Threatened Species Conservation in New South Wales,Australia: A Review of the Value of the Eight-part Test

The Threatened Species Conservation (TSC) Act, introduced in 1995, represents a significant attempt to conserve and restore biodiversity within the state of New South Wales, Australia. This Act aims to integrate land use planning and environmental impact assessment legislation by placing increased responsibility on applicants, proponents, consent and determining authorities, and the New South Wales National Parks and Wildlife Service, in the fields of environmental planning, development control and biodiversity conservation. The TSC Act introduced a set of eight factors which have to be considered by decision makers in determining whether a development is likely to have a significant effect upon threatened species, populations, ecological communities or their habitats (the threatened biota) as listed in the Act. These eight factors are commonly referred to as the 'eight-part test'. Fifty environmental impact statements (EISs) containing eight-part tests for development proposals were obtained. The adequacy of scoping and survey exercises, the number of species identified and afforded the eight-part test, and the actual responses to each of the eight factors contained within the test, using a series of criteria, were ascertained. Sixty per cent provided an adequate scoping exercise; 6% of the surveys for flora species, and none for fauna species carried out, were adequate in terms of identifying all threatened species on the development site. Seven hundred and thirty-seven species listed in the Act were identified, 36% of which were omitted from the eight-part test procedure. The eight sections of the eight-part test were completed to a varying degree of adequacy, with none of the EISs completing all eight sections satisfactorily. Both section 4 (regarding the impacts of a development in terms of habitat isolation) and section 8 (regarding the distribution of species potentially affected by a development) were inadequately completed in all 50 EISs.     

Exploratory field trial of motorcycle autonomous emergency braking (MAEB): Considerations on the acceptability of unexpected automatic decelerations

Objective: Autonomous emergency braking (AEB) acts to slow down a vehicle when an unavoidable impending collision is detected. In addition to documented benefits when applied to passenger cars, AEB has also shown potential when applied to motorcycles (MAEB). However, the feasibility of MAEB as practically applied to motorcycles in the real world is not well understood.

Methods: In this study we performed a field trial involving 16 riders on a test motorcycle subjected to automatic decelerations, thus simulating MAEB activation. The tests were conducted along a rectilinear path at nominal speed of 40 km/h and with mean deceleration of 0.15 g (15% of full braking) deployed at random times. Riders were also exposed to one final undeclared brake activation with the aim of providing genuinely unexpected automatic braking events.

Results: Participants were consistently able to manage automatic decelerations of the vehicle with minor to moderate effort. Results of undeclared activations were consistent with those of standard runs.

Conclusions: This study demonstrated the feasibility of a moderate automatic deceleration in a scenario of motorcycle travelling in a straight path, supporting the notion that the application of AEB on motorcycles is practicable. Furthermore, the proposed field trial can be used as a reference for future regulation or consumer tests in order to address safety and acceptability of unexpected automatic decelerations on a motorcycle.     

Sexual coercion by male chimpanzees shows that female choice may be more apparent than real

The extent to which active female mating preferences influence male reproductive success in mammals is unclear, particularly for promiscuously breeding species like chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes). Previous studies from multiple long-term study sites have shown that female chimpanzees mate more restrictively around ovulation, and this has been taken as evidence for female choice. However, none of these studies rigorously evaluated the alternative hypothesis that restrictive mating results not from unconstrained choice, but in response to coercive mate guarding, in which males use punishment and intimidation to reduce female promiscuity and promote their own mating interests. Nor did they consider evidence for the potential genetic or phenotypic benefits that females might be choosing. Using 11 years of data from the Kanyawara community in Kibale National Park, Uganda, we previously demonstrated that males achieve elevated mating success with those females toward whom they direct high levels of aggression. Here we extend those findings to show that even female copulatory approaches, which have previously been attributed to female choice, are correlated with male aggression. Specifically, individual females at our site initiated periovulatory copulations most frequently with the males who were most aggressive toward them throughout their cycles. Those males showed high rates of aggression toward females throughout estrus, despite achieving high copulation rates, demonstrating a continuing conflict of interest over the exclusivity of mating access. Because sexual coercion is potentially widespread in primates and other mammals, our results stress the importance of considering the influence of male aggression in studies of female choice.     

Building a better methane generation model: Validating models with methane recovery rates from 35 Canadian landfills

The German EPER, TNO, Belgium, LandGEM, and Scholl Canyon models for estimating methane production were compared to methane recovery rates for 35 Canadian landfills, assuming that 20% of emissions were not recovered. Two different fractions of degradable organic carbon (DOC_f) were applied in all models. Most models performed better when the DOC_f was 0.5 compared to 0.77. The Belgium, Scholl Canyon, and LandGEM version 2.01 models produced the best results of the existing models with respective mean absolute errors compared to methane generation rates (recovery rates + 20%) of 91%, 71%, and 89% at 0.50 DOC_f and 171%, 115%, and 81% at 0.77 DOC_f. The Scholl Canyon model typically overestimated methane recovery rates and the LandGEM version 2.01 model, which modifies the Scholl Canyon model by dividing waste by 10, consistently underestimated methane recovery rates; this comparison suggested that modifying the divisor for waste in the Scholl Canyon model between one and ten could improve its accuracy. At 0.50 DOC_f and 0.77 DOC_f the modified model had the lowest absolute mean error when divided by 1.5 yielding 63 ± 45% and 2.3 yielding 57 ± 47%, respectively. These modified models reduced error and variability substantially and both have a strong correlation of r = 0.92.