Experimental mechanical sieving methods are applied to samples of shellfish remains from three sites in southeast Queensland, Seven Mile Creek Mound, Sandstone Point and One-Tree, to test the efficacy of various recovery and quantification procedures commonly applied to shellfish assemblages in Australia. There has been considerable debate regarding the most appropriate sieve sizes and quantification methods that should be applied in the recovery of vertebrate faunal remains. Few studies, however, have addressed the impact of recovery and quantification methods on the interpretation of invertebrates, specifically shellfish remains. In this study, five shellfish taxa representing four bivalves (Anadara trapezia, Trichomya hirsutus, Saccostrea glomerata, Donax deltoides) and one gastropod (Pyrazus ebeninus) common in eastern Australian midden assemblages are sieved through 10mm, 6.3mm and 3.15mm mesh. Results are quantified using MNI, NISP and weight. Analyses indicate that different structural properties and pre- and postdepositional factors affect recovery rates. Fragile taxa (T. hirsutus) or those with foliated structure (S. glomerata) tend to be overrepresented by NISP measures in smaller sieve fractions, while more robust taxa (A. trapezia and P. ebeninus) tend to be overrepresented by weight measures. Results demonstrate that for all quantification methods tested a 3mm sieve should be used on all sites to allow for regional comparability and to effectively collect all available information about the shellfish remains.

Experimental mechanical sieving methods are applied to samples of shellfish remains from three sites in southeast Queensland, Seven Mile Creek Mound, Sandstone Point and One-Tree, to test the efficacy of various recovery and quantification procedures commonly applied to shellfish assemblages in Australia. There has been considerable debate regarding the most appropriate sieve sizes and quantification methods that should be applied in the recovery of vertebrate faunal remains. Few studies, however, have addressed the impact of recovery and quantification methods on the interpretation of invertebrates, specifically shellfish remains. In this study, five shellfish taxa representing four bivalves (Anadara trapezia, Trichomya hirsutus, Saccostrea glomerata, Donax deltoides) and one gastropod (Pyrazus ebeninus) common in eastern Australian midden assemblages are sieved through 10mm, 6.3mm and 3.15mm mesh. Results are quantified using MNI, NISP and weight. Analyses indicate that different structural properties and pre- and postdepositional factors affect recovery rates. Fragile taxa (T. hirsutus) or those with foliated structure (S. glomerata) tend to be overrepresented by NISP measures in smaller sieve fractions, while more robust taxa (A. trapezia and P. ebeninus) tend to be overrepresented by weight measures. Results demonstrate that for all quantification methods tested a 3mm sieve should be used on all sites to allow for regional comparability and to effectively collect all available information about the shellfish remains.

The broad objective of this thesis is to develop an understanding of factors affecting outsourcing in the hotel industry and also the role played by management accounting in hotel outsourcing. The thesis draws on transaction cost economics (TCE), agency, contingency, and labour process theories in the context of appraising factors motivating outsourcing. Two empirical phases have been undertaken in the study. The first phase involved a series of interviews with general managers and financial controllers in large South East Queensland hotels. The second phase involved two distinct questionnaire surveys of large Australian hotels. The first was administered to hotel general managers, and the second was administered to hotel financial controllers. Significant findings arising from the study include: 1. In light of the substantial international literature describing hotel outsourcing, it appears that outsourcing in Australian hotels is relatively limited. This appears to be particularly the case with respect to food and beverage related activities. 2. Mixed support is offered for the TCE model. Both the survey and interview data provide some support for TCE's prescription that frequently conducted activities will not tend to be outsourced. Two specific extensions are offered to this aspect of the model, however. Firstly, where activities are conducted to a minimal extent, it can be uneconomic to outsource. Secondly, where large activities are undertaken by a group of organisations, their enhanced purchasing power can result in inexpensive outsourcing arrangements. With respect to TCE's uncertainty proposition, support is offered for the view that the propensity to outsource will be greater where behavioural uncertainty is lower. No support has been offered with respect to environmental uncertainty. The interview data provides some support for TCE's asset specificity proposition, however, minimal support was found in the survey phase. Despite this, the many dimensions of asset specificity (eg. site specificity, human asset specificity, etc) provided a useful checklist of issues to be considered in relation to the outsourcing decision. 3. Negligible support was found for labour process theory (LPT) in the interview phase of the study. In light of this, and the need to narrow the study’s focus in the survey phase, LPT was not pursued further. LPT is a difficult construct to operationalise, given the social desirability error that may result. This may partially account for the absence of significant LPT findings in the interview phase. 4. The survey data provides some support for the agency theory view that risky activities will tend to be outsourced. 5. Considerable cross-hotel variation exists in management of, and accounting's involvement in, outsourcing decision making and control systems. Accounting appraisal of outsourcing proposals rarely includes long term oriented, sophisticated techniques such as "net present value". It appears this may be because outsourcing decisions are not conducted in the context of the formal capital budgeting process. 6. High performing hotels and hotels that conduct their outsourcing decisions in the context of a long term outsourcing strategic agenda have more sophisticated outsourcing management systems.

