While research on alternatives to growth at the level of the economy as a whole is accumulating, few studies have related the criticism of growth to the business level. This paper starts to address this gap by investigating mechanisms of growth for small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs), presenting a case study that applies Q methodology and interviews with owner-managers of both growing and non-growing SMEs in Austria. Some mechanisms stimulating growth are identified across SMEs including contributing to innovativeness and motivation of employees. Others are only of relevance for some SMEs: competition, financial stability and a desire for market power. The owner-managers of non-growing SMEs hold values and pursue goals that free them from mechanisms of growth or prevent them from being triggered. Moreover, they exhibit a strong identification with their SME, operate in niche markets and strive for financial independence. This illustrates that a growth imperative is neither inevitable nor are growth mechanisms always operative, but depend upon structures and institutions. / Series: SRE - Discussion Papers

Philosophiae Doctor - PhD / The systematic and population genetic relationships were characterised for three ecologically related euphausiid species: Euphausia lucens, E. recurva and E. vallentini. These species have different geographical distributions and life histories. All three species have a circumpolar distribution in the Southern Hemisphere while E. recurva is also distributed in the North Pacific. DNA sequence variation was determined for three regions of mitochondrial DNA and a single nuclear gene. It was conclusively demonstrated that both E. lucens and E. vallentini represent valid taxonomic species with fixed differences observed in both the nuclear and mitochondrial genes and that the low divergences previously reported for these species with 16SrRNA and CO1 resulted from a species misidentification. It was also shown that previous attempts to date the divergence between Antarctic and Sub-Antarctic euphausiid species based on 16SrRNA distances suffer from a large overestimation due to a calculation error. / South Africa

Magister Artium (Development Studies) - MA(DVS) / The purpose of this study was to examine the level and extent of community participation in the Danga Ecological Sanitation Project carried out in the Zvishavane district of Zimbabwe. The people-centered approach was chosen as a theoretical background. Both quantitative and qualitative methods were used to gather relevant information. The results indicated that the community was not fully involved in the ecological sanitation project. As a result, the project had a poor performance record. In the course of this study, political interference in community projects carried out in Zimbabwean rural communities, resulting in the failure to reach the intended beneficiaries, was also noted. Full community participation in community projects may ensure that empowerment and ownership take place. Institutional arrangements, which in most cases impede development, need to be readdressed with clear demarcation of decision-making processes. / South Africa

The role of citizens working with urban nature in making cities more resilient is under-explored and under-theorised. The social-ecological system (SES) is an appropriate concept to explore these interactions but challenges in applying it to cities have been identified. It has been suggested that there is a need to strengthen the 'social' in the SES. This thesis develops a conceptual framework that splits the social component of the SES into culture and agency and operationalises it through the concept of landscape. Previous scholarship has demonstrated that landscape is a powerful force in how people think about the world and that citizens are increasingly active in transforming urban landscapes. Using a critical realist framework, the SES is approached as an underlying mechanism that can only be apprehended through the landscapes that it produces. This directs attention to people’s experience of and responses to landscape. Three ‘layers’ of landscape are elucidated: the material landscape, the cultural landscape and responses to the landscape, drawing on the disciplines of landscape ecology, cultural geography and others concerned with environmental perception and people-environment interactions. The research surveyed citizen interaction with landscapes across North West England before focusing in on two key case studies in the city of Manchester. This analysis gave rise to development of a new concept, the Inviting Landscape, to describe landscapes that invite citizens to engage with them in ways that enhance the resilience of the underlying SES. The thesis identifies characteristics of Inviting Landscapes and links them to three stages of citizen engagement with landscapes. Potential practical applications of this characterisation of landscapes are discussed. Intellectually, the SES approach is enhanced through a deeper understanding of positive feedback mechanisms whereby landscapes influence citizen-nature interactions, which in turn impact on social-ecological resilience. The thesis concludes by making the case that attending more carefully to the role of culture and agency can strengthen the applicability of the SES approach to cities.

Please read the abstract (Summary) in the section 00front of this document / Dissertation (MSc (Botany))--University of Pretoria, 2005. / Plant Science / unrestricted

Namaqualand is world renowned for its mass displays of annual wildflowers occurring in highly disturbed areas. Leysera gnaphalodes is a short-lived perennial shrub that encroaches into this wildflower display, lessening the aesthetic appeal. For this reason populations of L. gnaphalodes need to be kept as small as possible. This is usually achieved by tilling the area regularly, but a less disruptive method would be preferable. Alternatives to this approach are explored. The effect of many interacting factors needed to be examined over long periods of time so that alternative management strategies could be evaluated. Ecological modelling was used as it is ideally suited to this purpose. A review of modelling and its application in ecology is given, which includes a description of the modelling process and a discussion of different types of models and their applications. It was hypothesised that grazing and low rainfall, in addition to tilling, could control the population size of L. gnaphalodes. Data was used from an eight-year study conducted to determine the effects of tilling, grazing and environmental factors on the seedbank and population size of L. gnaphalodes. A rule-based mechanistic mathematical model based on the logistic growth curve was constructed to describe the population dynamics of this species. The model-fit was evaluated using Pearson’s correlation coefficients and graphs, and it proved to be a good model. Tilling and low rainfall were both found to be effective in reducing populations of L. gnaphalodes but grazing had no reducing effect. Simulations based on the model were run to test three different basic management strategies under stochastic rainfall conditions. The management strategy, which most effectively controlled the population was to till the lands whenever the population of L. gnaphalodes reaches of exceeds a relative frequency of 45%. Multivariate statistical models were constructed to determine the effects of all of these factors on the population of L. gnaphalodes. Tilling was confirmed to be effective in reducing the population, but grazing was found to have no effect. Low rainfall was also effective in controlling the population but has the disadvantages of being out of management control and also affecting the desirable wildflowers. / Dissertation (MSc (Botany))--University of Pretoria, 2005. / Plant Science / unrestricted

