The role of eco-evolutionary experience in invasion success

Invasion ecology has made considerable progress in identifying specific mechanisms that potentially determine success and failure of biological invasions. Increasingly, efforts are being made to interrelate or even synthesize the growing number of hypotheses in order to gain a more comprehensive and integrative understanding of invasions. We argue that adopting an eco-evolutionary perspective on invasions is a promising approach to achieve such integration. It emphasizes the evolutionary antecedents of invasions, i.e. the species’ evolutionary legacy and its role in shaping novel biotic interactions that arise due to invasions. We present a conceptual framework consisting of five hypothetical scenarios about the influence of so-called ‘eco-evolutionary experience’ in resident native and invading non-native species on invasion success, depending on the type of ecological interaction (predation, competition, mutualism, and commensalism). We show that several major ecological invasion hypotheses, including ‘enemy release’, ‘EICA’, ‘novel weapons’, ‘naive prey’, ‘new associations’, ‘missed mutualisms’ and ‘Darwin’s naturalization hypothesis’ can be integrated into this framework by uncovering their shared implicit reference to the concept of eco-evolutionary experience. We draft a routine for the assessment of eco-evolutionary experience in native and non-native species using a food web-based example and propose two indices (xpFocal index and xpResidents index) for the actual quantification of eco-evolutionary experience. Our study emphasizes the explanatory potential of an eco-evolutionary perspective on biological invasions

Species from different taxonomic groups show similar invasion traits

Invasion ecology tends to treat taxonomic groups separately. However, given that all invasive species go through the same stages of the invasion process (transport, escape, establishment, spread), it is likely that – across taxa – comparable traits help to successfully complete this process ("invasion traits"). Perhaps not all invasive species have the same invasion traits, but different combinations of invasion traits can be found among invaders, corresponding to different possibilities to become a successful invader. These combinations of invasion traits might be linked to taxonomic affiliation, but this is not necessarily the case. We created a global dataset with 201 invasive species from seven major taxonomic groups (animals, green plants, fungi, heterokonts, bacteria, red algae, alveolates) and 13 invasion traits that are applicable across all taxa. The dataset was analysed with cluster analysis to search for similarities in combinations of invasion traits. Three of the five clusters, comprising 60% of all species, contain several major taxonomic groups. While some invasion trait frequencies were significantly related to taxonomic affiliation, the results show that invasive species from different taxonomic groups often share similar combinations of invasion traits. A post-hoc analysis suggests that combinations of traits characterizing successful invaders can be associated with invasion stages across taxa. Our findings suggest that there are no universal invasion traits which could explain the invasion success of all invaders, but that invaders are successful for different reasons which are represented by different combinations of invasion traits across taxonomic groups

Using Multigroup-Multiphase Latent State-Trait Models to Study Treatment-Induced Changes in Intra-Individual State Variability: An Application to Smokers\u27 Affect

Sometimes, researchers are interested in whether an intervention, experimental manipulation, or other treatment causes changes in intra-individual state variability. The authors show how multigroup-multiphase latent state-trait (MG-MP-LST) models can be used to examine treatment effects with regard to both mean differences and differences in state variability. The approach is illustrated based on a randomized controlled trial in which N = 338 smokers were randomly assigned to nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) vs. placebo prior to quitting smoking. We found that post quitting, smokers in both the NRT and placebo group had significantly reduced intra-individual affect state variability with respect to the affect items calm and contentrelative to the pre-quitting phase. This reduction in state variability did not differ between the NRT and placebo groups, indicating that quitting smoking may lead to a stabilization of individuals\u27 affect states regardless of whether or not individuals receive NRT

