A comprehensive database of quality-rated fossil ages for Sahul's Quaternary vertebrates.

The study of palaeo-chronologies using fossil data provides evidence for past ecological and evolutionary processes, and is therefore useful for predicting patterns and impacts of future environmental change. However, the robustness of inferences made from fossil ages relies heavily on both the quantity and quality of available data. We compiled Quaternary non-human vertebrate fossil ages from Sahul published up to 2013. This, the FosSahul database, includes 9,302 fossil records from 363 deposits, for a total of 478 species within 215 genera, of which 27 are from extinct and extant megafaunal species (2,559 records). We also provide a rating of reliability of individual absolute age based on the dating protocols and association between the dated materials and the fossil remains. Our proposed rating system identified 2,422 records with high-quality ages (i.e., a reduction of 74%). There are many applications of the database, including disentangling the confounding influences of hypothetical extinction drivers, better spatial distribution estimates of species relative to palaeo-climates, and potentially identifying new areas for fossil discovery

Scrapheap Challenge: A novel bulk-bone metabarcoding method to investigate ancient DNA in faunal assemblages

Highly fragmented and morphologically indistinct fossil bone is common in archaeological and paleontological deposits but unfortunately it is of little use in compiling faunal assemblages. The development of a cost-effective methodology to taxonomically identify bulk bone is therefore a key challenge. Here, an ancient DNA methodology using high-throughput sequencing is developed to survey and analyse thousands of archaeological bones from southwest Australia. Fossils were collectively ground together depending on which of fifteen stratigraphical layers they were excavated from. By generating fifteen synthetic blends of bulk bone powder, each corresponding to a chronologically distinct layer, samples could be collectively analysed in an efficient manner. A diverse range of taxa, including endemic, extirpated and hitherto unrecorded taxa, dating back to c.46,000 years BP was characterized. The method is a novel, cost-effective use for unidentifiable bone fragments and a powerful molecular tool for surveying fossils that otherwise end up on the taxonomic “scrapheap”

Effective healthcare teams require effective team members: defining teamwork competencies

BACKGROUND: Although effective teamwork has been consistently identified as a requirement for enhanced clinical outcomes in the provision of healthcare, there is limited knowledge of what makes health professionals effective team members, and even less information on how to develop skills for teamwork. This study identified critical teamwork competencies for health service managers. METHODS: Members of a state branch of the professional association of Australian health service managers participated in a teamwork survey. RESULTS: The 37% response rate enabled identification of a management teamwork competency set comprising leadership, knowledge of organizational goals and strategies and organizational commitment, respect for others, commitment to working collaboratively and to achieving a quality outcome. CONCLUSION: Although not part of the research question the data suggested that the competencies for effective teamwork are perceived to be different for management and clinical teams, and there are differences in the perceptions of effective teamwork competencies between male and female health service managers. This study adds to the growing evidence that the focus on individual skill development and individual accountability and achievement that results from existing models of health professional training, and which is continually reinforced by human resource management practices within healthcare systems, is not consistent with the competencies required for effective teamwork

Assessing Arboreal Adaptations of Bird Antecedents: Testing the Ecological Setting of the Origin of the Avian Flight Stroke

The origin of avian flight is a classic macroevolutionary transition with research spanning over a century. Two competing models explaining this locomotory transition have been discussed for decades: ground up versus trees down. Although it is impossible to directly test either of these theories, it is possible to test one of the requirements for the trees-down model, that of an arboreal paravian. We test for arboreality in non-avian theropods and early birds with comparisons to extant avian, mammalian, and reptilian scansors and climbers using a comprehensive set of morphological characters. Non-avian theropods, including the small, feathered deinonychosaurs, and Archaeopteryx, consistently and significantly cluster with fully terrestrial extant mammals and ground-based birds, such as ratites. Basal birds, more advanced than Archaeopteryx, cluster with extant perching ground-foraging birds. Evolutionary trends immediately prior to the origin of birds indicate skeletal adaptations opposite that expected for arboreal climbers. Results reject an arboreal capacity for the avian stem lineage, thus lending no support for the trees-down model. Support for a fully terrestrial ecology and origin of the avian flight stroke has broad implications for the origin of powered flight for this clade. A terrestrial origin for the avian flight stroke challenges the need for an intermediate gliding phase, presents the best resolved series of the evolution of vertebrate powered flight, and may differ fundamentally from the origin of bat and pterosaur flight, whose antecedents have been postulated to have been arboreal and gliding

Chronology, stratigraphy and palaeoenvironmental interpretation of a Late Pleistocene to mid-Holocene cave accumulation on Kangaroo Island, South Australia.

Chronological, sedimentological and geochemical analyses of a clastic infill from Kelly Hill Cave (5K1), Kangaroo Island, document a palaeoenvironmental record that spans from the Late Pleistocene to the middle Holocene. We AMS radiocarbon-dated bone collagen and U-Th-dated speleothem to determine that fossiliferous sediments were deposited between >20ka and 7ka ago. Most of the 15 sedimentary layers are dominated by sand- and silt-sized quartz that is physically and geochemically comparable with surface soils in the Kelly Hill area. Late Pleistocene and Last Glacial Maximum strata are represented primarily by homogeneous, poorly sorted quartz-rich sediments that contain little organic matter, but include a thin layer composed largely of silt-sized clay pellets that resemble sediments deflated from playa lakes. Microstructures observed in petrographic slides indicate that, with the exception of one layer, all sediments experienced little reworking once deposited in the cave. Some layers display pedogenic microstructures such as redeposited clays and opaline silica infilling that indicate postdepositional modification; that is, cave-floor soil development. Overlying Holocene-aged sediments also consist mainly of quartz but have much greater organic matter content. Some of these sediments have been strongly influenced by re-precipitated organic matter that appears to have been transported into the cave via vadose drip water. The presence of dissolved organic matter in soil/vadose waters suggests a high vegetation density and acidic soils, which are congruent with the more equitable climatic conditions characteristic of the Holocene. The sediments described here provide a valuable palaeoenvironmental record that will facilitate future interpretation of associated vertebrate fossils. © 2013, Wiley-Blackwell.https://doi.org/10.1111/bor.1201