Making Small Claims Courts Work in Montana: Recommendations for Legislative and Judicial Action

Making Small Claims Courts Wor

Small Claims Courts in Montana: A Statistical Study

Small Claims Court

Small Claims Courts in Montana: A Statistical Study

Small Claims Court

A submillimetre survey of the star-formation history of radio galaxies

We present the results of the first major systematic submillimetre survey of radio galaxies spanning the redshift range 1 < z < 5. The primary aim of this work is to elucidate the star-formation history of this sub-class of elliptical galaxies by tracing the cosmological evolution of dust mass. Using SCUBA on the JCMT we have obtained 850-micron photometry of 47 radio galaxies to a consistent rms depth of 1 mJy, and have detected dust emission in 14 cases. The radio galaxy targets have been selected from a series of low-frequency radio surveys of increasing depth (3CRR, 6CE, etc), in order to allow us to separate the effects of increasing redshift and increasing radio power on submillimetre luminosity. Although the dynamic range of our study is inevitably small, we find clear evidence that the typical submillimetre luminosity (and hence dust mass) of a powerful radio galaxy is a strongly increasing function of redshift; the detection rate rises from 15 per cent at z 2.5, and the average submillimetre luminosity rises as (1+z)^3 out to z~4. Moreover our extensive sample allows us to argue that this behaviour is not driven by underlying correlations with other radio galaxy properties such as radio power, radio spectral index, or radio source size/age. Although radio selection may introduce other more subtle biases, the redshift distribution of our detected objects is in fact consistent with the most recent estimates of the redshift distribution of comparably bright submillimetre sources discovered in blank field surveys. The evolution of submillimetre luminosity found here for radio galaxies may thus be representative of massive ellipticals in general.Comment: 31 pages - 10 figures in main text, 3 pages of figures in appendix. This revised version has been re-structured, but the analysis and conclusions have not changed. Accepted for publication in MNRA

Demographics of Eucalyptus grandis and implications for invasion

Alien invasive species can have negative impacts on the functioning of ecosystems. Plantation species such as pines have become serious invaders in many parts of the world, but eucalypts have not been nearly as successful invaders. This is surprising considering that in their native habitat they dominate almost all vegetation types. Available theory on the qualities that characterise invasive species was used to assess the invasive potential of Eucalyptus grandis - a common plantation species globally. To determine rates of establishment of E. grandis outside plantations, we compared population demographics and reproductive traits at two locations in Mpumalanga, South Africa: one at higher elevation with more frost. Eucalyptus grandis has a short generation time. We found no evidence that establishment of E. grandis was limiting its spread into native grassland vegetation, but it does appear that recruitment is limited by frost and fire over much of its range in Mpumalanga. Populations at both study locations this played characteristics of good recruitment. Size class distributions showed definite bottlenecks to recruitment which were more severe when exposed to frost at higher elevations. Generally, the rate of spread is low suggesting that the populations are on the establishing populations’ invasion stage. This research gives no indication that there are any factors that would prevent eucalyptus from becoming invasive in the future, and the projected increase in winter temperatures should be a cause for concern as frost is currently probably slowing recruitment of E. grandis across much of its planted range. Conservation implications: Eucalyptus plantations occur within indigenous grasslands that are of high conservation value. Frost and fire can slow recruitment where they occur, but there are no obvious factors that would prevent E. grandis from becoming invasive in the future, and monitoring of its rates of spread is recommended.EM201