Vernetzung internetbasierter Portaldienste

The internet as world largest computer network contains an unbelievable amount of global available information. The plenty of information achieved a complexity that overstrained a lot of user and necessitated central and clear structuring and grouping. From this imperative portals emerged as personalized access to information and services.Portals are only successful if they provide an attractive offer of information and services. To make information and services available to user of the portal integration is required. The focus of this work is the integration of services from Bildungsportal Thüringen, from the library and the Alumni-database of the TU Ilmenau into the Alumni-Weiterbildungswebportal. To integrate these services interfaces have to be designed and an appropriate integration-technology has to be selected.The Bildungsportal Thüringen already has an interface for integration. This interface is particularly suitable for integration and makes a complete redesign unnecessary. In contrast, the two additional services do not own any interface.Analyses show that the interface to the library shall be realized by a message-oriented-middleware and the interface to the Alumni-database by a web-service. After the conceptual design the interfaces are implemented prototypical.Das Internet als weltgrößtes Computernetzwerk enthält eine unvorstellbare Menge an global verfügbaren Informationen. Die Fülle erreichte eine Komplexität, die viele Nutzer überforderte und eine zentrale und übersichtliche Strukturierung und Bündelung erforderlich machte. Aus dieser Notwendigkeit heraus entstanden sogenannte Portale als personalisierter Zugang zu Informationen und Diensten. Portale können nur dann erfolgreich sein, wenn sie den Nutzern ein attraktives Angebot an Informationen und Diensten bieten. Damit ein Portal seinen Nutzern eine Fülle an Informationen und Diensten zur Verfügung stellen kann, ist Integration notwendig. Gegenstand dieser Arbeit ist die Integration von Diensten des Bildungsportals Thüringen, der Bibliothek und der Alumni-Datenbank der Technischen Universität Ilmenau in das Alumni-Weiterbildungswebportal. Damit diese Dienste integriert werden können, müssen Schnittstellen konzipiert und geeignete Integrationstechnologien ausgewählt werden.Das Bildungsportal Thüringen besitzt bereits eine Schnittstelle für die Integration. Diese eignet sich hervorragend für eine Integration und macht eine Neu-Konzeption unnötig. Im Gegensatz dazu besitzen die zwei weiteren Dienste noch keine Schnittstellen.Die Analyse der Dienste zeigt, dass die Schnittstelle zur Bibliothek durch eine Message-orientierte Middleware und die Schnittstelle zur Alumni-Datenbank durch einen Web Service realisiert werden soll. Nach der Konzeption werden diese Schnittstellen prototypisch implementiert.Ilmenau, Techn. Univ., Diplomarbeit, 200

