Remote sensing evaluation of Cape parrot habitat in the Eastern Cape: implications for conservation

The Cape parrot is the only endemic parrot of South Africa and is currently nationally threatened. One of the biggest threats to the Cape parrot is the past and present degradation of indigenous forest. The Amathole Mistbelt Forest in the Eastern Cape is the primary habitat for Cape parrot and has historically been heavily degraded. In order to conserve the Cape parrot effectively, there is a need to understand the spatial distribution of indigenous forest patches and their quality. There is currently not a sufficiently accurate landcover map available to fulfil this need. Thus, this study uses remotely sensed imagery at a 10 m resolution and random forest classification to (1) produce a land cover map of the indigenous forest in the Amathole region; (2) determine habitat quality of the indigenous forest, and (3) determine whether forest loss, as reported by Global Forest Watch (GFW), reflects the loss of indigenous forest or the clearing of plantations and woody alien invasives. The overall accuracy of the classification was very high at 82%. Cross validated accuracies were all high ranging from 95 – 100%, with water having the highest accuracy and indigenous forest, eucalyptus spp., pine spp., and infrastructure having the lowest accuracies. F1 scores ranged from 0.78 – 1.0, with indigenous forest ranking the second lowest at 0.80 and grassland ranking the second highest at 0.91. Indigenous forest covered 26% of the study area. Black wattle, pine spp. and eucalyptus spp. covered a combined 35% of the study area. The detailed map of indigenous forest shows the extent of its fragmentation and outlines some of the management implications associated with small forest patches. Secondly, habitat quality for Cape parrot is questioned as there is a lack of emergent canopy tree species and 30% of the matrix between forest patches is invaded by invasive alien species. Thus, it is suggested that a strong focus is put into clearing and managing invasive alien species. Lastly, GFW ‘forest cover loss' is shown to be comprised primarily of plantation felling and invasive clearing. It is suggested that there has been little loss of indigenous forest in the last 30 years. Further research will include creating an open and accessible product in the form of a Google Earth Engine App to share with conservation managers in the area

Identification and molecular characterisation of chemotaxis genes in agrobacterium tumefaciens

Using heterologous probing, with fragments from the S. meliloti che operon, putative chemotaxis genes were identified in A. tumefaciens. The cosmid pDUB1911, from a representative genomic library of C58C1, was identified and found to contain a cluster of chemotaxis-related genes. A 9.6kb region of pDUB1911 was completely sequenced (GenBank Accession No. AF044495), in both directions, and found to contain an 8kb chemotaxis cluster. The cluster begins with orf1, followed by orf2, cheYl, cheA, cheR, cheB, cheY2, orf9 and orflO. All of the identified homologues showed a high degree of sequence conservation with their counterparts in the chemosensory regions of the related bacteria S. meliloti and R. sphaeroides, and were arranged in a similar order. A homologue of the flagellar gene fliF was identified directly downstream of the che cluster. This arrangement is similar to that seen in S. meliloti, where the che operon is followed by a large region containing flagellar/motility-related genes. It was therefore postulated that the region identified in this work could be linked to the cluster of flagellar/motihty-related genes previously identified in A. tumefaciens. Mutant strains were created by in-frame deletion of cheA and orflO, and insertion of a neomycin resistance cassette in orfl, cheA and fliF. The oifl and cheA mutants showed wild type motility, but impaired chemotactic capabilities. Deletion of orflO appeared to have no effect on either motility or chemotaxis, under the conditions studied. Mutation of fliF resulted in a non-motile, non-flagellate phenotype. A "gutted" strain was created by deletion of the entire che cluster. As with the orfl and cheA mutant strains, the gutted strain showed severely impaired chemotaxis, but wild type patterns of motility. Preliminary work was conducted on the construction of a selectively-infective phage (SIP) system for studying bimolecular interactions within, and between, the che and vir systems of A. tumefaciens. A phage vector was constructed, which following further testing, should allow such work to begin. Probing with a fragment coding for the conserved region of an MCP recently identified m R. leguminosarum, suggested that A. tumefaciens could contain a number of proteins resembling the classical MCPs of E. coli. A putative MCP homologue was also identified in pDUB1911, downstream of the main che cluster. Although the che cluster was found not to contain a homologue of cheW, heterologous probing and PGR using consensus primers indicated that c/ieWmaps elsewhere in the A. tumefaciens genome

How Mexican-American Women Define Health: Cultural Beliefs and Practices in a Non-native Environment