The urbanised environment provides ecologists with unique situations in which to undertake ecological study. It has been said that urbanisation is like a natural experiment; we often have populations of animals that have gone from living in natural or semi-natural environments to living in a highly modified anthropogenic environment. These situations provide ideal settings to study the ecological and behavioural differences that may develop in populations located in different habitats. Urbanisation typically results in a minority of species dominating the fauna, and this thesis aimed to examine one such species, the Australian magpie. Despite the magpie being a common and well-liked suburban bird, the majority of previous research on this species has been undertaken within rural or exurban locations. This thesis aimed to examine what actually happens to the species when it lives in the suburban environment. In particular I focused on specific behavioural and ecological features, to see if there were any particular adaptations the suburban magpies showed and also if the suburban habitats provide certain resources favourable to the magpies and what ecological effects these may have. Comparisons of the territory structure and resources of rural and suburban magpies showed that although many features of the territory are similar between rural and suburban locations, notably the choice of native nest trees, magpie territories within suburban areas were smaller and contained more anthropogenic features. The reduced territory size may possibly be related to a greater abundance of key food resources also evident within suburban areas. Furthermore, suburban magpies are more successful in their foraging attempts, again possibly reflecting a more abundant food supply in suburbia and also the simplified nature of suburban foraging areas might facilitate more successful foraging. The increased foraging success is likely to explain the greater provisioning rate to nestling suburban magpies. Suburban magpies also utilised human provided foods. I quantified the extent of wildlife feeding within many of the suburban study sites of this thesis (through the use of questionnaire surveys). In each of the locations it was evident that at least one person (usually more) was providing a regular supply of food to wildlife and magpies appeared to be the main recipients of this food. Previous ecological studies suggest the provision of extra food to avian populations is likely to affect the breeding ecology, and this was so for magpies. The suburban populations initiated breeding significantly earlier than rural magpies. To test the influence of food, supplementary food was provided to rural magpies, not currently receiving any additional human provided foods. The fed rural magpies initiated breeding before control rural magpies (i.e. not receiving any additional food) but suburban magpies still initiated breeding before all other groups. This suggests additional factors present within suburbia, such as warmer temperatures, may also control the timing of breeding in magpies. Magpies in rural and suburban locations lived within different vertebrate communities. Within suburban magpie territories a greater number of intrusions were made by domestic animals, notably dogs (Canis lupus) and cats (Felis domesticus). The frequency of raptors entering the territorial areas occupied by magpies appears to suggest such events are more common in rural areas. The number of humans entering magpie territories was obviously greater in the more populated suburban areas and the majority of magpies responded neutrally to humans. However a group of magpies that previously exhibited extreme aggression towards humans were found to have a greater frequency of aggressive interactions with potential predatory intruders, which were primarily humans. Subsequent examination of the level of corticosterone from this aggressive group of magpies found that a high level of aggressive interactions with potential predators and humans is reflected in higher level of corticosterone, which may have implications for further behavioural and even physiological changes. An ability to habituate to human in urbanised areas is a key attribute of successful synanthropic species. Comparisons of magpies disturbance distances at different points along the urban gradient (the gradient that runs from the urbaised city to natural wildlands) found suburban magpies only responded to humans when they had approached to a close distance (often less than one metre) and many simply walked away to avoid the approaching human. Rural and exurban magpies responded to humans at greater distances than suburban magpies. The distance at which they responded to the human was usually 100 meters plus, and these magpies always flew away. A continuation of this investigation over a temporal scale again found the large difference in response to humans, with suburban magpies exhibiting a decreased response towards humans. However, a certain proportion of responses from suburban magpies were also aggressive. The examination of disturbance distance over the breeding season found that in suburban magpies the responses of most disturbance distance variables remained similar between breeding stages. Rural magpies, however, exhibited variation in their responses towards humans depending on the stage of breeding. It is suggested that the response of rural magpies may be a typical fear response towards an unusual potential threat. The studies presented in this thesis show that magpies have the behavioural capacity to take advantage of resources in suburban landscapes that are not available or are in lessor supply in rural landscapes, it is these abilities that facilitate the magpies synanthropy.

Beryllium-7 is a cosmogenic radionuclide produced in the atmosphere through the spallation of nitrogen and oxygen nuclei by cosmic-ray-produced neutrons and protons. It is carried in the atmosphere attached to aerosols and is deposited on land and ocean surfaces by wet and dry deposition processes. Beryllium-7 decays by electron capture to lithium-7 and has a half-life of approximately 53 days. It is a potentially useful radionuclide for studying different natural processes. This thesis presents a collection of scientific papers on the occurrence of beryllium-7 in the natural environment, particularly in the Southeast Queensland region of Australia. It shows the results of experimental measurements and discusses their implications. Overall, this thesis contributes to advancing our understanding of the distribution and behaviour of beryllium-7 in the natural environment and provides a foundation for the development of nuclear techniques for the evaluation of environmental problems.