Technology-enhanced Assessment of Thinking Skills in Engineering Sciences

Assessment gilt allgemein als eines der wichtigsten Elemente in der Aus und Weiterbildung. Mit dem Einzug digitaler Technologien in Assessment-Prozesse (auch als E-Assessment bezeichnet), wurden neue Möglichkeiten für personalisierte, unmittelbare und eindrucksvolle Erfahrungen beim Assessment eröffnet. In Zeiten, in denen hochentwickelte, digitale Lernplattformen die Art und Weise verändern, was, wann und wie gelernt werden kann, ist es umso verwunderlicher, wie eingeschränkt die vorhandenen Methoden für die technologie-gestützte Bewertung des Lernens sind. Deutlich wird dies durch die Tatsache, dass aktuelle E-Assessment-Systeme sich größtenteils auf das Replizieren von traditionellen Tests mit Stift und Papier beschränken. Folglich bedarf es neuer Lösungen für die Identifikation, Sammlung, Analyse und Interpretation von Informationen über das individuelle Lernen. Die Berücksichtigung der Anforderungen an das Lernen im 21. Jahrhundert spielt dabei eine entscheidende Rolle. In Erkenntnis dieser Notwendigkeit präsentiert diese Arbeit ein neuartiges Architekturmodell für personalisierte und interaktive E-Assessment-Systeme und -Werkzeuge. Es erlaubt die Integration und Nutzung von interaktiven und immersiven Werkzeugen (z.B. Simulationen oder Animationen) innerhalb von Fragen und Tests, und ermöglicht diesen, sich an die individuellen Charakteristiken der Prüflinge (z.B. Vorwissen, Kontext und Vorlieben) anzupassen. Während das erste Hauptmerkmal (Didaktische Interaktivität) der Annahme gerecht wird, dass Lernen ein Ergebnis von Interaktionen sowie der aktiven Auseinandersetzung mit der jeweiligen Thematik ist, adressiert das zweite Hauptmerkmal (Personalisierung) die bei vielen E-Assessment-Systemen vorherrschende one-size-fits-all Strategie. Die Arbeit beschreibt die Struktur der grundlegenden Komponenten des Architekturmodells. Ein konsistentes Nutzermodell, ein generisches Domänenmodell sowie ein flexibles Adaptionsmodell bilden den zentralen Kern des Gesamtmodells und repräsentieren die Basis für das adaptive Verhalten. Komplettiert wird das Architekturmodell durch eine Komponente für die Modellierung von Fragen sowie einer Komponente für die Durchführung der spezifiierten Adaptionen. Darüber hinaus präsentiert die Arbeit die Implementierung des Architekturmodells durch das webbasierte E-Assessment-System askMe! sowie deren Erprobung und Evaluation nach pädagogischen (Lernunterstützung) sowie technischen (Gebrauchstauglichkeit und Nutzungserlebnis) Gesichtspunkten. Die Ergebnisse dieser Arbeit eröffnen neue Möglichkeiten für zukunftsweisende (E-Assessment-)Systeme, welche in der Lage sind, die Bedürfnisse und Charakteristiken Einzelner zu berücksichtigen sowie mehr Kreativität bei der Beantwortung durch Interaktion mit digitalen Werkzeugen ermöglichen.Assessment is generally recognized as one of the most important elements of an educational experience. Since digital technologies found their way into assessment processes (referred to as technology-enhanced assessment or eassessment), newpossibilities for more personalized, immediate and engaging assessment experiences were opened up. However, especially in current times when sophisticated digital learning environments, mostly enriched by multimedia, virtual/augmented reality technologies, change the way what can be learned, when and how, the methods of assessing students’ learning that have so far been developed are surprisingly limited. This can be demonstrated by the fact that current e-assessment practices simply imitate or replicate traditional pen-and-paper assessments. Consequently, new solutions are needed to identify, gather, analyze and interpret information about students’ learning, especially considering the requirements of the 21st century. In recognizing this need, this thesis proposes a novel architectural model for personalized and interactive e-assessment systems and tools. It allows integrating and using interactive and immersive tools (e.g., simulations or animations) into questions and tests, and enables tailoring them to students’ individual characteristics (e.g., prior knowledge, context and preferences). While the former key feature (didactic interactivity) takes into account the assumption that learning is the result of interaction and the active engagement with the subject matter, respectively, the latter one (personalization) tackles the one-size-fits-all approach mostly applied in traditional e-assessment settings. Furthermore, the thesis describes the structure and the constituent components of the architectural model. A consistent user model, a generic domain model and a flexible adaptation model build up the central part of the overall model and represent the fundamental basis for the adaptive behavior. Each model is managed by an own component and has well-defined interfaces to each other. Additionally, the architectural model is complemented by a question modeling component responsible for representing (interactive) questions, responses, etc. and finally, an adaptive testing engine component that performs the actual adaptations. Moreover, this thesis presents the implementation of the architectural model by the web-based e-assessment system askMe!. It also describes how this system was trialed and evaluated from a pedagogical (learning support) and technical (usability and user experience) point of view. The research and development performed in this thesis open up new opportunities for advanced e-assessment systems, which are able to consider the needs and characteristics of students and allow for more creativity in answering by interacting with digital tools in a variety of ways

Socio‐economic impact classification of alien taxa (SEICAT)

1 Many alien taxa are known to cause socio‐economic impacts by affecting the different constituents of human well‐being (security; material and non‐material assets; health; social, spiritual and cultural relations; freedom of choice and action). Attempts to quantify socio‐economic impacts in monetary terms are unlikely to provide a useful basis for evaluating and comparing impacts of alien taxa because they are notoriously difficult to measure and important aspects of human well‐being are ignored. 2 Here, we propose a novel standardised method for classifying alien taxa in terms of the magnitude of their impacts on human well‐being, based on the capability approach from welfare economics. The core characteristic of this approach is that it uses changes in peoples' activities as a common metric for evaluating impacts on well‐being. 2 Impacts are assigned to one of five levels, from Minimal Concern to Massive, according to semi‐quantitative scenarios that describe the severity of the impacts. Taxa are then classified according to the highest level of deleterious impact that they have been recorded to cause on any constituent of human well‐being. The scheme also includes categories for taxa that are not evaluated, have no alien population, or are data deficient, and a method for assigning uncertainty to all the classifications. To demonstrate the utility of the system, we classified impacts of amphibians globally. These showed a variety of impacts on human well‐being, with the cane toad (Rhinella marina) scoring Major impacts. For most species, however, no studies reporting impacts on human well‐being were found, i.e. these species were data deficient. 2 The classification provides a consistent procedure for translating the broad range of measures and types of impact into ranked levels of socio‐economic impact, assigns alien taxa on the basis of the best available evidence of their documented deleterious impacts, and is applicable across taxa and at a range of spatial scales. The system was designed to align closely with the Environmental Impact Classification for Alien Taxa (EICAT) and the Red List, both of which have been adopted by the International Union of Nature Conservation (IUCN), and could therefore be readily integrated into international practices and policies

