mesh cage on the reef base. Significant positive relationships between pre- and post-settlement growth rates were found in both habitats for the fine mesh cages, cage controls and open patch reefs. This relationship was reversed in the coarse\ud mesh cages in both habitats. This growth compensation was facilitated through the action of a particular size range of predators, whose impact was disrupted or masked in\ud the open treatments by the action of a diverse predator pool. The present study underscores the complexity of the processes that influence the early post-transition growth and survival in organisms with complex life-histories