Exotic pine plantations are a major landuse within the coastal lowlands of southeast Queensland, extending from close to the shoreline to the hinterland ranges. These plantations are within a sub-tropical climatic zone, and in most years, the summers are appreciably wetter than the winters. This terrain, in general, has been highly weathered and the soils are poor in nutrients. Environmental factors such as the climate, topography and weathering profile (including soil) are found to be important controls on vadose zone hydrology, which, in turn, has a great impact on tree growth and consequently on the design of management practices. This research project takes a holistic approach to investigate the influence of these environmental factors at different scales, and is designed to fulfil the following objectives: (1) To build a spatial model of forest productivity for the entire Tuan Toolara State Forest (TTSF), southeast Queensland, by analysing the spatial patterns of many environmental variables that may have controls on soil water distribution. (2) To determine how some of these environmental factors are responsible for the development of water-logging and soil salinisation by examining in detail an area of low site index that is severely affected by these two processes. (3) To develop a model to assess the risks of water-logging spatially and temporally. A multiple regression model was constructed to predict the forest productivity (measured by the value of site index, the average dominant tree height at 25 years of age). The independent variables were derived from a digital elevation model (elevation, slope, curvature, hillshade, flow accumulation and distance to streams), γ-ray spectrometry (potassium, thorium and uranium), and interpolated rainfall. The model explained up to 60% of the variance in the site indices and produced predictive maps of site index for two species: P. elliottii Engelm. and Queensland hybrid, a P. elliottii × P. caribaea Morelet hybrid. The model also identified the lowest site index area at the northern Tuan State Forest (NTSF), likely due to a greater risk of water-logging and salinisation. The NTSF area is of low relief and, therefore, the focus has been on the vertical controls of deep weathering profile. The methodology included setting up a network of groundwater bores screened at different depths within the weathering profile, characterising the profile (mineralogy, EC, and pH) and the groundwaters within it (water levels, physico-chemical parameters, major and minor ions). It is found that water-logging is caused by perched groundwater formed on top of the ferricrete or mottled saprolite after prolonged rainfall. Localised salinisation is related to the discharge of brackish groundwater occurring within the mottled saprolite. The deep aquifer within the coarse saprolite is fresh and not responsible for salinisation, a situation that differs from many other settings in Australia. The ability of using the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) computer model to simulate soil water balance and to assess the risks of water-logging was tested in a selected catchment in the TTSF. The model successfully simulated stream flow at 2 weirs for a period of 6 years; the achieved R2 were 0.752 and 0.858, respectively. Long-term simulation for a 30-year period showed that there are pronounced seasonal patterns in rainfall and evapotranspiration as well as in soil water. For mature plantation with slopes of 3-15%, the mean annual duration of water-logging ranged from 161 days in the humus podzols, to 110 days in the gleyed podzolic, and to 90 days in the yellow podzolics. The outcomes of this research suggest that forest management can be strongly supported by understanding the impacts of these environmental factors (e.g. climate, topography and weathering profile) on vadose zone hydrological processes; the selection of optimum approach will depend on the research objective or purpose. The models and analytical tools that were developed or tested here have the potential to be successfully applied elsewhere if the input data are available.

In this thesis I present a critical examination of Walters' (1987, 1989, 1992a, 1992c) model of late-Holocene intensification of Aboriginal marine fishing in southeast Queensland, Australia. I demonstrate significant problems in three premises central to his interpretation of prehistoric cultural change in the region. Firstly, environmental, ethnohistorical and archaeological evidence do not support the proposition that the coastal lowlands were a marginal landscape for human occupation at any time in the Holocene or that a time-lag occurred between sea-level stabilisation and Aboriginal occupation of the coast. Nor is there any palaeoecological evidence to support Walters' argument that periods of greater sedimentation occurring around 3,000 BP caused increases in marine resource productivity. Secondly, even if this enrichment did occur it does not correlate with changes documented in the archaeological record from this time. The occupational chronology demonstrates that significant increases in the number of occupied sites and the rate of site establishment does not occur until around 1,000 BP, some 2,000 years after the proposed enrichment of Moreton Bay. Finally, there is no consistent pattern of increase through time in the quantity of fish remains recovered from archaeological sites in the region. In interpreting this evidence I discuss major taphonomic issues and research biases which have played a significant role in structuring the archaeological database for the region. The Holocene archaeological record of southeast Queensland emerges as much more complex and variable than is generally portrayed.