Worker. Trade Agent. Serf. Etain Ixtii detests the labels others give her, but there are some things she must accept. She was genetically designed to do specific tasks. Her breeding instincts interrupt her life every forty-five days. But workers like Etain are taught not to question so when she returns from training questioning her home world Gno's profit-based caste system, she risks her life. She doesn't want to be an agent and doesn't want to cross through the wormhole to never return. Why does she have to go? Can't someone else? Usurer Serria, the owner of Etain's birth and training debt, quickly tires of her problem worker and launches Etain through a collapsing wormhole so she can collect the insurance payout. Very bad business indeed, but Etain manages to survive the attempt, arriving on the other side plagued by debilitating headaches and hounded by a dangerous insectoid enemy that no one, including Physician Leigheas Sternbow, the Takla royal physician, and Mercine Feney, the Empire's powerful female leader, can make disappear. / https://dc.etsu.edu/alumni_books/1028/thumbnail.jpg

Thesis (MScConsEcol (Conservation Ecology and Entomology))--Stellenbosch University, 2008. / This thesis examines the role of agricultural activity in the process of invasion of west coast renosterveld fragments by annual alien grass species. This highly endangered vegetation type has less than 5% remaining, it is vital to understand the mechanisms allowing invasion of annual alien grasses in order to effectively prevent the loss of the many rare and endemic species found in west coast renosterveld. This study was divided into three major components. Firstly the distribution of indigenous and alien plant species in relation to fence lines, separating active agricultural fields from untransformed vegetation, was described. Regression analysis was used to test for relationships between distances from agricultural fields and soil physical and chemical characteristics in natural vegetation. Cover by annual alien invasive grasses in untransformed vegetation decreased significantly with distance away from agricultural land. Secondly alien and indigenous grass seed banks were sampled along the transects, at the same sites, in order to establish whether the seed banks correlated with above ground cover. Results varied among sites and seed banks were correlated with the vegetation cover at only one site. It appears that there are a multitude of factors determining the distribution of annual alien grass cover. Thirdly a greenhouse experiment established the role that nitrogen plays in the success of the alien grass Avena fatua. This species was grown in competition with three indigenous species, an annual forb (Dimorphotheca pluvialis), a geophyte (Oxalis purpurea) and an indigenous perennial grass (Tribolium uniolae) at three levels of soil nitrogen. The geophyte was largely unaffected, while growth of the annual and indigenous perennial grasses was negatively affected by competition with A. fatua. Nitrogen did not seem to affect competitive interactions. Management of these renosterveld patches, in order to conserve them effectively, will require a multi-faceted approach, including prevention of further invasion and removal of invasive grasses already present.