Australian approaches to coastal vulnerability assessment

The Australian coastline is one of the longest and most diverse of any in the world, and Australian researchers have developed preliminary models of the behaviour of major coastal systems such as beaches and reefs. The Australian population is particularly focused along the coastline, especially in metropolitan centres; however, the population of regional centres along the coast is increasing steadily in response to a phenomenon termed seachange. Coastal systems are increasingly threatened by potential impacts as a result of climate change, as indicated by the successive assessments by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Although Australia played a central role in applying a common methodology (CM), developed from IPCC guidelines in the 1990s, and in devising alternative approaches, which were initially trialled at nine sites on the Australian coast, there has not been a nationally co-ordinated approach to assessing the coastal vulnerability of Australia, and such an approach is only emerging now. Instead, there have been a series of different approaches adopted to look at the different parts of the Australian coast, including wetland mapping in northern Australia; geomorphic unit mapping in South Australia; storm surge vulnerability modelling in Queensland; probabilistic approaches to beach erosion in New South Wales; indicative mapping of potential coastal retreat in Tasmania. Additionally, there have been methods proposed by insurers and coastal engineers to meet their requirements. Since 2005, the Australian government has once again seen the need for a national coastal vulnerability assessment, and a series of studies are planned or under way to achieve the aims of a National Climate Change Adaptation Framework.     

Prioritizing islands for the eradication of invasive vertebrates in the United Kingdom overseas territories

Invasive alien species are one of the primary threats to native biodiversity on islands worldwide. Consequently, eradicating invasive species from islands has become a mainstream conservation practice. Deciding which islands have the highest priority for eradication is of strategic importance to allocate limited resources to achieve maximum conservation benefit. Previous island prioritizations focused either on a narrow set of native species or on a small geographic area. We devised a prioritization approach that incorporates all threatened native terrestrial vertebrates and all invasive terrestrial vertebrates occurring on 11 U.K. overseas territories, which comprise over 2000 islands ranging from the sub‐Antarctic to the tropics. Our approach includes eradication feasibility and distinguishes between the potential and realistic conservation value of an eradication, which reflects the benefit that would accrue following eradication of either all invasive species or only those species for which eradication techniques currently exist. We identified the top 25 priority islands for invasive species eradication that together would benefit extant populations of 155 native species including 45 globally threatened species. The 5 most valuable islands included the 2 World Heritage islands Gough (South Atlantic) and Henderson (South Pacific) that feature unique seabird colonies, and Anegada, Little Cayman, and Guana Island in the Caribbean that feature a unique reptile fauna. This prioritization can be rapidly repeated if new information or techniques become available, and the approach could be replicated elsewhere in the world. Priorización de Islas para la Erradicación de Vertebrados Invasores en los Territorios Exteriores del Reino Unido     

Constructing Interpretable Environments from Multidimensional Data: GIS Suitability Overlays and Principal Component Analysis

In landscape planning applications, practitioners and governmental agencies are often faced with a broad array of clientele and constituents having particular land use requirements and needs, ranging from biological conservation to urban development, generating complex multidimensional regional planning goals and objectives. Under this often complex situation, investigators are searching for methods to intelligently simplify complicated spatial environments and render them into interpretable and practical settings. While numerous investigators have studied the generation of a single suitability map, we were interested in addressing the problem of coping with a set of many suitability maps. We applied a data reduction method, principal component analysis, across 15 suitability overlays representing diverse landscape requirements to search for simplified explanations indicating the latent structure of the landscape. The study area was located in a moraine landscape of southern Michigan. We discovered that the 15 suitability overlays could be reduced to seven dimensions, containing 65% of the original data structure and that the seven dimensions reflect a structure where a variety of land uses each have their own optimal spatial locations, indicating low to moderate competition between potentially conflicting land uses and rendering a more easily understood environment. This approach did not render a simple elegant solution but it did reduce the complexity associated with combining many suitability maps.     

Pancreatic and sacral agenesis in association with maternal diabetes mellitus: Case report

Sacral agenesis was diagnosed sonographically in the fetus of a diabetic mother and pancreatic agenesis was found additionally at autopsy.     

