Influence of zoning and habitats on the spatial distribution of recreational activities in a multiple-use marine park

The spatial distribution of recreation is influenced by many factors, and also differs between activity types. Understanding these relationships is essential for planning and sustainable management of resource use, especially in coastal marine parks, which are often exposed to considerable anthropogenic pressure. However, such information is rarely available, especially at fine spatial scales. Ningaloo Marine Park, in north-western Australia, has a diversity of zoning and habitats, making it an ideal location to investigate the effect of these two attributes on recreational use. Spatially explicit data on a suite of recreational activities were obtained using 192 land-based roving surveys conducted over a 12-month period. Fishing was distributed widely throughout the Marine Park and was negatively associated with sanctuary (no-take) zones, whilst surfing and snorkeling had relatively high participation but were undertaken at localized sites, characterized by a rocky shoreline and sanctuary zones, respectively. Such data provides a greater understanding of patterns of recreational use with respect to zoning and habitat which can inform management and planning processes. This is especially pertinent for sanctuary zones, which, although they exclude recreational fishing and its associated effects, are popular with people participating in non-extractive activities (i.e., snorkeling) and may therefore still be vulnerable to environmental impacts

The place attachment of visitors to Ningaloo Marine Park, north-western Australia

Place attachment has been the subject of a rich, growing body of research in natural resource management, with a particular emphasis on visitors to national parks and forests. Understanding how such attachments are formed as well as their strength has been of central interest. Most of this work has been terrestrially based, with little attention to marine settings. The question of whether the same predominant elements of place attachment – physical environment, activities, social ties and emotional connection – apply to marine national parks remains to be answered. Ningaloo Marine Park in north-western Australia provided the focus for this study. Place attachment is of great interest in this Marine Park because the results of a recent visitor survey showed that 55% of respondents had visited previously and of this, 44% stayed at the same location, suggesting strong place attachment. Photo-elicitation, where photographs are taken by visitors and provide the basis for a subsequent interview, was used to explore this phenomenon. A total of 30 visitors agreed to participate, with up to eight photographs taken by each. Fieldwork was undertaken in July 2009 with preliminary results suggesting that place attachment at the Marine Park has the same four elements as those found in terrestrial-based studies. There were, however, distinct marine components for each element. For the physical environment, coastal vistas were enjoyed because of the feelings of remoteness and isolation they promoted as well as their majestic beauty. Activities centred on those that were uniquely marine, such as snorkelling, diving and fishing. Social ties were evidenced in the bonding of visitors with others who shared similar marine-based past-times such as boating. Regarding emotional connection, families enjoyed being able to visit a location where everybody was happy because all members were able to do their own activities and have a pleasurable experience. Participants were also asked about place-specific behaviours. Place-protective behaviours were obvious from the responses provided and included picking up rubbish and telling others if they were doing the ‘wrong’ thing. Place protection was also evident in the responses regarding perceptions of management. The dominant response related to increasing the presence of management to enforce rules and regulations, particularly for fishing

Do woodland birds prefer to forage in healthy Eucalyptus wandoo trees?

Globally, many forests and woodlands are in decline. The marked loss of canopy foliage typical of these declines results in reduced foraging resources (e.g. nectar, pollen, and insects) and, subsequently, can reduce habitat quality for woodland birds. In south-west Western Australia, patches of Eucalyptus wandoo woodlands have shown a decline in condition since at least 2002. We investigated how changes in E. wandoo condition affect the woodland bird community. Foraging activities of three bird species were recorded for 20 sites in Dryandra State Forest and Wandoo Conservation Park either by conducting watches on focal trees ('sitting' method), or following individuals through the woodland ('following' method). Condition assessments of trees used by the birds were compared with those for trees available at the study site. Weebills (Smicrornis brevirostris; canopy insectivore) displayed preference for healthy trees (low amounts of canopy dieback), whereas rufous treecreepers (Climacteris rufa; bark-foraging insectivore) preferred trees with a higher proportion of dead branches. Yellow-plumed honeyeaters (Lichenostomus ornatus; insectivore/nectarivore) foraged in older, larger E. wandoo trees having full canopies with few signs of tree decline. Tree declines, such as that happening in E. wandoo, alter the foraging resources and habitat available to woodland birds

