Building resilient wooded landscapes: How can we support saproxylic invertebrates into the future?

Decaying wood hosts a diverse network of saproxylic invertebrates. These play important roles in forest functioning, including pest control, pollination, and nutrient cycling. However, declines in ancient and veteran trees in UK landscapes threaten saproxylic communities. The present research sought to address this through investigating multiple aspects of saproxylic habitat use and creation. Previous studies of saproxylic invertebrate landscape use have identified scales at which habitat density is most important. However, many of these studies were done in dense woodlands and none have been attempted in the UK. This research sought to fill these knowledge gaps by investigating habitat density scales of importance to invertebrate populations in English open-grown oak landscapes. Flight interception trapping data showed that higher veteran tree densities over a 250 m radius positively correlated with saproxylic community diversity, whilst higher densities over smaller scales support rare species. The second aspect of this research explored beetle boxes as a deadwood habitat creation method. The present research built upon previous studies by investigating a novel ground-level design to replicate basal tree hollows. It also tested the potential of different construction materials and content variations in improving beetle box function. Results showed that plastic beetle boxes contained similar abundances and diversities of deadwood-associated beetles than those made of wood. However, the wood mould in plastic boxes became significantly drier than that in wooden boxes. The addition of poultry faeces to beetle boxes as a source of nitrogen was associated with higher abundances and diversities of some beetle groups. No evidence of the basal hollow specialist, Limoniscus violaceus, was found in beetle boxes; however, more long-term monitoring is needed to thoroughly investigate this. This research also noted the potential for beetle boxes to function as a public engagement tool to promote a widespread appreciation of the importance of deadwood ecosystems

Europe, more than a market less than a state: the conflicting visions of Margaret Thatcher and Jacques Delors

The antipathy between Thatcher and Delors is examined, in particular their socio-economic divide and its influence upon their conflicting visions of the future of the EC. Thatcher was a neo-liberal realist with an inherent distrust and suspicion of the EC; she equated it with her domestic attack upon the post-1945 Keynesian consensus. She was divided from Delors over many issues, including national concepts and the US relationship; however, underlining this division was her vision of a total Europe-wide free market, with little regulation to hinder market forces. She saw the SEA as a vital step in the creation of her vision of the EC - a stateless market. Delors, the personalist and pragmatic socialist, had a contrasting vision of Europe. His philosophy was critical of liberalism in that it put community before individuality; he supported protection, wanted regulation in the market, and believed everybody should be helped, especially the agricultural community for which he had a near spiritual affection. He saw the SEA as a stage in the development of EC integration; the Delors' package, EMU, the social dimension and political union were all part of his vision of the creation of state-like structures to avoid the stateless market. That was when the division with Thatcher could be clearly seen and became more personal. Thatcher and Delors were the extremes of the debate; the more realistic way forward for the EC appeared the middle way with inter-governmental bargaining slowing integration, making Europe more than the pure free market visualized by Thatcher but less than the more integrated state which was the dream of Delors

EFFORTS TOWARDS SUSTAINABILITY IN THE COSTA RICAN CATTLE INDUSTRY

This thesis explains Costa Rica’s transformation from a country that was seeking to maximize its economic capabilities through the cattle industry to a country that realizes the true cost of such actions. During Costa Rica’s cattle boom in the 1950s and 1960s, the Costa Rican government adopted economic policies that sought to take full advantage of the international market’s demand for the byproducts of country’s cattle. However, the following decade brought a recognition of the incredible damage the agricultural expansion had dealt on the land. Subsequent presidents and government officials dedicated their efforts into reforming the cattle industry through new regulations and legislations. The farmers and ranchers of Costa Rica also developed more sustainable practices to ensure that their cattle businesses would continue to exist and thrive while their land remained unspoilt

The development and application of protemics to the analysis of Chlamydia Trachomatis

