Aboriginal rights are rooted in the historical relationship between the Indigenous peoples of Canada and the Crown and attempt to reconcile the prior occupation of lands by the Aboriginal peoples with claims of Crown Sovereignty. Treaty rights, on the other hand, owe their existence to a series of consensual agreements between the signatories and represent an ongoing relationship between the parties. Treaties represent an integral part of the early Indigenous-European relationship, initially offering peace and friendship and later a vehicle through which the Europeans could acquire lands from the Aboriginal peoples for settlement. In the seminal decision R. v. Sparrow, the Supreme Court of Canada for the first time attempted to address the scope and content of these constitutionally protected Aboriginal rights. The court concluded that Aboriginal rights existed at common law and that these common law rights, whatever they may be, received constitutional protection by virtue of s. 35(1) of the Constitution Act, 1982. Thus, any legislative enactment designed to infringe on these rights must meet constitutional standards for justification. Despite strict limitations on infringement, in the period following Sparrow, the Court has watered down the effects of this decision by diluting the legislative intent portion of the test to such a degree that it risks becoming a non-factor in the justification process. In this paper, I contend that the use of the Sparrow test, particularly as that test has been interpreted by the Court in the period following Sparrow is flawed, and to use this test as a tool for determining when constitutionally protected Aboriginal treaty rights might be infringed multiplies this flaw to a critical point.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 1998. / Typescript. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 168-174). Also available on the Internet.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 1998. / Typescript. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 168-174). Also available on the Internet.

Patterns and causes of variation in the reproductive success of Song Sparrows (Melospiza melodia) are investigated in this thesis. The two general patterns looked for were: inter-annual variation in reproductive success, and repeatability of reproductive success of individual parents. The specific problems addressed were: (1) whether intra-seasonal variation in reproductive success was the result of differences in the quality of parents or their territories; (2) whether nutritional condition of nestlings affected their subsequent survival; (3) whether variation in morphology of adult sparrows was influenced by the conditions under which birds grew up; and (4) given the patterns discovered in the first three sections, how trade-offs between present and future reproduction constrain the effort expended by adult sparrows in reproduction. Data used in this thesis came from a long-term (1975-present) descriptive study of the population of Song Sparrows living on Mandarte Island, B.C., Canada. Data on survival, reproductive success, and nestling and adult morphology were all available. The approach taken in the thesis was to search for systematic variation in the data, and from these patterns to make inferences about cause and effect. The following conclusions are made: (1) the intra-seasonal decline in clutch size, observed in populations of many species of birds, was the result of poor birds or birds on poor quality territories both nesting later and laying smaller clutches; (2) nestlings in better nutritional condition had a higher probability of survival while under the care of their parents, than nestlings in poor nutritional condition; (3) the probability of survival of offspring after they left their parents' care was lower for young born later in the year, but this pattern is not caused by variation among parents or their territories (contrary to the cause of seasonal decline in clutch size); (4) morphology of birds as adults was affected by the environment that birds grew up in, with nutritional condition and population density while a nestling both affecting adult morphology; (5) the effort that parents expend on reproduction is constrained by ability to vary reproductive effort with date of nesting and parental age. / Science, Faculty of / Zoology, Department of / Graduate