Quantum Control of Interacting Bosons in Periodic Optical Lattice

We study the avoided crossings in the dynamics of quantum controlled excitations for an interacting two-boson system in an optical lattice. Specifically, we perform numerical simulations of quantum control in this system where driving pulses connect the undriven stationary states in a manner characteristic of Stimulated Raman Adiabatic Passage (STIRAP). We demonstrate that the dynamics of such a transition is affected by chaos induced avoided crossings, resulting in a loss in coherence of the final outcome in the adiabatic limit.Comment: Accepted for publication in Physica E. Typo corrections to final versio

A within farm clinical trial to compare two treatments (parenteral antibacterials and hoof trimming) for sheep lame with footrot

From observational studies, farmers who use parenteral antibacterials to promptly treat all sheep with footrot (FR) or interdigital dermatitis (ID) have a prevalence of lameness of <2% compared with a prevalence of 9% lameness reported by farmers who treat lame sheep by trimming affected feet. We tested the hypothesis that prompt treatment of sheep lame with naturally developing FR or ID with parenteral and topical antibacterials reduces the prevalence and incidence of lameness with these conditions compared with less frequent treatment with trimming of hoof horn and applying topical antibacterials. A further hypothesis was that reduction of ID and FR would improve productivity. A lowland sheep flock with 700 ewes was used to test these hypotheses in an 18-month within farm clinical trial with four groups of ewes: two intervention and two control. The duration and severity of lameness was used to categorise sheep into three weighted scores of lameness (WLS): never lame (WLS0), mildly lame/lame for <6 days (WLS1) and severely or chronically lame (WLS2). The intervention reduced the prevalence of lameness due to FR and ID in ewes and lambs and the incidence of lameness in ewes. The WLS was also significantly lower in sheep in the intervention groups. Ewes with a higher WLS were subsequently significantly more likely to have a body condition score <2.5 and to have lame lambs. Significantly more ewes lambed and successfully reared more lambs that were ready for slaughter at a younger age in the intervention versus control groups. There was an increase in the gross margin of £630/100 ewes mated in the intervention group, including the cost of treatment of £150/100 ewes mated. We conclude that prompt parenteral and topical antibacterial treatment of sheep lame with ID and FR reduced the prevalence and incidence of these infectious conditions and led to improved health, welfare and productivity

A lower limit on the dark particle mass from dSphs

We use dwarf spheroidal galaxies as a tool to attempt to put precise lower limits on the mass of the dark matter particle, assuming it is a sterile neutrino. We begin by making cored dark halo fits to the line of sight velocity dispersions as a function of projected radius (taken from Walker et al. 2007) for six of the Milky Way's dwarf spheroidal galaxies. We test Osipkov-Merritt velocity anisotropy profiles, but find that no benefit is gained over constant velocity anisotropy. In contrast to previous attempts, we do not assume any relation between the stellar velocity dispersions and the dark matter ones, but instead we solve directly for the sterile neutrino velocity dispersion at all radii by using the equation of state for a partially degenerate neutrino gas (which ensures hydrostatic equilibrium of the sterile neutrino halo). This yields a 1:1 relation between the sterile neutrino density and velocity dispersion, and therefore gives us an accurate estimate of the Tremaine-Gunn limit at all radii. By varying the sterile neutrino particle mass, we locate the minimum mass for all six dwarf spheroidals such that the Tremaine-Gunn limit is not exceeded at any radius (in particular at the centre). We find sizeable differences between the ranges of feasible sterile neutrino particle mass for each dwarf, but interestingly there exists a small range 270-280eV which is consistent with all dSphs at the 1-$\sigma$ level.Comment: 13 pages, 2 figures, 1 tabl

Factors associated with changes of state of foot conformation and lameness in a flock of sheep

