Entretien avec Cathie Manné, Pacific Book’in, diffuseur de littérature de Nouvelle-Calédonie

20 000 km de la France, perdue dans le Pacifique Sud, la Nouvelle-Calédonie. Un territoire d’outremer pas comme les autres, dont l’autonomie, et peut-être un jour l’indépendance, est en marche. Paradis du bout du monde où vivent Occidentaux, Mélanésiens, Vietnamiens... « Le Caillou » cache un véritable trésor culturel, une créativité littéraire émergente

Assessing the ecological impacts of invasive species based on their functional responses and abundances

Invasive species management requires allocation of limited resources towards the proactive mitigation of those species that could elicit the highest ecological impacts. However, we lack predictive capacity with respect to the identities and degree of ecological impacts of invasive species. Here, we combine the relative per capita effects and relative field abundances of invader as compared to native species into a new metric, “Relative Impact Potential” (RIP), and test whether this metric can reliably predict high impact invaders. This metric tests the impact of invaders relative to the baseline impacts of natives on the broader ecological community. We first derived the functional responses (i.e. per capita effects) of two ecologically damaging invasive fish species in Europe, the Ponto-Caspian round goby (Neogobius melanostomus) and Asian topmouth gudgeon (Pseudorasbora parva), and their native trophic analogues, the bullhead (Cottus gobio; also C. bairdi) and bitterling (Rhodeus amarus), towards several prey species. This establishes the existence and relative strengths of the predator-prey relationships. Then, we derived ecologically comparable field abundance estimates of the invader and native fish from surveys and literature. This establishes the multipliers for the above per capita effects. Despite both predators having known severe detrimental field impacts, their functional responses alone were of modest predictive power in this regard; however, incorporation of their abundances relative to natives into the RIP metric gave high predictive power. We present invader/native RIP biplots that provide an intuitive visualisation of comparisons among the invasive and native species, reflecting the known broad ecological impacts of the invaders. Thus, we provide a mechanistic understanding of invasive species impacts and a predictive tool for use by practitioners, for example, in risk assessments

Studies in Dhāraṇī Literature II: Pragmatics of Dhāraṇīs

This article is one of a series that reassesses the dhāraṇī texts of Mahāyāna Buddhism. The article seeks to examine dhāraṇī texts by using the linguistic tools of pragmatics, especially historical pragmatics, to assist the understanding of their statements. Rather than the meaning of the term dhāraṇī as a subject term, the domain of truth-conditional semantics, this paper examines statements in texts labelled dhāraṇī. Pragmatics examines meaning in context, and the categories of speech acts developed by Searle has been especially helpful in mapping out differences within such texts and the formalization of statements across texts. The grammaticalization of specific speech elements, especially interjections, in the context of mantra-dhāraṇīs is also discussed

First record of the western tubenose goby Proterorhinus semilunaris

Western tubenose gobies were captured for the first time in France in the Rhine River in September 2007. This species, originating from the Ponto-Caspian basin and considered as invasive in many countries, has colonised the Rhine drainage using the Rhine-Main-Danube canal

The market introduction of Superwind in the Netherlands

Technology, Policy and Managemen

First record of the western tubenose goby Proterorhinus semilunaris (Heckel, 1837) in France

Western tubenose gobies were captured for the first time in France in the Rhine River in September 2007. This species, originating from the Ponto-Caspian basin and considered as invasive in many countries, has colonised the Rhine drainage using the Rhine-Main-Danube canal

Colonisation of the Rhine basin by non-native gobiids: an update of the situation in France

Three of the four species of non-native gobiids currently reported in the Rhine basin were recently recorded in France: the Western tubenose goby in 2007, the bighead goby in 2010 and the round goby in 2011. The bighead goby and the round goby displayed a very high rate of range expansion, suggesting a human-assisted colonisation through inland navigation. An assessment of the invasiveness potential by the FISK (Fish Invasiveness Screening Kit) reveals a medium risk for the Western tubenose goby, while the bighead goby and the round goby are at high risk of becoming invasive in France. This assessment is consistent with our observations since there has been a steady increase in the range of the Western tubenose goby, although in low numbers, while the relative abundance of bighead goby and round goby, recently arrived in the French part of the Rhine River and Moselle River, can be high. Given their fast expansion, it can be assumed that these species will soon reach other French basins, particularly in the south (Rhône basin) and in the west (Seine basin), and the implementation of measures to limit their spread should be considered

Premier signalement de Phoxinus csikii Hankó, 1922 (actinopterygii, Cypriniformes) en France.

International audienceUne identification moléculaire par barcoding (marqueur du COI, 651 pb) a été réalisée sur un vairon capturé dans le Rupt de Mad à essey-et-Maizerais (bassin du Rhin/Moselle). ainsi, ce spé-cimen appartient à l'espèce récemment revalidée Phoxinus csikii Hankó, 1922. Il s'agit ainsi du premier signalement de cette espè-ce en France, et de la quatrième espèce de vairon connue dans ce pays

Colonisation of the Rhine basin by non-native gobiids: an update of the situation in France

Three of the four species of non-native gobiids currently reported in the Rhine basin were recently recorded in France: the Western tubenose goby in 2007, the bighead goby in 2010 and the round goby in 2011. The bighead goby and the round goby displayed a very high rate of range expansion, suggesting a human-assisted colonisation through inland navigation. An assessment of the invasiveness potential by the FISK (Fish Invasiveness Screening Kit) reveals a medium risk for the Western tubenose goby, while the bighead goby and the round goby are at high risk of becoming invasive in France. This assessment is consistent with our observations since there has been a steady increase in the range of the Western tubenose goby, although in low numbers, while the relative abundance of bighead goby and round goby, recently arrived in the French part of the Rhine River and Moselle River, can be high. Given their fast expansion, it can be assumed that these species will soon reach other French basins, particularly in the south (Rhône basin) and in the west (Seine basin), and the implementation of measures to limit their spread should be considered