North American grassland birds show long-term population declines that generally exceed the declines of other bird groups. Efforts to conserve grassland birds require knowledge of diet and habitat requirements during both the breeding and nonbreeding periods of annual life cycles. This dissertation investigated sparrow habitat associations within two defined plant communities of the dry prairie ecosystem, the dry-mesic and wet-mesic prairie, for four prescribed fire treatments over two consecutive winters. Grasshopper and Henslow’s sparrows showed higher relative abundance in wet-mesic prairie and Bachman’s Sparrows were more abundant in dry-mesic prairie across all fire treatments. Abundances of Grasshopper and Bachman’s sparrows were best predicted by plant community association and secondly by time since fire; whereas for Henslow’s Sparrows, habitat and time since fire were equally important. Fall molt-period diets and diet overlap were modeled for resident Florida Grasshopper and Bachman’s sparrows using stable carbon and nitrogen isotope ratios of bird feathers and potential food sources, e.g., arthropods and seeds. Grasshoppers (Orthoptera, including a variety of species foraging on both C3 and C4 herbs), spiders, dragonflies, flies, beetles and weevils comprised the majority of the diets of adult and juvenile Florida Grasshopper Sparrows and Bachman’s Sparrows, but in differing proportions. Despite the similarity in reconstructed diets for the two sparrow species, analysis of diet overlap suggested that approximately half of the Florida Grasshopper Sparrows had diets consisting of higher trophic level prey than Bachman’s Sparrows. Winter diets and diet overlap among Grasshopper, Henslow’s, and Bachman’s sparrows were reconstructed using stable carbon and nitrogen isotope ratios of feathers and potential arthropod and seed food sources. Sparrows were captured and recaptured in winter iv 2007-2008 using systematic flush-netting, removing a tail feather at first capture and then removing the regrown feather when birds were recaptured. Winter diets of all three sparrows included a variety of arthropods, grass seeds, and sedge seeds, but Bachman’s Sparrow winter diets spanned greater trophic diversity than either of the migratory sparrows. Estimated diets of Henslow’s and Grasshopper sparrows differed from that of Bachman’s Sparrow but Henslow’s Sparrow diets did not differ from Grasshopper Sparrow diets. This is the first study of fall and winter sparrow diets in Florida based on stable isotopes and the first study in peninsular Florida on habitat associations of ground-dwelling sparrows.

acase@tulane.edu / Anthropogenic noise is an evolutionarily recent phenomenon and many animals respond by changing the pitch and timing of their vocalizations to avoid masking. A benefit to modifying a vocal mating signal in the context of noise is increased transmission distance. This same modification may pose a fitness cost if that signal feature is also sexually selected. Bird song is a well-studied sexual signal used in territory defense and mate attraction. Physically difficult to produce components of song are thought to be honest signals of male quality. One such trait is a male's ability to maximize the rate of note production at a given frequency bandwidth; this tradeoff is known as vocal performance. Studies have shown modifications to song in the context of noise, specifically to trill rate and bandwidth. Costs of these modifications may include increased conflict with neighboring males, which could potentially lead to decreased body condition, loss of a territory, or less time spent attracting a female. Few studies have investigated this tradeoff between environmentally induced selection (i.e. natural selection) and social selection (i.e. sexual selection) on song in an urban landscape. Therefore, a gap remains in our knowledge of the consequences on fitness of urban song adaptation for signalers. Using the white-crowned sparrow (Zonotrichia leucophrys) in the San Francisco Bay Area of California, the objectives of my dissertation research include 1) testing if vocal performance is a salient signal for white-crowned sparrows, 2) testing if receivers are responding specifically to variation in trill rate or bandwidth, and 3) testing the effect of ambient noise level on receiver assessment of vocal performance. Overall, my dissertation research suggests that both anthropogenic and natural soundscapes shape the evolution of song and receiver behavior. Modifications to song structure that increase signal detection come at the cost of decreased signal salience for male competitors. Additionally, anthropogenic noise appears to change how males utilize vocal performance. Therefore, species living in noisy areas may face consequences of decreased fitness over time due to masked honest signals and increased male-male conflict. / 1 / Jennifer N. Phillips

Water quality models are applied to assess the various processes affecting the concentrations of contaminants in a watershed. SPAtially Referenced Regression On Watershed attributes (SPARROW) is a nonlinear regression based approach to predict the fate and transport of contaminants in river basins. In this research SPARROW was applied to the Guadalupe and San Antonio River Basins of Texas to assess E. coli contamination. Since SPARROW relies on the measured records of concentrations of contaminants collected at monitoring stations for the prediction, the effect of the locations and selections of the monitoring stations was analyzed. The results of SPARROW application were studied in detail to evaluate the contribution from the statistically significant sources. For verification of SPARROW application, results were compared to 303 (d) list of Clean Water Act, 2000. Further, a methodology to maintain the monitoring records of the highly contaminated areas in the watersheds was explored with the application of the genetic algorithm. In this study, the importance of the available scale and details of explanatory variables (sources, land-water delivery and reservoir/ stream attenuation factors) in predicting the water quality processes were also analyzed. The effect of uncertainty in the monitored records on SPARROW application was discussed. The application of SPARROW and genetic algorithm were explored to design a monitoring network for the study area. The results of this study show that SPARROW model can be used successfully to predict the pathogen contamination of rivers. Also, SPARROW can be applied to design the monitoring network for the basins.

No description available.

No description available.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Ohio State University, 2008. / Title from first page of PDF file. Includes bibliographical references (p. 199-211).