The bacterial pathogen Chlamydia trachomatis causes Trachoma, the worlds leading cause of preventable blindness and is also responsible for the most common curable sexually transmitted disease in the UK and United States. C. trachomatis is an obligate intracellular organism characterised by a unique and complex growth cycle. Its study presents many challenges since it has historically been recalcitrant to genetic manipulation and growth in the absence of a host cell. Nevertheless, the sequencing of the C. trachomatis genome and its relatively small size by comparison to genomes from other bacterial pathogens, has paved the way for studies at the proteomic level.This thesis describes the development and application of proteomic approaches to study C. trachomatis L2. To survey the expressed chlamydial proteome, a combination of the qualitative approaches, 2-DGE, MudPIT and GeLC-MS/MS; and the quantitative approaches AQUA, iTRAQ and LC-MSE were used. Collectively, the approaches efficiently identified 648 expressed proteins, representing ~72% of the predicted proteome of C. trachomatis L2, from both the infectious (elementary body, EB) and replicating (reticulate body, RB) form of the pathogen. In the infectious EB, the entire set of predicted glycolytic enzymes were detected, indicating that metabolite flux rather than de novo synthesis of this pathway is triggered upon infection of host cells. Further, proteomic analysis of the RB form also uncovered biosynthetic enzymes for chlamydial cell wall synthesis, indicating that peptidoglycan is produced in some form during growth in host cells. Comparison of the quantitative approaches iTRAQ and LC-MSE demonstrated that LC-MSE quantitative data was significantly more robust and extensive relative to iTRAQ data. In addition to information on relative amounts of these proteins between the two forms, LC-MSE data also yielded the cellular concentration (molecules per cell) for 489 proteins.This extensive set of absolute quantitation data permits estimates of the energy invested in the synthesis of various classes of proteins. The results indicate that C. trachomatis devotes most of its energy into maintenance of the translational machinery. However, it also expends significant amounts of energy into making cell envelope components and a set of hitherto hypothetical proteins. These proteins, which account for the bulk of the energy invested by the intracellular RB form of the pathogen as it converts to the extracellular EB form, highlight the importance of absolute quantitation data for understanding the biological processing status of the cell. The datasets also revealed a large number of proteins that were differentially expressed between replicating RBs and infectious EBs, ranging from 8.4-fold down-regulation to 3.5-fold up-regulation. Consistent with transcriptomic studies (Belland et al., 2003), proteins involved in protein synthesis, ATP generation, central metabolism, secretion and nutrient uptake were predominant in the metabolically active RB at 15 h PI. Although many of the proteins in these functional categories were down-regulated in EBs, proteins required for glycolysis, central metabolism, protein synthesis, and type III secretion were present in significant amounts in EBs suggesting that the infectious EB is primed ‘ready-to-go’ upon contact with the host cell

Nowhere Man: Autoethnographic Reflections on Identity, Family, and Leadership.

The purpose of this self study was to discover the values and attitudes I model as a leader to support people in doing their best work. Specifically, do I practice leadership intimacy as defined in this study? Leadership intimacy is defined by addressing these research questions: What values do I lead by? And, what attitudes and practices do I model as a leader? Autoethnography is a qualitative genre of research I used in this study. It describes the researcher and his or her personal experiences within a social context, in this case a research university. Autoethnography is often described as exploring a particular life, to understand a way of life.\u27 In this study, I reflected upon vignettes that illustrate how my values and attitudes as a leader have been shaped. These formed the basis for deeper reflection, discussions, and interviews to explain my practice. Interviews were conducted using the 360 degree model to collect data. The data were then analyzed using idea units. Idea units are discrete ideas that can be found in writing regardless of the language used to describe them. Coding for idea units in any narrative follows the same pattern or procedure regardless of the idea being coded. The attitudes and values most often cited were those demonstrating metanoia, humility, and solicitude. I learned each one of these values from my children. As I reviewed each of these values, it became clear that a framework where life informs work informs life is the engine that drives leadership intimacy.\u2

Structure of Micro-instabilities in Tokamak Plasmas: Stiff Transport or Plasma Eruptions?

Solutions to a model 2D eigenmode equation describing micro-instabilities in tokamak plasmas are presented that demonstrate a sensitivity of the mode structure and stability to plasma profiles. In narrow regions of parameter space, with special plasma profiles, a maximally unstable mode is found that balloons on the outboard side of the tokamak. This corresponds to the conventional picture of a ballooning mode. However, for most profiles this mode cannot exist and instead a more stable mode is found that balloons closer to the top or bottom of the plasma. Good quantitative agreement with a 1D ballooning analysis is found provided the constraints associated with higher order profile effects, often neglected, are taken into account. A sudden transition from this general mode to the more unstable ballooning mode can occur for a critical flow shear, providing a candidate model for why some experiments observe small plasma eruptions (Edge Localised Modes, or ELMs) in place of large Type I ELMs.Comment: 11 pages, 3 figure