Northern Steamship Company: The depreciation problem in the nineteenth century

In 1889 a New Zealand company had to write down its paid-up capital by 27 percent, because, the Chairman stated, previous management had failed to allow for depreciation as an expense. An investigation was conducted to see if this capital reduction could have been avoided had the company followed modern depreciation policy. This revealed that the failure to depreciate adequately was not the main cause of the capital reduction, other firms followed the same practice and contemporary English legislation did not permit depreciation as a tax deductible item, while United States courts were rejecting depreciation as a valid expense

Habitat corridors facilitate genetic resilience irrespective of species dispersal abilities or population sizes

Corridors are frequently proposed to connect patches of habitat that have become isolated due to human‐mediated alterations to the landscape. While it is understood that corridors can facilitate dispersal between patches, it remains unknown whether corridors can mitigate the negative genetic effects for entire communities modified by habitat fragmentation. These negative genetic effects, which include reduced genetic diversity, limit the potential for populations to respond to selective agents such as disease epidemics and global climate change. We provide clear evidence from a forward‐time, agent‐based model (ABM) that corridors can facilitate genetic resilience in fragmented habitats across a broad range of species dispersal abilities and population sizes. Our results demonstrate that even modest increases in corridor width decreased the genetic differentiation between patches and increased the genetic diversity and effective population size within patches. Furthermore, we document a trade‐off between corridor quality and corridor design whereby populations connected by high‐quality habitat (i.e., low corridor mortality) are more resilient to suboptimal corridor design (e.g., long and narrow corridors). The ABM also revealed that species interactions can play a greater role than corridor design in shaping the genetic responses of populations to corridors. These results demonstrate how corridors can provide long‐term conservation benefits that extend beyond targeted taxa and scale up to entire communities irrespective of species dispersal abilities or population sizes.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/111750/1/eva12255.pd

Profiling Volatilomes: A Novel Forensic Method for Identification of Confiscated Illegal Wildlife Items

Globally, the rapid decline in wildlife species has many causes. The illegal trafficking of fauna and flora is a major contributor to species decline and continues to grow at an alarming rate. To enable the prosecution of those involved in the trafficking of illegal wildlife, accurate and reliable identification is paramount. Traditionally, morphology and DNA amplification are used. This paper investigates a novel application of volatilome profiling using comprehensive two-dimensional gas chromatography coupled with time of flight mass spectrometry for wildlife sample detection. Known samples of elephant-derived ivory, other dentine samples, and bone (a common ivory substitute) were used as reference samples for volatilome profiling. Subsequently, specimens that were suspected ivory from border control seizures were obtained and analysed. Confirmatory DNA analyses were conducted on seized samples to establish the reliability parameters of volatilome profiling. The volatilome method correctly identified six of the eight seized samples as elephant ivory, which was confirmed through DNA analysis. There was also clear distinction of African elephant ivory parts from the bone and dentine samples from other species, as shown through PCA and discriminant analyses. These preliminary results establish volatilome profiling through GC×GC-TOFMS as a novel screening method used for the identification of unknown wildlife contraband.</jats:p

Removing exogenous information using pedigree data

Management of certain populations requires the preservation of its pure genetic background. When, for different reasons, undesired alleles are introduced, the original genetic conformation must be recovered. The present study tested, through computer simulations, the power of recovery (the ability for removing the foreign information) from genealogical data. Simulated scenarios comprised different numbers of exogenous individuals taking partofthe founder population anddifferent numbers of unmanaged generations before the removal program started. Strategies were based on variables arising from classical pedigree analyses such as founders? contribution and partial coancestry. The ef?ciency of the different strategies was measured as the proportion of native genetic information remaining in the population. Consequences on the inbreeding and coancestry levels of the population were also evaluated. Minimisation of the exogenous founders? contributions was the most powerful method, removing the largest amount of genetic information in just one generation.However, as a side effect, it led to the highest values of inbreeding. Scenarios with a large amount of initial exogenous alleles (i.e. high percentage of non native founders), or many generations of mixing became very dif?cult to recover, pointing out the importance of being careful about introgression events in populatio

