No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

This study explores and develops the potential of fossil mammals to differentiate between the various climatic episodes of the post-Anglian Middle Pleistocene in Britain. Mammalian fossils are particularly valuable as biostratigraphic indicators on account of their morphological evolution and rapid turnover, through origination and extinction of species. Furthermore, the large-scale climatic fluctuations that affected north-west Europe during the Quaternary produced major shifts in the geographical distributions of many species, resulting in discernible patterns of presence and absence in the fossil record of a particular region. The development of a globally-applicable climatostratigraphic framework, based on the oxygen isotope record from deep-ocean sediments, has provided a new and challenging scheme for the interpretation of the British Quaternary record. Long fluvial sequences in Britain have been related to this record with considerable success, thereby providing a detailed archive of climatic change through the Pleistocene. The Thames valley was selected as a framework for the relative dating of the various climatic fluctuations, since it has been claimed to have the most reliably-dated long terrestrial sequence in the later Middle Pleistocene. The Thames model was therefore adopted as a testable hypothesis against which the mammalian evidence could be compared. The findings of this study confirm the presence of four complete climatic cycles between the Anglian and the Holocene, each with its own distinctive mammalian suite. In addition, it has been possible to identify subdivisions within these temperate stages, probably representing smaller-scale climatic fluctuations within an interglacial, and perhaps corresponding to isotopic substages. It has been possible to resolve a longstanding controversy concerning the age of the British type Hoxnian Interglacial. Amino acid geochronology had suggested that sediments at Hoxne belonged to a later interglacial than deposits from the first post-Anglian temperate episode in the Thames valley, such as Swanscombe. The results of the present study reveal close similarity between the mammalian fauna from Hoxne and that from Swanscombe, suggesting that there was indeed a single Hoxnian Interglacial, and that it directly post-dated the Anglian (i.e. Stage 11). Sediments of this age can be distinguished from those attributable to two other late Middle Pleistocene interglacials, all of them distinct from and older than, the Ipswichian. It has been suggested that distinctive mammalian assemblages can be identified from interglacials equivalent to oxygen isotope stages 9 and 7; moreover, it is apparent that the assemblages from warm Substages 7c and 7a differed from one another in species composition. Certain useful characters have also been determined, which can permit useful separation of some of the late Middle Pleistocene cold episodes, although in comparison with the interglacials, the evidence from these is scanty. The present study has provided a new biostratigraphic framework that may be both tested and refined as new sites become available in Britain, and also compared with the evidence from continental north-west Europe.

No description available.

Typescript. / Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Hawaii at Manoa, 1977. / Bibliography: leaves 110-118. / Microfiche. / x, 118 leaves ill. (some col.)

Within the Australian wet tropics bioregion, only 900 000 hectares of once continuous rainforest habitat between Townsville and Cooktown now remains. While on the Atherton Tableland, only 4% of the rainforest that once occurred there remains today with remnant vegetation now forming a matrix of rainforest dispersed within agricultural land (sugarcane, banana, orchard crops, townships and pastoral land). Some biologists have suggested that remnants often support both faunal and floral communities that differ significantly from remaining continuous forest. Australian tropical forests possess a relatively high diversity of native small mammal species particularly rodents, which unlike larger mammalian and avian frugivores elsewhere, have been shown to be resilient to the effects of fragmentation, patch isolation and reduction in patch size. While small mammals often become the dominant mammalian frugivores, in terms of their relative abundance, the relationship that exists between habitat diversity and structure, and the impacts of small mammal foraging within fragmented habitat patches in Australia, is still poorly understood. The relationship between foraging behaviour and demography of two small mammal species, Rattus fuscipes and Melomys cervinipes, and food resources in fragmented rainforest sites, were investigated in the current study. Population densities of both species were strongly related with overall density of seed resources in all rainforest fragments. The distribution of both mammal species however, was found to be independent of the distribution of seed resources. Seed utilisation trials indicated that M.cervinipes and R.fuscipes had less impact on seed resources (extent of seed harvesting) than did other rainforest frugivores. Experimental feeding trials demonstrated that in 85% of fruit species tested, rodent feeding increased seed germination by a factor of 3.5 suggesting that in Australian tropical rainforest remnants, small mammals may play a significant role in enhancing germination of large seeded fruits. This study has emphasised the role of small mammals in tropical rainforest systems in north eastern Australia, in particular, the role that they play within isolated forest fragments where larger frugivorous species may be absent.

Includes bibliographical references (leaves 174-191). / xvii, 191 leaves: ill. ; 30 cm. / Title page, contents and abstract only. The complete thesis in print form is available from the University Library. / Studies the functions of galactosyltransferase (GalTase) and b-lactalbumin (b-lac) in mammalian reproduction. Investigates whether GalTase and b-lac-like proteins are widely present in epididymal plasma of various mammalian species and their function in reproduction; whether GalTase is also present in luminal plasma of the female reproductive tract, where sperm capacitation and fertilization occur; and, whether GalTase is also the sperm's receptor for zona in other species than mouse. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Adelaide, Dept. of Animal Science, 1994

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Adelaide, 1986. / Typescript. Copies of two published papers by the author, in back. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 111-133).