Design concepts and processes for public Aboriginal architecture

The authors wrote this paper in an attempt to document and describe how to address the design challenge of a public building which captures and distils Indigenous cultural assumptions, perspectives, connections, and cultural content. Although there is a body of knowledge about Aboriginal vernacular design and meaning, and about related architectural design issues, there is not a good sense of how relevant this collective wisdom is in the context of a public or monumental building. There are also many pitfalls in prescribing something in a domain which is largely uncharted - or indeed of prescribing anything to architects, or on behalf of Aboriginal communities. Questions that are addressed in this paper include:- What might an interested architect want to know about Aboriginal cultures? What are some possible thematic elements and complexes that might lend themselves to architectural form, function and meaning? What are some good and bad examples of previous attempts to design and incorporate Indigenous culture into public buildings? What Aboriginal design issues are most relevant to the design of public architecture

Remote Indigenous housing procurement: a comparative study

This project sought to understand how housing procurement strategies impact on outcomes for Indigenous people in remote settlements. It examined four cases studies where governments have intervened in housing procurement processes and what makes for success in achieving improvements in social, cultural and economic outcomes.James Davidson, Paul Memmott, Carroll Go-Sam and Elizabeth Gran

Building new houses in remote Indigenous communities

This Research and Policy Bulletin provides details of the key findings and policy implications from the completed AHURI research project Remote Indigenous housing procurement and post-occupancy outcomes - a comparative study.James Davidson, Carroll Go-Sam, Paul Memmott and Elizabeth Gran

Rates of species introduction to a remote oceanic island

The introduction of species to areas beyond the limits of their natural distributions has a major homogenizing influence, making previously distinct biotas more similar. The scale of introductions has frequently been commented on, but their rate and spatial pervasiveness have been less well quantified. Here, we report the findings of a detailed study of pterygote insect introductions to Gough Island, one of the most remote and supposedly pristine temperate oceanic islands, and estimate the rate at which introduced species have successfully established. Out of 99 species recorded from Gough Island, 71 are established introductions, the highest proportion documented for any Southern Ocean island. Estimating a total of approximately 233 landings on Gough Island since first human landfall, this equates to one successful establishment for every three to four landings. Generalizations drawn from other areas suggest that this may be only one-tenth of the number of pterygote species that have arrived at the island, implying that most landings may lead to the arrival of at least one alien. These rates of introduction of new species are estimated to be two to three orders of magnitude greater than background levels for Gough Island, an increase comparable to that estimated for global species extinctions (many of which occur on islands) as a consequence of human activities

The Occupational Wellbeing of People Experiencing Homelessness

This paper reports findings of a study that utilised an occupational perspective to explore how wellbeing was achieved and sustained by the occupations of people experiencing homelessness in Australia. Thirty three in-depth qualitative interviews were conducted with homeless individuals in a regional city in Australia. Data from the interviews were thematically analysed to understand the relationship between wellbeing, as defined by the individual, and the occupations engaged in by people experiencing homelessness. The findings are reported here as three collective narratives that illustrate the experiences of diverse groups within the homelessness population explored in this study. The study demonstrates how occupations go beyond the individual experience and choice; to explore the social and cultural value of occupations as a means to wellbeing. The findings are discussed in relation to three key themes that emerged from the study: survival, self-identity and social connectedness. These three interconnected concepts complement the existing occupational science literature, and offer a preliminary framework for understanding and improving wellbeing for disadvantaged and marginalised people where occupations are restricted by societal forces. The findings support the urgent need to redirect services to support occupational opportunities that are socially and culturally valued and enhance survival, self-identity and connectedness of homeless people

Where is the UK's pollinator biodiversity? The importance of urban areas for flower-visiting insects

Insect pollinators provide a crucial ecosystem service, but are under threat. Urban areas could be important for pollinators, though their value relative to other habitats is poorly known. We compared pollinator communities using quantified flower-visitation networks in 36 sites (each 1 km2) in three landscapes: urban, farmland and nature reserves. Overall, flower-visitor abundance and species richness did not differ significantly between the three landscape types. Bee abundance did not differ between landscapes, but bee species richness was higher in urban areas than farmland. Hoverfly abundance was higher in farmland and nature reserves than urban sites, but species richness did not differ significantly. While urban pollinator assemblages were more homogeneous across space than those in farmland or nature reserves, there was no significant difference in the numbers of rarer species between the three landscapes. Network-level specialization was higher in farmland than urban sites. Relative to other habitats, urban visitors foraged from a greater number of plant species (higher generality) but also visited a lower proportion of available plant species (higher specialization), both possibly driven by higher urban plant richness. Urban areas are growing, and improving their value for pollinators should be part of any national strategy to conserve and restore pollinators

A network approach for managing ecosystem services and improving food and nutrition security on smallholder farms

