The Social and Economic Long Term Monitoring Program (SELTMP) 2014: Recreation in the Great Barrier Reef

[Extract] Introduction.\ud People love to spend their recreational time visiting the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area (GBRWHA), (GBRMPA, 2009), and many people are doing it! The recent SELTMP surveys revealed that 95% of residents of coastal town adjacent to the GBR had visited the GBRWHA for recreation at least once, and 87% had visited in the previous 12 months. Many of these visits appeared to be to a mainland beach to walk, swim, and relax. However, 68% of people who told us about their recent trips had been beyond the mainland beach to islands, reefs, shoals, etc., to take part in activities such as fishing, snorkelling and diving. Other activities include boating, sailing, jet skiing, camping, kayaking, sight-seeing, photography, and wildlife viewing, to name a few. Recreational visitors are currently very satisfied with their use of the Marine Park.\ud \ud While most trips beyond the beach were made by ferry, about a third of these trips were accessed by residents' own or someone else's boat. While not everyone is using their vessel very frequently, vessel registration by coastal residents has increased substantially in recent years (Old Department of Transport, unpublished data, 2011).\ud \ud Given all of this activity, it is not surprising that recreation in the GBRWHA provides significant social and cultural benefits as well as many health and wellbeing benefits associated with the psychological interaction with nature (Synergies Economic Consulting, 2012). In economic terms, recreation (defined by Deloitte Access Economics as GBR catchment residents visiting an island, sailing, boating and fishing), contributed $126m in direct value or$243.9m value added to the Australian economy in 2011/12 (Deloitte Access Economics, 2013). This estimate did not include beach visits.\ud Importantly, recreation differs from tourism. The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority define recreation as an independent visit for enjoyment that is not part of a commercial operation (GBRMPA, 2012). For the purposes of the SELTMP Surveys (outline following), any resident of the GBR catchment who visits the GBRWHA is included within recreation; while tourists are defined as those residing outside of the GBR catchment

Advances in monitoring the human dimension of natural resource systems: an example from the Great Barrier Reef

The aim of this paper is to demonstrate the feasibility and potential utility of decision-centric social-economic monitoring using data collected from Great Barrier Reef (Reef) region. The social and economic long term monitoring program (SELTMP) for the Reef is a novel attempt to monitor the social and economic dimensions of social-ecological change in a globally and nationally important region. It represents the current status and condition of the major user groups of the Reef with the potential to simultaneously consider trends, interconnections, conflicts, dependencies and vulnerabilities. Our approach was to combine a well-established conceptual framework with a strong governance structure and partnership arrangement that enabled the co-production of knowledge. The framework is a modification of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment and it was used to guide indicator choice. Indicators were categorised as; (i) resource use and dependency, (ii) ecosystem benefits and well-being, and (iii) drivers of change. Data were collected through secondary datasets where existing and new datasets were created where not, using standard survey techniques. Here we present an overview of baseline results of new survey data from commercial-fishers (n =210), marine-based tourism operators (n =119), tourists (n =2877), local residents (n =3181), and other Australians (n =2002). The indicators chosen describe both social and economic components of the Reef system and represent an unprecedented insight into the ways in which people currently use and depend on the Reef, the benefits that they derive, and how they perceive, value and relate to the Reef and each other. However, the success of a program such as the SELTMP can only occur with well-translated cutting-edge data and knowledge that are collaboratively produced, adaptive, and directly feeds into current management processes. We discuss how data from the SELTMP have already been incorporated into Reef management decision-making through substantial inclusion in three key policy documents

A microscopic equation of state for protoneutron stars

We study the structure of protoneutron stars within the finite temperature Brueckner-Bethe-Goldstone many-body theory. If nucleons, hyperons, and leptons are present in the stellar core, we find that neutrino trapping stiffens considerably the equation of state, because hyperon onsets are shifted to larger baryon density. However, the value of the critical mass turns out to be smaller than the ``canonical'' value 1.44 $M_\odot$. We find that the inclusion of a hadron-quark phase transition increases the critical mass and stabilizes it at about 1.5--1.6 $M_\odot$.Comment: 8 pages, 6 figures, to appear in Astrophysics and Space Science, Proceedings of "Isolated Neutron Stars: from the Interior to the Surface", edited by D. Page, R. Turolla, and S. Zan

Atomic resolution interface structure and vertical current injection in highly uniform MoS2MoS_{2} heterojunctions with bulk GaN

