Wildfires play a significant role in many different elements of Mediterranean forest ecosystems. In recent years, prescribed fires have started being used more often as a fuel reduction tool, and also as silvicultural treatment to help the regeneration and health improvement of stands. Apart from the fact that fire may alter microsite conditions, very little is known about the impact of prescribed burning on natural regeneration or plant species renewal in Mediterranean pine forests. Likewise, knowledge about the influence of seedling predators on post-fire regeneration is still scarce. In this study, we aimed to compare the effects of seedling predation on recruitment in earlier stages after prescribed burnings in three pine stands in Central Spain: a pure stand of Pinus nigra; a mixed stand of Pinus halepensis and Pinus pinaster and a mixed stand P. nigra with P. pinaster. In situ we superficially sowed seeds from two different species. In the sowing experiment, we tested two different seed provenances (drier and more humid spanish regions) for each species. In all, 60 plots (30 burned, 30 unburned) per site, with 10 seeding units per plot and more than 20,000 seeds, were used in the whole study. Seedling predation was evaluated by replicating the seeding units inside and outside a wire cage as protection for rodents and birds. Our results showed that prescribed fires alter initial seedling predation intensity: predation was significantly higher in the seedlings grown in the plots affected by prescribed fire. The individuals sown before the fire passed showed slightly more predation than those sown after fire passage. Provenances did not appear as an important predation drive. Understanding the role of the predation associated with these treatments can help improve Mediterranean pine forest management.

Doctor of Philosophy / Department of Grain Science and Industry / Subramanyam Bhadriraju / The lesser grain borer, Rhyzopertha dominica (F.), females lay eggs loosely outside of wheat kernels. Larvae hatching from eggs enter wheat kernels to complete immature development. Four laboratory experiments were conducted to understand the wheat kernel infestation by first instars of R. dominica at 28°C and 65% r.h. The first experiment compared different kernel to first instar ratios on sound hard red winter (HRW) wheat class, probability of successful infestation, and subsequent adult development as affected by site of feeding on the kernels. Infested kernels were dissected 21 d after infestation to determine stage of development and larval weight. Development of larvae to adulthood was monitored for 50 d from time of infestation. Different kernel to first instar ratios did not affect probability of infestation, entry site preferences, larval development and weight, and days to adult emergence. In the second experiment one first instar was placed with a kernel on each of seven different wheat classes. Wheat kernels were artificially-damaged with a microdrill at the germ, endosperm, and brush end, and the sound kernels served as the controls. At 21 d, 82-90% of artificially-damaged HRW wheat kernels were infested by larvae versus 12% for sound kernels. Five times fewer hard white (HW) wheat sound kernels were infested by larvae compared with infestation in soft white (SW) wheat kernels. Sound kernels of durum, soft red winter (SRW), hard red spring (HRS), and hard white spring (HWS) wheat classes were more resistant to larval infestation than artificially-damaged kernels. Majority of first instars preferred germ as the entry site on HRW, HWW, SRW, and HWS wheat classes. Germ entry promoted faster larval development, leading to heavier larvae, and higher kernel weight losses. Adult emergence was earlier by 3-7 d compared with other sites across all 6 wheat classes, except for SWW class, where adult emergence was nil at 50 d. In the third experiment, speed of larval development on artificially-drilled HRW wheat kernels on different kernel sites. Three-hundred kernels each were drilled near the germ, endosperm, and brush end, and one first instar was placed per kernel in a glass vial. Kernels from glass vials were dissected every 3 d for 30 d and larval head capsule was measured. Larval development was fastest on the germ, followed by endosperm, and brush end. In the fourth experiment short-term feeding by R. dominica adults on infestation by first instars on sound wheat kernels was determined. Two laboratory tests were conducted with single and grouped (10) kernels using either two adults or two first instars per kernel. Signs of feeding were monitored for 21 d in single kernels and 7 d in grouped kernels. There was a significant association between adult feeding and larval infestation responses in single and group kernel tests. In conclusion, understanding factors that contribute to first instar establishment in wheat kernels will have impacts in breeding varieties that could be resistant and designing grain-handling equipment to minimize grain damage to mitigate R. dominica infestation of wheat.