Magnetic effects on the low-T/|W| instability in differentially rotating neutron stars

Dynamical instabilities in protoneutron stars may produce gravitational waves whose observation could shed light on the physics of core-collapse supernovae. When born with sufficient differential rotation, these stars are susceptible to a shear instability (the "low-T/|W| instability"), but such rotation can also amplify magnetic fields to strengths where they have a considerable impact on the dynamics of the stellar matter. Using a new magnetohydrodynamics module for the Spectral Einstein Code, we have simulated a differentially-rotating neutron star in full 3D to study the effects of magnetic fields on this instability. Though strong toroidal fields were predicted to suppress the low-T/|W| instability, we find that they do so only in a small range of field strengths. Below 4e13 G, poloidal seed fields do not wind up fast enough to have an effect before the instability saturates, while above 5e14 G, magnetic instabilities can actually amplify a global quadrupole mode (this threshold may be even lower in reality, as small-scale magnetic instabilities remain difficult to resolve numerically). Thus, the prospects for observing gravitational waves from such systems are not in fact diminished over most of the magnetic parameter space. Additionally, we report that the detailed development of the low-T/|W| instability, including its growth rate, depends strongly on the particular numerical methods used. The high-order methods we employ suggest that growth might be considerably slower than found in some previous simulations.Comment: REVTeX 4.1, 21 pages, 18 figures, submitting to Physical Review

An adaptation model for personalized e-assessments

Over the last decade, a large number of eassessment system and tools were developed. However, they all provide assessments that are characterized by a static structure (ordered sequence of questions, predefined start and ending, etc.). This approach does not consider students individual knowledge or characteristics. Instead, each student has to answer the same questions. The work presented in this paper focuses on a personalized e-assessment system (askMe!) that not only identifies, but also supports and even compensates deficits in students’ individual learning by considering students’ strengths and preferences. In this paper, the core, the adaptation model of the system is presented that defines what can be adapted, as well as when and how it is to be adapted

Biochar Extracts Can Modulate the Toxicity of Persistent Free Radicals in the Nematode Caenorhabditis elegans

As an effective soil amendment, biochars require a comprehensive ecological evaluation before they can be widely used in agriculture because endogenous contaminants, such as environmentally persistent free radicals (EPFRs), certainly pose an ecological risk to soil invertebrates. In this study, Caenorhabditis elegans (C. elegans) was used as a model organism to investigate the neurotoxicity of two rice straw biochars pyrolyzed at 500 and 700 °C. After 24 h exposure to unwashed biochar, washed biochar, and leaching fluids (supernatants), the neurobehavioral parameters of C. elegans were determined in a liquid toxicity test. The results showed that the washed 700 °C biochar particles significantly impaired locomotion and prolonged the defecation interval at a biochar concentration of 4 g·well−1, while the unwashed biochar and supernatants caused no apparent impairment. Supporting this, electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) results showed that the intensity of EPFRs in unwashed 700 °C biochar was stronger than that of the corresponding washed particles. This indicates that, in the liquid test, the EPR signal alone is not indicative of particle toxicity. The accessibility and activity of the EPFRs should be considered. Dissolved organic matter (DOM) was observed in the leaching fluids. The neurotoxic activity of the washed biochar was alleviated after the re-addition of leaching fluids to the washed biochar, suggesting that the dissolved organic materials modulate the reactivity of the EPFRs in the liquid phase. This study suggests that the leaching process may increase the risk of biochar when used in the field environment.National Natural Scientific Foundation of ChinaYunnan Province Basic Research ProjectNSFC-NCNPeer Reviewe