The integration of two-dimensional $MoS_{2}$ with $GaN$ recently attracted significant interest for future electronic/optoelectronic applications. However, the reported studies have been mainly carried out using heteroepitaxial $GaN$ templates on sapphire substrates, whereas the growth of $MoS_{2}$ on low-dislocation-density bulk GaN can be strategic for the realization of truly vertical devices. In this paper, we report the growth of ultrathin $MoS_{2}$ films, mostly composed by single-layers ($1L$), onto homoepitaxial $n-GaN$ on $n^{+}$ bulk substrates by sulfurization of a pre-deposited $MoO_{x}$ film. Highly uniform and conformal coverage of the $GaN$ surface was demonstrated by atomic force microscopy, while very low tensile strain (0.05%) and a significant $p^{+}$-type doping ($4.5 \times 10^{12} cm^{-2}$) of $1L-MoS_{2}$ was evaluated by Raman mapping. Atomic resolution structural and compositional analyses by aberration-corrected electron microscopy revealed a nearly-ideal van der Waals interface between $MoS_{2}$ and the $Ga$-terminated $GaN$ crystal, where only the topmost $Ga$ atoms are affected by oxidation. Furthermore, the relevant lattice parameters of the $MoS_{2}/GaN$ heterojunction, such as the van der Waals gap, were measured with high precision. Finally, the vertical current injection across this 2D/3D heterojunction has been investigated by nanoscale current-voltage analyses performed by conductive atomic force microscopy, showing a rectifying behavior with an average turn-on voltage $V_{on}=1.7 V$ under forward bias, consistent with the expected band alignment at the interface between $p^{+}$ doped $1L-MoS_{2}$ and $n-GaN$.Comment: 21 pages, 6 figure

A high-throughput method for measuring critical thermal limits of leaves by chlorophyll imaging fluorescence

Plant thermal tolerance is a crucial research area as the climate warms and extreme weather events become more frequent. Leaves exposed to temperature extremes have inhibited photosynthesis and will accumulate damage to PSII if tolerance thresholds are exceeded. Temperature-dependent changes in basal chlorophyll fluorescence (T-F0) can be used to identify the critical temperature at which PSII is inhibited. We developed and tested a high-throughput method for measuring the critical temperatures for PSII at low (CTMIN) and high (CTMAX) temperatures using a Maxi-Imaging fluorimeter and a thermoelectric Peltier plate heating/cooling system. We examined how experimental conditions of wet vs dry surfaces for leaves and heating/cooling rate, affect CTMIN and CTMAX across four species. CTMAX estimates were not different whether measured on wet or dry surfaces, but leaves were apparently less cold tolerant when on wet surfaces. Heating/cooling rate had a strong effect on both CTMAX and CTMIN that was species-specific. We discuss potential mechanisms for these results and recommend settings for researchers to use when measuring T-F0. The approach that we demonstrated here allows the high-throughput measurement of a valuable ecophysiological parameter that estimates the critical temperature thresholds of leaf photosynthetic performance in response to thermal extremes.This research was supported by the Australian Research Council (DP170101681)

Anisotropy and chemical composition of ultra-high energy cosmic rays using arrival directions measured by the Pierre Auger Observatory

The Pierre Auger Collaboration has reported evidence for anisotropy in the distribution of arrival directions of the cosmic rays with energies $E>E_{th}=5.5\times 10^{19}$ eV. These show a correlation with the distribution of nearby extragalactic objects, including an apparent excess around the direction of Centaurus A. If the particles responsible for these excesses at $E>E_{th}$ are heavy nuclei with charge $Z$, the proton component of the sources should lead to excesses in the same regions at energies $E/Z$. We here report the lack of anisotropies in these directions at energies above $E_{th}/Z$ (for illustrative values of $Z=6,\ 13,\ 26$). If the anisotropies above $E_{th}$ are due to nuclei with charge $Z$, and under reasonable assumptions about the acceleration process, these observations imply stringent constraints on the allowed proton fraction at the lower energies

A research agenda for seed-trait functional ecology

Trait-based approaches have improved our understanding of plant evolution, community assembly and ecosystem functioning. A major challenge for the upcoming decades is to understand the functions and evolution of early life-history traits, across levels of organization and ecological strategies. Although a variety of seed traits are critical for dispersal, persistence, germination timing and seedling establishment, only seed mass has been considered systematically. Here we suggest broadening the range of morphological, physiological and biochemical seed traits to add new understanding on plant niches, population dynamics and community assembly. The diversity of seed traits and functions provides an important challenge that will require international collaboration in three areas of research. First, we present a conceptual framework for a seed ecological spectrum that builds upon current understanding of plant niches. We then lay the foundation for a seed-trait functional network, the establishment of which will underpin and facilitate trait-based inferences. Finally, we anticipate novel insights and challenges associated with incorporating diverse seed traits into predictive evolutionary ecology, community ecology and applied ecology. If the community invests in standardized seed-trait collection and the implementation of rigorous databases, major strides can be made at this exciting frontier of functional ecology