The following study situates itself within the Post-Modern, post-positivist epistemological paradigm that seeks to approach urban informality (and more appropriately, a-formality) within the South African township landscape, not as a problem to be solved, but rather as a generative manifestation of being – and the de facto restitution of prevailing urban inefficiencies engendered through applied Euclidean zoning practices. Specifically, the architectural complexities of urban informality as the embodiment of socio-cultural values, and the efficacy of these architectural complexities to manifest real change within the urban environment. Theories and methods of Smart Urbanism, Complexity Science, Urban Informality and Urban Morphology are investigated and applied as a means to understand this emerging architectural complexity as a physical manifestation of urban identity and its physical impact on the original urban fabric, given as empirical evidence. A qualitative empirical data collection, followed by qualitative, interpretive analyses of urban informality at various scales forms the basis of the research method. The neighbourhood consisting of the Khalambazo and White City Sections, in the African township of Mamelodi East, Gauteng, is utilised as a case study to critically analyse and document urban a-formality and emerging architectural complexity. As is discussed within the current study, complex agents of a-formality within the chosen study area are entities informed by contextualised, location-specific human relationships that are temporally and spatially interrelated with each other. Emergent complexity inherent in urban a-formality leads to context-specific multi-functional urban morphological alterations that contribute to urban transformation over time. Positive urban transformation is made possible through the generative adaptability of multi-functional localised complex agents over time. Therefore, Mamelodi East is a significant case study to understand our Post- Apartheid urban condition, from where we can learn to enact meaningful change that responds to the existing dialogues that have already been established. The analysis and documentation of urban informality within townships, as forms of complex emergence manifest in built form, can enable a deeper understanding not only of the new South African condition but also of the global human condition. / Dissertation (MArch)--University of Pretoria, 2021. / Architecture / MArch (Research) / Unrestricted

La thèse ambitionne d'analyser les processus et les mécanismes qui sont à l’origine de l’émergence d’une destination touristique intérieure, puis de l’articulation entre d’une part ce tourisme considéré ici comme un tourisme d’arrière-pays, et d’autre part le littoral et les grands pôles de compétitivité touristiques de proximité. Son deuxième objectif est d’évaluer jusqu’à quel point ce produit et ces territoires tendent à s’autonomiser par rapport aux destinations balnéaires et urbaines. Cette recherche prévoit aussi l’évaluation de la cohérence et les modes de coordination entre les différents acteurs en présence au regard de l’extrême diversité des représentations du patrimoine, des enjeux identitaires et économiques résultant des processus de mise en tourisme et de patrimonialisation, ceci toujours dans les arrière-pays. Parmi les acteurs qui se trouvent derrière ces dynamiques dans ces arrière-pays, les investisseurs étrangers occupent une très bonne place. Notre recherche propose d’aborder les principales questions posées dans la problématique générale à travers ces porteurs de projet, ces acteurs étrangers du territoire, investissent principalement dans des acquisitions ou de nouvelles réalisations de biens immobiliers. A travers les porteurs de projets étrangers, nous proposons le traitement des questions concernant le profil et le rôle de ces acteurs , les motivations de leurs installation et investissement dans cet arrière-pays, les perceptions mutuelles (population autochtone et étrangers) et puis la concrétisation du processus de la patrimonialisation grâce à la perception et l’image étrangère. Le terrain retenu pour les besoins de cette recherche est la zone des oasis du Draa et des vallées du versant sud du Haut Atlas central. / The project aims to analyze the processes and the mechanisms that are responsible of the emergence of an interior destination and also the relationship between tourism, that is considered here as a back-tourism countries, and also the other coastal destination. The principal objective is to evaluate how these territories tend to become autonomous in relation to urban and coastal destinations, The chosen land for the purposes of this research is the Draa oasis area of southern and valleys of the high atlas. This research also includes assessing the coherence and coordination mechanisms between the different actors involved in the light of the extreme diversity of representations of heritage, identity and economic challenges resulting from tourism developing process and patrimonialisation. Among the actors who are behind these dynamics in this land, investors have an important place. Our research proposes to discuss many questions through these investors who are foreign persons installed in the area and primarily invest in acquisitions or restore the old Kasbahs and ksours to use it as a guest house. Through their projects, the foreign investors develop a new activity. Through the holders of foreign projects, we propose addressing issues concerning the profile and role of these actors, the motivations of their installation and investment in the interior destination, mutual perceptions (indigenous and foreign population), and then the realization of tourism process through the foreign image.

As the impacts of climate change intensify, businesses are increasingly committing to ambitious sustainable development goals, yet an enduring disconnect remains between corporate sustainability activities and declining global environment and society. This study adopts a complexity view that reductionism associated with Newtonian thinking has played a key role in creating many of the sustainability issues now faced by humanity. This dissertation departs from the premise that sustainability needs to be integrated into an organisation and uses a complexity view to argue that corporate sustainability is a co-evolutionary process of emergence. Whilst many studies have examined how sustainability can be integrated into a business, less is known about corporate sustainability as an emergent process. To address the knowledge gap, this research answered three questions: (1) How does sustainability emerge in financial institutions? (2) What is the role of coherence in the emergence of sustainability? and (3) What conditions enable the emergence of sustainability? A mixed method sequential design was used. In the initial quantitative strand of the research, a holistic business assessment survey based on integral theory was implemented in two financial services organisations in Southern Africa. The results were analysed using self-organising maps and explored in narrative interviews in the subsequent qualitative strand of the research. The study makes three contributions to our understanding of emergence in corporate sustainability. First, by proposing four modes by which corporate sustainability is enacted; these elucidate how integral domains are enacted in corporate sustainability. Second, by clarifying the process of emergence by articulating how zones of coherence emerge between embodied and embedded dimensions. Third, by explaining how the shift to corporate sustainability occurs by means of four conditions. These contributions serve to advance our understanding of corporate sustainability as a fundamental shift in the functioning of an organisation towards coevolutionary self-organisation. It is recommended that corporate sustainability is holistically cultivated to support emergence and self-organisation, rather than being integrated through a linear process of change.