It is now widely accepted that adaptation to different ecological niches can result in the evolution of new species. However, when gene flow persists speciation must overcome the antagonism between selection and recombination: Specifically, if gene flow persists, recombination will break down the genetic associations between alleles that characterise emerging species and cause reproductive isolation. Accordingly, genetic architectures that impede recombination can slow the breakdown of linkage disequilibrium and facilitate speciation. Mimicry in tropical butterflies has long been championed as an example of adaptation driving speciation. In the Neotropical genus Heliconius, distantly related pairs of unpalatable species often converge on the same bright warning-pattern to more efficiently advertise their distastefulness to predators. In contrast, closely related taxa often belong to different mimicry rings. The sister species, Heliconius melpomene and H. cydno are sympatric across much of Central and northern South America. Using artificial butterflies I reveal selection against non-mimetic hybrid colour patterns between these two species. These colour patterns are also used as mating cues and mimetic shifts may cause both pre-mating and post-mating isolation. However, shifts in colour pattern cannot drive reproductive isolation alone; rather, they must be accompanied by corresponding mate preferences. Associations between trait and preference loci may be broken down by mating and subsequent recombination. I demonstrate a genetic linkage between loci for both male and female mate preference and wing colour pattern in Heliconius cydno and H. melpomene. In addition, I present evidence for further associations between alleles affecting hybrid sterility and host-plant use and colour pattern loci. All this implies that linkage between traits that contribute to reproductive and ecological isolation is a general phenomenon in Heliconius with an underlying adaptive basis. Overall these results expose a genetic mechanism that, by impeding recombination, can facilitate speciation in the face of gene flow.

This investigation, comprising two studies, examined the number of barriers to physical activity (Study 1) and barrier strength (Study 2) reported by middle-aged and older adults using a social ecological framework (McLeroy et al., 1988). Researchers were interested in assessing age group (45-54; 55-64; 65-74 yrs) by physical activity group (active, less active) effects for barrier responses using analyses of variance. In Study 1, 180 participants completed a physical activity level survey (Godin & Shephard, 1985) and answered open-ended questions about barriers. Results indicated that 45-54 yr-olds reported more barriers overall, and more intrapersonal barriers than older groups. Less active 45-54 yr-olds reported more organizational-interpersonal barriers than the other groups. Descriptive analyses of coded themes demonstrated that common intrapersonal barrier sub-themes cited by younger adults related to family commitments, while sub-themes reported by middle-aged and older adults related to having a health problem or an injury. In the organizational-interpersonal category, the most common barrier sub-theme related to the workplace. In Study 2, 116 participants completed a survey assessing weekly physical activity and barrier strength for items pertaining to ecological categories and barrier sub-factors. Results showed that less active adults reported each of intrapersonal, interpersonal, and physical environment barriers more strongly than active adults, irrespective of age; the intrapersonal category was relatively the most constraining for our participants. In terms of barrier sub-factors, results showed that significantly higher barrier strength scores are most often associated with physical activity level (i.e., less active), and only occasionally associated with age group. The overall investigation can provide valuable information for improving physical activity interventions for middle-aged and older adults.

While Western science education has always been ubiquitous in the Canadian educational system and society, many researchers have recognized the scientific and educational values of Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK). This study aims to contribute to the understanding of TEK and the integration of TEK into science curricula. The prevalence and representation of TEK in grades 7 and 8 official science curriculum documents used in Canada were examined. To describe TEK in the documents, both quantitative and qualitative content analyses were conducted. The results show the high variation of the prevalence and representations of TEK. Overall, Nunavut and Saskatchewan show the highest prevalence and representation of TEK in their curriculum documents, which could establish a benchmark for developing a national learning framework for integrating TEK.

Background: Community resilience to a disaster is a complex phenomenon studied using a variety of research lenses, such as psychological and ecological, resulting in a lack of consensus about what the key factors are that make a community resilient. Formally representing this knowledge will allow researchers to better understand the links between the knowledge generated using different lenses and help to integrate new findings into the existing body of knowledge. Objective: Using ontology engineering methods to represent this knowledge will provide a tool to aid researchers in the field. Methods: An ontology is a structured way of organizing and representing knowledge in the field of community resilience to a disaster. The model created using this method can be read by a computer, which allows a reasoner to manipulate and infer new knowledge. Results: When using these methods to structure community resilience knowledge some of the complexities and ambiguities were identified. These included semantic ambiguities, such as two distinct factors being used interchangeably or two terms being used to describe the same factor, making the distinction between what are the factors and the characteristics of those factors, and finally, the inherited characteristics and relationships associated with hierarchical relationships. Conclusions: Having the knowledge about community resilience to a disaster represented in an ontology will aid researchers when operationalizing this knowledge in the future.