1. Smallholder farmers are some of the poorest and most food insecure people on Earth. Their high nutritional and economic reliance on home--grown produce makes them particularly vulnerable to environmental stressors such as pollinator loss or climate change which threaten agricultural productivity. Improving smallholder agriculture in a way that is environmentally sustainable and resilient to climate change is a key challenge of the 21st century. 2. Ecological intensification, whereby ecosystem services are managed to increase agricultural productivity, is a promising solution for smallholders. However, smallholder farms are complex socio-ecological systems with a range of social, ecological and environmental factors interacting to influence ecosystem service provisioning. To truly understand the functioning of a smallholder farm and identify the most effective management options to support household food and nutrition security, a holistic, systems-based understanding is required. 3. In this paper, we propose a network approach to understand, visualise and model the complex interactions occurring among wild species, crops and people on smallholder farms. Specifically, we demonstrate how networks may be used to (a) identify wild species with a key role in supporting, delivering or increasing the resilience of an ecosystem service; (b) quantify the value of an ecosystem service in a way that is relevant to the food and nutrition security of smallholders; and (c) understand the social interactions that influence the management of shared ecosystem services. 4. Using a case study based on data from rural Nepal, we demonstrate how this framework can be used to connect wild plants, pollinators and crops to key nutrients consumed by humans. This allows us to quantify the nutritional value of an ecosystem service and identify the wild plants and pollinators involved in its provision, as well as providing a framework to predict the effects of environmental change on human nutrition. 5. Our framework identifies mechanistic links between ecosystem services and the nutrients consumed by smallholder farmers and highlights social factors that may influence the management of these services. Applying this framework to smallholder farms in a range of socio-ecological contexts may provide new, sustainable and equitable solutions to smallholder food and nutrition security.Peer reviewe

Quantifying nectar production by flowering plants in urban and rural landscapes

Floral resources (nectar and pollen) provide food for insect pollinators but have declined in the countryside due to land use change. Given widespread pollinator loss, it is important that we quantify their food supply to help develop conservation actions. While nectar resources have been measured in rural landscapes, equivalent data are lacking for urban areas, an important knowledge gap as towns and cities often host diverse pollinator populations. We quantified the nectar supply of urban areas, farmland and nature reserves in the UK by combining floral abundance and nectar sugar production data for 536 flowering plant taxa, allowing us to compare landscape types and assess the spatial distribution of nectar sugar among land uses within cities. The magnitude of nectar sugar production did not differ significantly among the three landscapes. In urban areas the nectar supply was more diverse in origin and predominantly delivered by non-native flowering plants. Within cities, urban land uses varied greatly in nectar sugar production. Gardens provided the most nectar sugar per unit area and 85% of all nectar at a city scale, while gardens and allotments produced the most diverse supplies of nectar sugar. Floral abundance, commonly used as a proxy for pollinators’ food supply, correlated strongly with nectar resources, but left a substantial proportion of the variation in nectar supply unexplained. Synthesis. We show that urban areas are hotspots of floral resource diversity rather than quantity and their nectar supply is underpinned by the contribution of residential gardens. Individual gardeners have an important role to play in pollinator conservation as ornamental plants, usually non-native in origin, are a key source of nectar in towns and cities

Spatial Guilds in the Serengeti Food Web Revealed by a Bayesian Group Model

Food webs, networks of feeding relationships among organisms, provide fundamental insights into mechanisms that determine ecosystem stability and persistence. Despite long-standing interest in the compartmental structure of food webs, past network analyses of food webs have been constrained by a standard definition of compartments, or modules, that requires many links within compartments and few links between them. Empirical analyses have been further limited by low-resolution data for primary producers. In this paper, we present a Bayesian computational method for identifying group structure in food webs using a flexible definition of a group that can describe both functional roles and standard compartments. The Serengeti ecosystem provides an opportunity to examine structure in a newly compiled food web that includes species-level resolution among plants, allowing us to address whether groups in the food web correspond to tightly-connected compartments or functional groups, and whether network structure reflects spatial or trophic organization, or a combination of the two. We have compiled the major mammalian and plant components of the Serengeti food web from published literature, and we infer its group structure using our method. We find that network structure corresponds to spatially distinct plant groups coupled at higher trophic levels by groups of herbivores, which are in turn coupled by carnivore groups. Thus the group structure of the Serengeti web represents a mixture of trophic guild structure and spatial patterns, in contrast to the standard compartments typically identified in ecological networks. From data consisting only of nodes and links, the group structure that emerges supports recent ideas on spatial coupling and energy channels in ecosystems that have been proposed as important for persistence.Comment: 28 pages, 6 figures (+ 3 supporting), 2 tables (+ 4 supporting

Short Lag Times for Invasive Tropical Plants: Evidence from Experimental Plantings in Hawai'i

Background: The lag time of an invasion is the delay between arrival of an introduced species and its successful spread in a new area. To date, most estimates of lag times for plants have been indirect or anecdotal, and these estimates suggest that plant invasions are often characterized by lag times of 50 years or more. No general estimates are available of lag times for tropical plant invasions. Historical plantings and documentation were used to directly estimate lag times for tropical plant invasions in Hawai’i. Methodology/Principal Findings: Historical planting records for the Lyon Arboretum dating back to 1920 were examined to identify plants that have since become invasive pests in the Hawaiian Islands. Annual reports describing escape from plantings were then used to determine the lag times between initial plantings and earliest recorded spread of the successful invaders. Among 23 species that eventually became invasive pests, the average lag time between introduction and first evidence of spread was 14 years for woody plants and 5 years for herbaceous plants. Conclusions/Significance: These direct estimates of lag times are as much as an order of magnitude shorter than previous, indirect estimates, which were mainly based on temperate plants. Tropical invaders may have much shorter lag times than temperate species. A lack of direct and deliberate observations may have also inflated many previous lag time estimates. Although there have been documented cases of long lag times due to delayed arrival of a mutualist or environmenta