Culture impacts the ways people evaluate and respond to health and illness. As a result, Mexican-American culture plays a part in how women take care of their heath and react toward the threat of breast cancer. Using previously identified dominant cultural factors that may influence the health of Mexican-American women as a foundation, this qualitative study describes how Mexican-American women define and maintain health, particularly breast health. Hispanics are the fastest growing minority group in the United States. As a result, it is important to better understand how Mexican-American women define health and take care of themselves. Doing so will not only provide richer insights into the health behaviors of women but provide insights into family health behaviors. This study is important because it adds to the current body of knowledge by investigating the cultural beliefs of Mexican-American women, a sub-group within the larger Hispanic ethnic category. While several researchers have studied the cultural beliefs of Hispanics, it is imperative that scholars begin to further investigate the cultural beliefs of the sub-groups within the larger Hispanic ethnic category. In addition, previous studies have primarily been conducted in states that border Mexico, thus providing an opportunity for this study to contribute to the current body of literature by giving a voice to Mexican-American women in the southeast. Using a grounded theory approach, ten in-depth interviews were conducted with Mexican-American women in the southeast. The main theme that emerged from the data was: The Maintenance of Health through Traditional Practices in a Non-native Environment. Two thematic constructs that participants engage in helped to describe how the women in the study maintain health in a traditional manner when they live in a nonnative environment: (1) the belief that health is a combination of the body and mind and (2) the belief that health care is a Mexican woman’s responsibility

Compost suppression of a fungal pathogen, Rhizoctonia solani, and its impact on root microbiomes

Composts are not only beneficial to plants as available nutrients but for their suppression against pathogens such as the global fungal plant pathogen, Rhizoctonia solani. First, a plate competition assay and a suppressive colony assay were used to investigate the role of the soil microbiota in the suppression of R. solani by two different management techniques, anaerobic soil disinfestation (ASD) and vermicompost. R. solani grew more on agar plates with sterile soil than on plates with non-sterile soil, indicating the importance of the ASD and vermicompost microbiomes in R. solani suppression. R. solani was suppressed—indicated by zones of inhibition around colony forming units—by more bacteria than fungi. ASD soil contained more suppressive bacteria than vermicompost or untreated soil. Suppressive colonies of Actinobacteria from ASD and untreated soil were phenotyped for carbon utilization using Biolog EcoPlates™ and showed greater phenotypic diversity in ASD soils. Secondly, I characterize how incorporation of vermicompost and R. solani infestation of soil affects composition of soil and rhizosphere microbiomes and health status of radish (Raphanus sativus) plants. The composition of microbial communities in vermicompost and untreated bulk soil and rhizospheres were sequenced using 16S amplicons. Microbial community composition was influenced by sampling location (root vs. soil), amendment, presence of R. solani, and plant health status

The space before, the space beyond:Activism, relationships and social change in the neo-liberal academy

The last 20 years have seen exponential growth in participatory research methods in child and youth studies, social work, education and allied disciplines. Scholars internationally have highlighted the ways these methods can connect with other areas of scholarship including children's rights, citizenship and activism. The Binks Hub is a new initiative committed to supporting, promoting and delivering transformative, co-creative research. The funding, monitoring and impact regimes within higher education can mean that delivering these commitments is challenging. This article uses three empirical cases involving participatory methods to reflect on these challenges and examine the connections and disconnections between participatory research and activism. The work of Sassen (2014) is employed to make spaces before and beyond method more visible. These spaces, we conclude, are critical to creating the foundations for relational participatory practice, and ensuring initiatives like the Binks Hub have long-term meaning and value

The effect of pathogens on honeybee learning and foraging behaviour

The European honeybee, Apis mellifera, is important economically not just for honey production but also as a pollinator. Bee pollinated plants contribute towards one third of the food eaten worldwide. However, honeybee numbers in some areas are declining. A range of interacting factors are thought to be involved, including pathogens and parasites, loss of forage, pesticide use, bad weather, and limited genetic variability. Pathogens are also known to cause changes in the behaviour of their hosts and these premortality and sublethal effects of disease may well play a role in colony declines and are the focus of this thesis. For individual bees the fungus Metarhizium anisopliae was used as a model pathogen and RT-Q-PCR was used to detect and quantify naturally occurring pathogens. In field colonies the level of infestation of the parasitic mite Varroa destructor was modified as a surrogate for disease load as the amounts of many viruses correlate with mite levels. Survival experiments showed that both disease load and forage availability had an effect on honeybee longevity and feeding the bees pollen increased their survival. Learning experiments showed that both the fungus and some of the bees’ naturally occurring pathogens caused changes in the learning ability of young adult and older forager bees. Young adult bees were better able to learn when infected with the fungus, possibly because it made them more responsive to the sucrose stimulus, whilst older forager bees where less able to learn when infected with the fungus. Harmonic radar was used to show that honeybee flight ability was affected by naturally occurring pathogens, especially deformed wing virus which caused bees to fly shorter distances and for shorter amounts of time than uninfected bees. Observation hives were used to study in-hive behaviour showing that bees with more pathogens were likely to start foraging earlier than healthier bees