Creating understandings of relationships through video interaction guidance : an exploration of resilience

D.App.Ed Psy.This thesis explores resilience in an educational context and is comprised of three chapters: a systematic literature review, a bridging document and a piece of empirical research. The systematic literature review examines the views of children and teachers about the role of relationships in developing resilience in children and young people (CYP) through a meta-ethnography. The findings suggest interactions between individuals are the foundations of relationships between CYP and teachers as well as family members. These relationships and the support they provide effect how the individual child or young person makes sense of the world; how they perceive challenges and think about themselves. A model was created from these findings. The bridging document discusses my theoretical underpinnings, ontological and epistemological stance and ethical considerations of the empirical research. The bridging document aims to link the meta-ethnography and the empirical research project. The empirical research explored everyday resilience through the use of Video Interaction Guidance (VIG). It aimed to examine the following two research questions: 1. In the context of VIG, what understandings do parents, teachers and children construct about their relationships with one another? 2. What can these understandings tell us about resilience? Conceptualisation of everyday resilience through a relational lens led to an exploration of whether VIG could be used with children, parents and teachers to create a new understanding of resilience. A multiple case-study design was adopted with two triads of participants. The interviews with the participants and a selection of shared reviews from the VIG cycles were transcribed and analysed using thematic analysis. The model created through the meta-ethnography was used to guide the creation of important themes in the empirical research but new themes were also created from the data itself. The Resilience Pyramid was then created from three aspects of their relationships that stood out as being useful in thinking about everyday resilience from a relational viewpoint. The Resilience Pyramid suggests three aspects of relationships interconnect to create a new understanding of resilience. This paper concludes that it is possible to use VIG to explore teachers’, parents’ and children’s understandings of their relationships with one another and use these understandings to create a new, relational, understanding of resilience

Linking frogs with flow: Amphibian community response to flow and rainfall on a dryland floodplain wetland

Floods structure the biota of floodplain wetlands, driving spatial and temporal patterns of vegetation, invertebrates, and waterbirds. Flood pulses trigger booms in productivity and biodiversity as aquatic biota respond to abundant freshwater habitat and resources. Water extraction and river regulation have decreased the magnitude, duration and frequency of floods, and reduced floodplain extent. To address this problem, environmental water management aims to restore wetland functioning by mimicking the natural flow regime but this requires knowledge of broad ecological responses and associations to flows. Despite amphibians forming a significant component of wetland foodwebs, their response to river flows is poorly known. My work focused on understanding this response in the Macquarie Marshes, a dryland floodplain wetland in Australia. The Macquarie Marshes are a wetland of international significance, severely affected by river regulation. They currently benefit from significant public environmental water investment initiatives. In this thesis I aimed to: (1) investigate variations in relationships between flooding and responses of amphibian species, and quantify the contribution amphibians make to the flood-pulse derived resource boom ; and (2) assess the threat river regulation poses compared to other known amphibian threats across Australia. In Chapter 1, I overviewed the current status of knowledge of amphibian response to flooding and relationships with flow regimes in floodplains. I then compared the relative influence of weather and inundation on movement and behaviour of two amphibian species, with different life histories (Chapter 2). In Chapter 3, I tested predictions, based on life history characteristics, of species flood associations by measuring adult abundance and calling abundance in relation to habitat and flow variables. I then calculated biomass of amphibians across different size floods, and compared the contributions of different flood-association groups (Chapter 4). I also assessed likely frog species at risk of the effects of river regulation across Australia, relative to other threats (Chapter 5), using understanding of the relationships between flooding and life histories of frog species. Finally in Chapter 6, I re-evaluated the threat of altered flow regimes on amphibians and the opportunities to effectively manage this threat for some frog species which respond to flood and inundation patterns

Precipitation Constrains Amphibian Chytrid Fungus Infection Rates in a Terrestrial Frog Assemblage in Jamaica, West Indies

We model Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis (Bd) infection rates in Jamaican frogs—one of the most threatened amphibian fauna in the world. The majority of species we surveyed were terrestrial direct‐developing frogs or frogs that breed in tank bromeliads, rather than those that use permanent water bodies to breed. Thus, we were able to investigate the climatic correlates of Bd infection in a frog assemblage that does not rely on permanent water bodies. We sampled frogs for Bd across all of the major habitat types on the island, used machine learning algorithms to identify climatic variables that are correlated with infection rates, and extrapolated infection rates across the island. We compared the effectiveness of the machine learning algorithms for species distribution modeling in the context of our study, and found that infection rate rose quickly with precipitation in the driest month. Infection rates also increased with mean temperature in the warmest quarter until 22 °C, and remained relatively level thereafter. Both of these results are in accordance with previous studies of the physiology of Bd . Based on our environmental results, we suggest that frogs occupying high‐precipitation habitats with cool rainy‐season temperatures, though zcurrently experiencing low frequencies of infection, may experience an increase in infection rates as global warming increases temperatures in their habitat.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/106115/1/btp12093.pd

