The thistle Cirsium palustre exists over most of lowland Britain as a predominantly purple flowered species. However the populations of seacliffs and mountains exhibit a flower colour polymorphism, occurring as homozygous white morphs, homozygous and heterozygous intermediate morphs, and homozygous and heterozygous purple morphs. The degree of polymorphism of the seacliff populations of the Gower Peninsula is correlated with population size, the larger populations being less polymorphic. This might be interpreted as indicating chance fixation of the white alleles. Such an explanation would gain support from the very small size of the more polymorphic populations and from the drastic fluctuations in population size which have been demonstrated as having occurred in these populations over a period of four consecutive seasons. However other explanations based on selective effects are possible. On seacliffs the frequency of the white morphs is inversely related to exposure, and decreases in population size are accompanied by differential survival of the purple morphs. On mountains the distribution of the polymorphism is markedly correlated with altitude. For the mountains of southern Mid Wales, populations below 1000 ft. are strongly monomorphic purple. Above 1000 ft. the degree of polymorphism increases abruptly, with white frequencies reaching over 80%. Morph frequencies among North Wales populations bear a similar relation to altitude but the increase in polymorphism occurs at about 1200 ft. In each case the general trend is that purple frequency declines with increase in white frequency, and that the frequency of intermediates shows a unimodal distribution with a quite precise peak. For both sets of populations this peak occurs at an altitude about 250 ft. higher than that at which the increase in white frequency occurs. It is possible that the occurrence of the polymorphism on seacliffs and mountains may be related to a limitation of cross pollination consequent upon the exposure of seacliffs and the combined climatic characteristics of mountains, which include increase in exposure, mist and rain and decrease in temperature. Evidence on the levels of outbreeding in these populations was inconclusive but evidence in other species suggested that pollination might indeed be limited in these conditions. An increase in homozygosity consequent upon inbreeding would promote the frequency of the white morphs. Moreover the white morphs were subject to preferential pollination and both this and certain forms of heterogeneity in morph distribution were likely to promote the frequency of inbreeding among white morphs. However in conditions of limited pollination the degree of general outbreeding of the white morphs will be increased by preferential pollination and this may be assumed to be a fitness advantage which may be of particular importance in the maintenance of the polymorphism. In addition it is likely that the presence of white morphs within a population may result in the attraction of higher numbers of pollinators or encourage foraging for longer periods in which case the polymorphism may be said to be adaptive in the sense of Fisher (1930). Other selective effects are also apparent. The occasional presence of highly polymorphic populations in valley bases and the regular occurrence of predominantly purple populations in mountain forests may both to some extent provide evidence for an effect of temperature other than upon pollination. Some evidence suggests that both exposure and moisture may also be of individual importance. Selection was apparent even by the arrangement of morph types within a population subject to no obvious environmental heterogeneity. It is possible that the polymorphism is maintained by a physiological heterozygous advantage and that this may be responsible for the maintenance of white and intermediate morphs in low frequency in the predominantly purple populations of inland lowland regions. The maintenance of the polymorphism imposed a significant selective mortality upon the species. This was indicated by the above instance of selection within a uniform community and also in several instances in which intrapopulational selection occurred between segments of population subject to differing exposure. However the growth in cultivation of seeds set in natural populations revealed that the complexity of the genetic system was sufficient to allow widely different morph frequencies to be maintained in different populations without the necessity of high selection in each generation.

In order to better manage progress toward improved human welfare, governments and organizations around the world have begun to report on more comprehensive indicators of environmental, social, and economic conditions. The Genuine Progress Indicator (GPI) has proven useful as a measure of economic welfare by incorporating changes in environmental conditions, resource stocks, social capital, income distribution, and other non-marketed economic activity. Studies at the local scale have also found the GPI to be an effective tool for informing debate and stimulating questions about the nature of the economic development process. In this study, the GPI methodology is applied to Baltimore City, Baltimore County, and Maryland in order to explore how sustainable economic welfare in the Baltimore region has changed from 1950-2005. A comparison among per capita GPI trends in four US cities shows Baltimore to have the highest average annual growth rate over the study period. Comparisons are made between per capita GPI and Gross Domestic Product (GDP), the most widely recognized measure of national economic performance. Analysis of the trends at all three scales show that GDP growth does not correlate well with changes in welfare as measure by GPI. This implies that Baltimore City, Baltimore County, and Maryland could be in a period of uneconomic growth, when the social and environmental costs of further economic growth outweigh the benefits of such growth. However, the underlying methods used in sub-national applications of the GPI inevitably lead toward certain results, giving rise to an indicator framework that favors particular policy and development outcomes. This situation is defined as indicator bias. Since indicator bias can inadvertently lead society toward undesirable conditions, key assumptions that contribute to indicator bias in the GPI are tested for how they influence the final GPI results. The costs of crime, long-term environmental damage, and depletion of non-renewable natural resources categories are explored in more depth. GPI is found to be an imperfect measure of true progress, but it is believed to be an improvement over GDP for guiding modern society towards a more sustainable and desirable future. More work is needed to incorporate uncertainty, fine-tune the underlying GPI methodology, and build broad consensus about how to measure economic performance and social progress. By providing information about social, ecological, and economic conditions of the region, though, the Baltimore GPI does inform citizens and decision-makers about a wide range of impacts resulting from the modern ‘GDP growth’ paradigm