The aim of this research was to investigate transitions between foot conformation, lameness and footrot in sheep. Data came from one lowland flock of approximately 700 ewes studied for 18 months. Multilevel multistate analyses of transitions between good and poor foot conformation states in ewes, and lame and non-lame states in ewes and lambs were conducted. Key results were that the longer sheep had feet in good conformation, the more likely they were to stay in this state; similarly, the longer a ewe was not lame the more likely she was not to become lame. Ewes with poor foot conformation were more likely to become lame (OR: 1.83 (1.24-2.67)) and to be > 4 years (OR: 1.50(1.09-2.05)). Ewes with footrot were less likely to move to good foot conformation (OR: 0.48 (0.31-0.75)) and were more likely to become lame (OR: 3.81(2.60-5.59)). Ewes lame for > 4 days and not treated with parenteral antibacterials had a higher risk of developing (OR: 2.00 (1.08-3.61)), or remaining in (OR: 0.49 (0.29-0.95)) poor foot conformation compared with ewes never lame. Treatment of ewes lame with footrot with parenteral antibacterials increased the probability of transition from a lame to a non-lame state (OR: 1.46 (1.05-2.02)) and these ewes, even if lame for > 4 days, were not more likely to develop poor foot conformation. The risk of a ewe becoming lame increased when at least one of her offspring was lame (OR: 2.03 (1.42-2.92)) and when the prevalence of lameness in the group was ≥ 5% (OR: 1.42 (1.06-1.92)). Lambs were at increased risk of becoming lame when they were male (OR: 1.42 (1.01-2.01)), single (OR: 1.86 (1.34-2.59)) or had a lame dam or sibling (OR: 3.10 (1.81-5.32)). There were no explanatory variables associated with lambs recovering from lameness. We conclude that poor foot conformation in ewes increases the susceptibility of ewes to become lame and that this can arise from untreated footrot. Treatment of ewes lame with footrot with parenteral antibacterials leads to recovery from lameness and prevents or resolves poor foot conformation which then reduces the susceptibility to further lameness with footrot

Complex structure moduli stability in toroidal compactifications

In this paper we present a classification of possible dynamics of closed string moduli within specific toroidal compactifications of Type II string theories due to the NS-NS tadpole terms in the reduced action. They appear as potential terms for the moduli when supersymmetry is broken due to the presence of D-branes. We particularise to specific constructions with two, four and six-dimensional tori, and study the stabilisation of the complex structure moduli at the disk level. We find that, depending on the cycle on the compact space where the brane is wrapped, there are three possible cases: i) there is a solution inside the complex structure moduli space, and the configuration is stable at the critical point, ii) the moduli fields are driven towards the boundary of the moduli space, iii) there is no stable solution at the minimum of the potential and the system decays into a set of branes.Comment: 24 pages, JHEP3.cls, 19 figures. A few references adde

Conservation Agriculture Practices Increase Potentially Mineralizable Nitrogen: A Meta-Analysis

Potentially mineralizable nitrogen (PMN) is considered an important indicator of soil health. Cropping systems management can affect PMN. However, the effect size and relationship with crop yield across specific management practices remain uncertain. We conducted a quantitative review to understand how conservation agriculture management practices affect PMN including N fertilizer application, cropping system diversity, and tillage system as well as the relationship of crop yield with PMN. Data were extracted from 43 studies published in peer-reviewed journals, providing 494 paired comparisons of PMN and 26 paired comparisons of PMN and yield across selected crop management practices. In our meta-analysis, the effect size for each management practice was expressed as a response ratio, calculated as PMN or yield for the fertilizer application, high crop diversity, and no-till system to the no-fertilizer, less diverse crop system, and tillage system. On average, N-fertilized cropping systems had greater PMN: compared to no N fertilizer, inorganic N fertilizer had 22%, and manure had 34% higher PMN. Diverse cropping systems also had greater PMN: three or more different crops in rotation had 44% greater PMN than continuous cropping systems; cropping systems with a leguminous cover crop had 211% greater PMN than systems without cover crops. Compared to till systems, no-till systems had 13% higher PMN. Overall, conservation practices consistently increased both PMN and yield; however, the increase in PMN and yield were not correlated. Consistent with the use of PMN as a soil health indicator, this synthesis demonstrates that practices benefiting PMN also benefit yield