Splitting or lumping? A conservation dilemma exemplified by the critically endangered Dama Gazelle (Nanger dama)

Managers of threatened species often face the dilemma of whether to keep populations separate to conserve local adaptations and minimize the risk of outbreeding, or whether to manage populations jointly to reduce loss of genetic diversity and minimise inbreeding. In this study we examine genetic relatedness and diversity in three of the five last remaining wild populations of dama gazelle and a number of captive populations, using mtDNA control region and cytochrome b data. Despite the sampled populations belonging to the three putative subspecies, which are delineated according to phenotypes and geographical location, we find limited evidence for phylogeographical structure within the data and no genetic support for the putative subspecies. In the light of these data we discuss the relevance of inbreeding depression, outbreeding depression, adaptive variation, genetic drift, and phenotypic variation to the conservation of the dama gazelle and make some recommendations for its future conservation management. The genetic data suggest that the best conservation approach is to view the dama gazelle as a single species without subspecific divisions

In Defence of Public Higher Education: Knowledge for a Successful Society (The Alternative White Paper for HE)

The present Conservative Government, like the Coalition Government that preceded it, has an ideological predisposition towards the market and its supposed benefits to consumers, but appears to have no vision of Higher Education and its benefits to students and to the whole of society. These wider societal benefits can be summarised under three aspects: * educating the next generation of the population * carrying out research to address social and scientific challenges * maintaining an independent platform for research into society and science to facilitate democratic debate. The last of these, sometimes drawn under the umbrella of ‘academic freedom’, is the basis of the historic contract between Universities and the State. We contend, following the UNESCO Recommendation (1997), that academic freedom must be sufficient to guarantee the independence of scientific inquiry, commentary and teaching. Pressures from funding agencies and the state are usually cited as the principal threats to academic independence. The last decade has seen the rise of a third threat, namely an increasing managerial interference in academic life deriving from the introduction of market imperatives. These three societal benefits are interconnected. Without independent research there can be no scientific independence and no cutting-edge teaching. Without a focus on critique and challenge, students may see ‘education’ as a mere process of accumulating ‘facts’ to meet test criteria. A narrow focus on the acquisition of qualifications undermines the education process itself. Employers have criticised graduate recruits for insufficient creativity, of being rote-taught and thus un-adaptable to a modern business subject to rapid technological change. Importantly, critical skills are necessary to meet the challenge of business and for inclusive democratic engagement. The idea of a University that unites these three aspects is undermined by a new model of Higher Education Institution that sees the investment in human capital only as a private benefit. The Government’s White Paper, Success as a Knowledge Economy, and associated legislative programme, consolidate a fee-loan (or debt-finance) model of funding which puts the costs of higher education onto new graduates and future taxpayers, while reducing taxes for current taxpayers – many of whom directly benefit from publicly-supported higher education, or from its wider public benefits. The Government suggests that it is merely replacing direct public funding with one that places the ‘student at the heart of the system’. But it proposes that public funding should be directed towards the realisation of the private benefits of higher education, and it fails to acknowledge the wider public benefits that higher education affords. In truth, the proposals place the market at the heart of the system and subordinate the student as a consumer of higher education, with loans functioning as a voucher to present at a university of choice (providing that the student has the grades required). It is our view that this new funding model is wrong in principle and deficient in practice. The regulatory framework that is being introduced in its wake will undermine the declared aims to improve teaching quality, to enhance social mobility, and to improve access and achievement. The extension of university title to for-profit providers will also threaten the wider public benefits of higher education, by allowing them to compete as single-function institutions, and giving them access to publicly-supported loans for their students without a guarantee of their longer term stability. This will intensify existing competition and encourage a ‘race to the bottom’. Our defence of an alternative vision of Higher Education takes place in the context of a dismal lack of leadership by the various mission groups representing universities in the sector – for example, Universities UK and the Russell Group – and other bodies responsible for the sector. Their willing advocacy of a fee-loan model of funding (to avoid possible cuts) has abdicated their leadership role in a proper debate on the values of public higher education. This failure to defend the values of the very public higher education they are chartered to provide is in marked contrast to representations made by another group. Lobbyists on behalf of for-profit providers are seeking a supposed ‘level-playing field’ in undergraduate degree provision, despite having no track record of success in the UK, a disastrous record in the USA, and no desire to provide any wider public benefit of their existence. The Government’s position is also in marked contrast to public attitudes. The British Social Attitudes Survey (NatCen) has, before and since the introduction of tuition fee changes, regularly asked questions about public attitudes to higher education and inequality. The majority of the population has consistently opposed high levels of student debt, believed that education has a value beyond simply providing the means to a better job, and maintained that inequality in Britain is an obstacle to the fulfillment of opportunities. Perhaps surprisingly, this commitment to the values of publicly-funded higher education is especially marked among those without graduate-level qualifications. Politicians who argue that the latter resent paying taxes to finance education for ‘middle-class people’ should seek evidence for this assertion. But the ‘debate’ among politicians, members of the BIS secretariat and corporate lobbyists over the issue has been remarkable for its superficial, un-evidenced character. It has also been remarkable for the absence of full public debate (Leach 2016). This Alternative White Paper aims to correct this imbalance. We need a proper debate about the future of UK Higher Education