Thesis (M.Sc.)--University of the Witwatersrand, Faculty of Science, 2011 / A multifactor ecological integrity index, focusing on freshwater ecosystems on a quaternary catchment scale, can be of great benefit to conservation planning. No ecological integrity index has previously been developed for South African quaternary catchments. In this study an index was developed based on three environmental surrogates: land cover, river integrity and fish species conservation status, with the intention of identifying quaternary catchments of highest conservation concern. By developing such an index, the aim was to provide a general indication of the degree to which catchments have been transformed from a natural environment to a human altered environment, thereby identifying catchments most in need of conservation. For the three available datasets, indices were developed using a five category point-scoring system. A score of one indicates a completely degraded environment and a score of five indicates a pristine environment. The original land cover data consisted of 49 different land cover types which were reduced to five land cover transformation scores. Available river integrity data already existed in five categories and a numerical score of one to five was applied to each category. Fish species conservation status was scored according to the IUCN red data list classifications on a similar basis. Subsequently, a weighted mean score expressed as a percentage was calculated for the three indices for each quaternary catchment. These indices indicate the degree of change/transformation from a natural system (100%) to a largely degraded system (20%). Ultimately, an ecological integrity index was calculated as a mean value of the three related but independent indices. However, the results of the developed ecological integrity index were not representative of real world conditions. This is largely attributed to the lack of complete data found in two out of the three datasets used in the study. Some of the main limitations encountered were the lack of river segment definitions within each catchment and the incomplete and un-systematic collected fish species data records. The land cover data, on the contrary, was of high definition and high standard. It is recommended that in the interim, the developed land transformation index, based on a detailed analysis of land cover, be used as an indicator index of ecological integrity of catchments

Organisms face a constant risk of attack from parasites. While classic immunology has revealed numerous physiological and molecular mechanisms that underpin host immunity, the recently developed field of ecological immunology has attempted to understand the ecological and evolutionary causes that explain the diversity of such immune mechanisms. However, progress in the field has been hampered by the complex relationship between immunity and fitness as well as the methodological limitations of our experiments. There is an urgent need for eco-immunological studies that combine life history theory with experimentally tractable but ecologically realistic host and pathogen models. In this thesis, I tackle three novel aspects of host defence against parasites in an established model for insect immunity, the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster, with the entomopathogenic fungus Metarhizium robertsii, one of the most successful natural insect pathogens. In particular, I show in Chapter 2 that an immune and stress response gene, Turandot M, provides specific immunity against sexually transmitted fungal infections; but, this protective effect comes at a cost to life history in the absence of infection. In Chapter 3, I show that when exposed to the fungal pathogen, the fruit fly alters its temperature preference by seeking out cooler temperatures, which results in a dramatic shift in its life history strategy while simultaneously enhancing antifungal resistance, though not tolerance. Finally, I demonstrate in Chapter 4 that exposure to fungal parasites induces fitness-associated maternal effects on offspring meiotic recombination and life history, both of which have the potential to accelerate adaptive evolution. Taken together, these results demonstrate the benefits of integrating life history theory in eco-immunological research. They show that life history responses are an integral component of host defence against parasites, and that Drosophila-Metarhizium is a promising model system for ecological immunology.