The project is a public swimming sanctuary sited at the coast of the Adriatic Sea. The place sets up a bodily encounter with nature. The tidal lap pools, bath halls and paths are fragments, using the energy in line and color to appreciate human experience. The drawings are about the emergence of architecture from the convergence of land and sea. / Master of Architecture

Previous research has incorporated instructive feedback (IF) within mastered listener-by-name trials with two children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Participants in a previous study acquired the secondary targets and also demonstrated emergent responding (i.e., listener-by-feature, tact-by-feature, intraverbal, and reverse intraverbal). The current study replicated a previous study on IF with two children with ASD. Therapists conducted a series of three sessions of mastered listener-by-name trials (e.g., "Show me otter," and the participant selecting the picture of the otter) and provided IF statements for features of the target stimuli (e.g., "It lives in rivers."). We measured participants' echoic responding and required attending to the target stimulus during IF trials, and we evaluated acquisition of secondary targets and emergent responses using a concurrent multiple probe design across sets. We observed increased correct responding for secondary targets and emergent responses for the first set of stimuli with both participants. However, one participant did not engage in emergent responses for the two remaining sets. Results suggest that related verbal operant response relations of secondary targets may result after IF, but the extent of emergence may be idiosyncratic.

This thesis examined the relationships among ecology, economy, and society in the history of Longview, Washington, a planned timber settlement on the Columbia and Cowlitz Rivers. It compared the environmental, economic, and social histories of the Cowlitz Indians, American farmers, and urban industrialists that lived there over the past four hundred years. The central argument of the thesis is that human society cannot separate its economic and social organization from its ecology, nor can it reorder the environment without restructuring its economic and social institutions. Three different groups lived in the same physical space, but since they conceived and used the land differently, their societies developed distinct social and economic frameworks. The narrative of the thesis is chronological, tracing environmental, economic, and social change from about 1790 to 1934. During that time, humans gradually transformed a flood plain once dominated by vegetation and wildlife into a paved, sculpted, and densely populated industrial city. This study outlines the major causes and consequences of that transformation for both the land and its inhabitants. A wide range of source material provided the evidence upon which my conclusions were based. In addition to the more conventional historical sources such as diaries, letters, newspapers, memoirs, maps, and census data, I consulted anthropological studies, geological and geographical surveys, ecological reports, agricultural bulletins, and sociological analyses. My findings are presented in Chapters 2 through 5, with chapter 6 summarizing and drawing final conclusions.

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While they are pregnant and rearing pups, bats continue to leave their roosts to forage for food. Many bats use echolocation vocalizations as part of this process. Other mammalian species including primates experience changes in vocal characteristics during pregnancy and lactation. As echolocation is a vital tool for spatial navigation and prey detection in most bats, investigating echolocation characteristics during pregnancy through lactation may provide new insight into how reproduction, pregnancy and pup rearing influence vocalizations. We measured changes in mass and recorded echolocation calls of pregnant (n = 21) and non-pregnant (n = 2) female wild-caught big brown bats (Eptesicus fuscus) released by hand into roost emergence-like flight. Recording began ~15 days prepartum and ended when the last bat reached 34 days postpartum, when pups were expected to be weaned. Analyses were completed using MATLAB and R, primarily with repeated measures ANOVAs focused on echolocation calls present in the ~562 ms before and ~562 ms after take-off. Based on vocal changes experienced by humans during pregnancy and post-birth, correlations found between bat echolocation call characteristics and the effects of differences in mass on bat echolocation, we predicted that female bats in late-stage pregnancy would emit calls of shorter duration, longer pulse interval, narrower bandwidth, and lower centroid frequency compared to calls emitted by the same bat post-parturition and compared to non-pregnant bats, while source level remained unchanged. We found that pulse interval and source level did not change while pregnant/lactating or control bats were in flight, and that increases in call duration and decreases in centroid frequency and bandwidth in flight began in pregnancy and continued through the lactation period while remaining unchanged for the control bats. / Thesis / Master of Science (MSc) / The goals of this study were to see if big brown bats change the way that they echolocate while they are pregnant and/or nursing pups, and what changes occur. We did this by recording the vocal sounds bats made while they were pregnant and after they had given birth, and looking to see if there were any changes in the duration of echolocation calls, the time between individual sounds, the range of sound frequencies in each call, the central sound frequency in each call, and each call’s sound pressure level over this time and compared to non-pregnant/nursing female big brown bats. We found that echolocation call duration increases over pregnancy and nursing pups, while frequency range and the centre frequency decreases.