Draft tests of plows

Thesis (B.S.)--University of Illinois, 1904.Typescript

Proceedings of the Mongolian Biodiversity Databank Workshop: Assessing the Conservation Status of Mongolian Mammals and Fishes: III – Fishes: Assessment Results and Threats

The Mongolian Biodiversity Databank Workshop was held at the National University of Mongolia and Hustai National Park from 1 st October to 4 th November, 2005. As part of the workshop, a working group of fish experts assessed the conservation status of all Mongolian fishes using the IUCN Catego - ries and Criteria. Of the 64 fish species found in Mongolia, 48 were assessed, with 16 considered Not Applicable (NA) by the working group. Only one species, the Siberian sturgeon ( Acipenser baerii ) was assessed as Critically Endangered (CR) in Mongolia, however six species were assigned Endangered (EN) status. Four were found to be Vulnerable (VU) and three were assessed to be Near Threatened (NT). Forty-eight percent of Mongolian fishes were Data Deficient (DD) and 25% were Least Concern (LC). The north-east of Mongolia was most species rich, particularly the Onon River basin and Buir Lake. There was no trend for where the most threatened species occurred as they were found throughout the north of Mongolia. Hunting/fishing was the greatest threat to Mongolian fishes, followed by resource extraction and pollution

Frogs during the flood: differential behaviours of two amphibian species in a dryland floodplain wetland

Flow regimes structure biotic processes and communities of floodplain wetlands. Most current understanding of the influence of the flood pulse on vertebrates is based on knowledge of relationships between flow regimes and fish and bird populations. Its influence on amphibian populations is poorly known, and possibly difficult to disentangle due to the strong influence of weather on amphibian movement and breeding. We predicted that the behaviour of two functionally different amphibian species would vary due to different physiological constraints and life histories driving habitat use and activity periods. We radio-tracked 52 frogs, 27 barking marsh frogs (Limnodynastes fletcheri, Limnodynastidae) and 25 green tree frogs (Litoria caerulea, Hylidae), to investigate the influence of weather and flooding on habitat use, size of activity area and nightly movement. Activity area sizes and nightly distances of the species were highly variable. Limnodynastes fletcheri had a greater area of activity during floods (mean area: 5237 ± 2556 (SE) m2 cf. 639 ± 247 m2 post flood) while the tree frog had a greater area after flooding (207 ± 68 m2 cf. 1946 ± 530 m2). Limnodynastes fletcheri movement was little influenced by weather or inundation, with distances slightly restricted by increasing wind speed. However, use of floodplain habitat and coincidental breeding behaviour indicated responsiveness by L. fletcheri to flooding. Litoria caerulea moved further with increasing rainfall and nightly temperatures, seldom used flooded areas and there was no evidence of breeding. Although the flood pulse is the dominant structuring force on the floodplain, its influence varies on amphibian species. Consequently for conservation, L. fletcheri populations may be negatively affected by river regulatory activities, but would respond to environmental flow management, whereas L. caerulea appears unlikely to be affected by river regulation, though the confounding effects of rain and preferred habitat inundation needs exploring

Amphibian abundance and detection trends during a large flood in a semi-arid floodplain wetland

Amphibian abundance and occupancy are often reduced in regulated river systems near dams, but comparatively little is known about how they are affected on floodplain wetlands downstream or the effects of actively managed flows. We assessed frog diversity in the Macquarie Marshes, a semi-arid floodplain wetland of conservation significance, identifying environmental variables that might explain abundances and detection of species. We collected relative abundance data of 15 amphibian species at 30 sites over four months, coinciding with a large natural flood. We observed an average of 39.9 ± (SE) 4.3 (range, 0-246) individuals per site survey, over 47 survey nights. Three non-burrowing, ground-dwelling species were most abundant at temporarily flooded sites with low-growing aquatic vegetation (e.g., Limnodynastes tasmaniensis, Limnodynastes fletcheri, Crinia parinsignifera). Most arboreal species (e.g., Litoria caerulea) were more abundant in wooded habitat, regardless of water permanency. Remaining species had burrowing frog characteristics and low or variable abundance during the flood (e.g., Litoria platycephala, Uperoleia rugosa) with no significant environmental covariate influence. Consequently, behaviorally and physiologically similar species shared similar responses, despite some species-specific relationships to site- and survey-level variables. The Macquarie Marshes provided suitable habitat for a range of species with varying adaptations to semi-arid conditions, including those highly susceptible to water loss. It was likely regular inundation and natural flooding patterns were required to maintain these conditions