Background: Paper I [literature review] Anger is reported to be an important factor in suicidality yet there is no review in this area of research. Paper II [research study] Anger and suicidality are found in exaggerated levels in the prisoner population and their association required investigation using a novel and ecologically valid methodology. Aims: Paper I [literature review] To review studies which have investigated the relationship between anger and suicidality. Paper II [research study] To examine the relationship between anger and suicicidality in a sample of male prisoners. Paper III [critical review and appraisal] To critically review and appraise Papers I and II as well as the research processes involved. Methods: Paper I systematically reviewed 48 studies of anger and suicidality over a 20-year period. Paper II conducted an ecological momentary assessment study using multi-level modelling analysis to investigate anger and suicidality in a sample of adult male prisoners. Results: Paper I found preliminary evidence for a relationship between anger and suicidality which identified that the area required more empirically rigorous investigation, particularly using novel, ecologically valid methodology. In a sample of adult male prisoners, Paper II demonstrated that anger was temporally associated with suicidal ideation and related concepts. Anger was concurrently associated with suicidal ideation, when controlling for depression and hopelessness. Conclusions: Paper I indicated the potential relationship between anger and suicidality in clinical and non-clinical populations. Paper II revealed strong evidence of an association between concurrent anger and suicidality in adult male prisoners using ecologically valid assessment methods. Paper III examined the relevance of Papers I and II, in their independent additions to the empirical literature as to the relation between anger and suicidality.

In the last few decades, a growing literature has examined how biodiversity influences ecosystem functioning. This body of work has greatly improved our understanding of ecosystem functioning and its modulation by biodiversity. In particular, there is nowadays large consensus that biodiversity increases ecosystem productivity, and stabilises ecosystems. Early investigations were largely theoretical or involved simple experiments run in laboratory conditions, but over time biodiversity ecosystem-functioning experiments evolved to more realistic field experiments that better represent the real conditions found in natural ecosystems. In particular, these experiments are often run on larger spatial scales and over longer time frames allowing for the effect of environmental heterogeneity and temporal fluctuations to be explored. The designs of these experiments evolved along with the questions addressed in this field of research. However, the analytical tools used in the analyses of these experiments followed a slightly different path. In particular, most of the metrics currently used to analyse biodiversity ecosystem functioning experiments are not entirely suited to properly deal with the complexity of modern designs as they make a number of assumptions that are not met any more. In my thesis I developed a unified framework, based on the tailored use of Linear Mixed Effects Models, to analyse biodiversity-ecosystem functioning experiments such that the new complexities of these experiments can be taken into account. This thesis aimed to bring the focus of the analysis back to the biological interpretation of the results. I successfully applied my approach to several data sets. The framework developed here is expected to improve greatly our understanding of ecosystem functioning and how biodiversity modulates it. It also sheds new light on past research in this field. The great flexibility of the new approach makes it possible to let these experiments to evolve such that new biological questions can be addressed.

Orientador: Adjair Antonio do Nascimento / Banca: Rosimeri de Oliveira Vasconcelos / Banca: Claudia Dias Zettermann / Resumo: A Caatinga é um bioma exclusivamente brasileiro que, até pouco tempo, era considerado pobre em biodiversidade. O cachorro-do-mato Cerdocyon thous (Linnaeus, 1766) é um canídeo de porte médio com distribuição em quase todo território brasileiro, sendo o único canídeo com ocorrência registrada no semi-árido Nordestino. O presente estudo teve como objetivos identificar a helmintofauna de Cerdocyon thous provenientes da Caatinga do estado da Paraíba e determinar os indicadores ecológicos de infecção helmíntica, na contribuição favorável para o conhecimento da biodiversidade deste bioma ainda pouco conhecido. Para tal, foram utilizados 58 animais encontrados atropelados em rodovias localizadas nas proximidades do município de Patos, dos quais foram colhidos os helmintos gastrintestinais. Todas os animais estudados estavam parasitados por helmintos. Foram identificados 16 espécies de helmintos, sendo dois trematódeos, um cestódeo, um acantocéfalo e 12 nematódeos. Neste estudo, uma nova espécie denominada Pterygodermatites pluripectinata n. sp. foi descrita, além da descrição de novos registros de hospedeiro e localidade. / Abstract: The 'Caatinga' is a biome exclusive to Brazil, and which was, until very recently, cosidered to be poor in biodiversity. The native dog, Cerdocyon thous (Linnaeus, 1766), is a medium sized canine which is found in almost every region of Brazil. It is the only the only registered canine species to be found in the semi-arid Northeastern region of the country. This study has as its objectives the identification of the helminthfauna common to the Cerdocyon thous found in the Caatinga of the state of Paraiba and to determine the ecological indications of helminthic infection. It is hoped that this will make a favourable addition to the understanding of this little known biome. In this study there were used 58 animals that were found as 'road-kill' on the highways in the municipality of Patos. From these 58 animals the gastroinestinal helminths were colected. All the animals used were found to be infected with helminths. 16 species of helminths were identified. Two being Trematodes, one being a cestode, one being an acantocefalum, and the remaining twelve being nematodes. In this study a new species, Pterygodermatites pluripectinata n. sp. was discoveredand its host and location described. / Mestre