Effects of habitat and livestock on nest productivity of the Asian houbara Chlamydotis macqueenii in Bukhara Province, Uzbekistan

To inform population support measures for the unsustainably hunted Asian houbara Chlamydotis macqueenii (IUCN Vulnerable) we examined potential habitat and land-use effects on nest productivity in the Kyzylkum Desert, Uzbekistan. We monitored 177 nests across different semi-arid shrub assemblages (clay-sand and salinity gradients) and a range of livestock densities (0–80 km-2). Nest success (mean 51.4%, 95% CI 42.4–60.4%) was similar across four years; predation caused 85% of those failures for which the cause was known, and only three nests were trampled by livestock. Nesting begins within a few weeks of arrival when food appears scarce, but later nests were more likely to fail owing to the emergence of a key predator, suggesting foraging conditions on wintering and passage sites may be important for nest productivity. Nest success was similar across three shrub assemblages and was unrelated to landscape rugosity, shrub frequency or livestock density, but was greater with taller mean shrub height (range 13–67 cm) within 50 m. Clutch size (mean = 3.2 eggs) and per-egg hatchability in successful nests (87.5%) did not differ with laying date, shrub assemblage or livestock density. We therefore found no evidence that livestock density reduced nest productivity across the range examined, while differing shrub assemblages appeared to offer similar habitat quality. Asian houbara appear well-adapted to a range of semi-desert habitats and tolerate moderate disturbance by pastoralism. No obvious in situ mitigation measures arise from these findings, leaving regulation and control as the key requirement to render hunting sustainable

Linking habitat quality with genetic diversity: a lesson from great bustards in Spain

P. 411-419The effects of habitat loss and fragmentation on the genetic structure and variability of wild populations have received wide empirical support and theoretical formalization. By contrast, the effects of habitat quality seem largely underinvestigated, partly due to technical difficulties in properly assessing habitat quality. In this study, we combine geographic information system (GIS)-based habitat-quality modelling with a landscape genetics approach based on mitochondrial DNA markers to evaluate the possible influence of habitat quality on the levels and distribution of genetic diversity in a range of natural populations (n = 15) of Otis tarda throughout Spain. Ninety-three percent of the population represented by our countrywide sample lives in good-quality habitats, while 4.5% and 2.5% occur respectively in intermediate and poor habitats. Habitat quality was highly correlated with patch size, population size and population density, indicating the reliability and predictive power of the habitat suitability model. Genetic diversity was significantly correlated with habitat quality, size and density of the population, but not with patch size. Three of a total of 20 existing matrilineages from the species’ current genetic pool are restricted to poor-quality habitats. This study therefore highlights the importance of considering both population genetics and habitat quality in a species of high conservation priority.S