Book Summary: The Handbook of Experiential Teaching in Counselor Education: A Resource Guide for Counselor Educators is a peer-reviewed guide for teaching CACREP related course content. With 20 chapters covering multiple aspects of the CACREP standards, counselor educators have shared their resources, tips, and classroom techniques for training the next generation of counselors.

Philosophiae Doctor - PhD / Variation in sympatric and allopatric populations is believed to be a precursor to eventual speciation. The dispersion of genes from one gene pool into another is prevented by various processes, including the founder effect, sexual selection, ecological differences and random genetic divergence. Examining patterns of intraspecific variation in phenotypic and genotypic traits may thus provide valuable insights into the processes that govern species origination. Bladder grasshoppers (Orthoptera; Pneumoroidea) are an ideal model system to investigate patterns of geographic and ecological divergence due to their high host plant specificity, low dispersal and distinctive acoustic signals. This dissertation investigates intraspecific diversification in the bladder grasshopper Bullacris unicolor (Orthoptera: Pneumoroidea). Recent research on this species has shown significant intra- and inter-population variation in male advertisement calls and morphological characters. However, the exact cause of this variation has remained unclear. Furthermore, a previous study showed that the calls of B. unicolor from one particular population are highly differentiated from other populations, possibly due to the effects of anthropogenic noise. Here we aim to examine the drivers of diversity within Bullacris unicolor by embracing a multidisciplinary approach that encompasses the effects of environmental factors, genetics, anthropogenic noise and host plant associated divergence.

Sandy beaches are a primary focus of recreational and other pressures from growing coastal populations, and are major natural and economic assets for national and international tourism, but have not received adequate research attention prior to this study. Although the limited ecological research to date indicates that the nearshore volumes of sandy beach systems may be as biologically productive as estuaries and wetlands, the management of sandy beaches has not been based on ecological or sustainability principles. In this study, the principles and goals of ecologically sustainable development (ESD) are applied in investigations designed to develop improved ecological and recreational management of metropolitan sandy beach ecosystems, whereby ecological functions are maintained simultaneously with recreational and related uses. The conventional view that sandy beaches are resilient to recreational use, and are more likely to be seriously impacted by other forms of human activity, seems to have precluded serious research investigation of questions such as: what are the responses of both beach biota and human users to environmental variables influencing the system; what are the simultaneous levels, distributions and diversity of beach biota in relation to levels, distributions and categories of beach users; and what ecological impacts are likely from human beach use on biota at points of interaction, temporally and spatially? From the first section of the project, it has been shown that our present understanding of the functions, processes and responses to human disturbances of sandy beach ecosystems is extremely poor, compared with that of rock platforms. New methodologies have been developed in the current study for experimental investigations into aspects of sandy beach ecology and recreational use which have never previously been considered. Relationships between environmental variables and categories of beach use have been quantified, and show promise for use in predictive modelling to guide management. Current approaches to the management of sandy beaches and beach recreation, as aspects of environmental and coastal resource management, were then critically examined. The structures, functions and decision-making procedures of the major spheres of government, and their management agencies, were evaluated and found to provide inherent obstacles to effective ecological and recreational management of ecosystems. Coastal resource and beach management by public agencies were assessed for Durban and Sydney. Comparative analysis has provided information that can be used to develop guidelines for integrated ecologial and recreational management of sandy beach systems. In a synthesis of all of the above findings, a new procedural model has been constructed, for sustainable ecological and recreational management of sandy beach systems. This model is proposed as a framework for future integrated coastal resource research and management. Note: Three published papers have been produced from the research in this study, and have been presented at conferences, being Sinclair-Hannocks and Keane (1992) at the Sydney Sister City Environmental Summit; Sinclair-Hannocks (1993) at the World Leisure and Recreation Association Congress; and Tsang and Sinclair-Hannocks (1993) at the Local Government and Environment Conference.