Persistent organochlorines in the serum of the non-occupationally exposed New Zealand population

Concentrations of polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxins (PCDDs), polychlorinated dibenzofurans (PCDFs), polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), and organochlorine pesticides were measured in the serum of a sample of the New Zealand population aged 15 years and older. This was the first study to obtain representative measures of PCDDs, PCDFs and PCBs in the adult population of an entire country. Serum samples were obtained in 1996-1997. Potentially occupationally exposed individuals were excluded. Serum samples were pooled according to stratification criteria for area of residence, ethnicity, age, and sex. Of the 80 possible strata, sufficient serum for chemical analysis was available for 60, to which 1,834 individual samples contributed. For the PCDDs and PCDFs, most 2,3,7,8-chlorinated congeners were measured in all strata, with a mean toxic equivalents concentration across all strata of 12.8 ng TEQ kg(-1) lipid. Seven PCB congeners were frequently measured, including the coplanar congeners #126 and #169, quantified in all strata. Of the pesticides and their metabolites, only beta-HCH, dieldrin and pp'-DDE were consistently detected across strata. There was a general trend of increasing concentration with age. There were no consistent differences between the sexes, or between people of Maori (the indigenous people of New Zealand) and non-Maori ethnicity. Concentrations of PCDDs and PCDFs tended to increase in a North-South direction, possibly reflecting greater levels of industrialization and population concentration, and concentrations of the pesticide products were highest in the South, possibly reflecting historical use patterns. Results were consistent with a recent study of concentrations of these compounds in the milk of first-time mothers.     

Enhancement of PAH biomineralization rates by cyclodextrins under Fe(III)-reducing conditions

Amendment of a soil slurry with low concentrations of a cyclodextrin, hydroxypropyl-beta-cyclodextrin (HPCD), (0.05-0.5 g l(-1)) increased the phenanthrene mineralization rate of a microbial consortium by 25% under Fe(III)-reducing conditions. Although a higher concentration (5.0 g l(-1)) resulted in a faster initial rate of mineralization, mineralization ceased after 25 days with maximum mineralization 17% lower than the control (no HPCD). At lower HPCD concentrations, mineralization was still taking place at day 76. Although pH should affect Fe(III) solubility, mineralization rates at pH 6.0 and 8.0 were comparable. Decreasing the temperature reduced the extent and rate of mineralization, but mineralization rates at 10 degrees C were still 60% of that obtained at 30 degrees C.     

Modelling Replicated Weed Growth Data using Spatially-varying Growth Curves

Weed growth in agricultural fields constitutes a major deterrent to the growth of crops, often resulting in low productivity and huge losses for the farmers. Therefore, proper understanding of patterns in weed growth is vital to agricultural research. Recent advances in Geographical Information Systems (GIS) now allow geocoding of agricultural data, which enable more sophisticated spatial analysis. Our current application concerns the development of statistical models for conducting spatial analysis of growth patterns in weeds. Our data comes from an experiment conducted in Waseca, Minnesota, that recorded growth of the weed Setariaspp. We capture the spatial variation in Setaria spp. growth using spatially-varying growth curves. An added challenge is that these designs are spatially replicated, with each plot being a lattice of sub-plots. Therefore, spatial variation may exist at different resolutions – a macro level variation between the plots and micro level variation between the sub-plots nested within each plot. We develop a Bayesian hierarchical framework for this setting. Flexible classes of models result which are fitted using simulation-based methods.     

Ecological role for pteroenone,a novel antifeedant from the conspicuous antarctic pteropod Clione antarctica (Gymnosomata: Gastropoda)

Dense populations of the antarctic pteropod Clione antarctica (Smith) offer a rich source of potential nutrients and energy to planktivorous predators. Nonetheless, antarctic fish do not prey on C. antarctica. Employing flash and high-pressure liquid chromatographic techniques, a linear -hydroxyketone, pteroenone (C₁₄H₂₄O₂) was isolated from whole tissues of C. antarctica. When embedded in alginate food pellets at ecologically relevant concentrations, pteroenone caused significant feeding deterrence in Pagothenia borchgrevinki and Pseudotrematomas bernacchii, two antarctic fish known to feed on planktonic organisms. Concentrations of pteroenone were variable between pteropods (0.056 to 4.5 mg ml^-1 tissue), but even those individuals with the lowest natural concentration contained levels five-fold greater than the lowest effective feeding-deterrent concentration (0.012 mg ml^-1 alginate). Chemical analysis indicated that the primary dietary item of the carnivorous C. antarctica, the shelled pteropod Limacina helicina, does not contain pteroenone. This suggests that C. antarctica does not derive this defensive compound from its diet. This is the first example of a defensive secondary metabolite in a pelagic gastropod.     

Distributed process modeling for regional assessment of coastal vulnerability to sea-level rise

Sea-level rise involves increases in the coastal processes of inundation and erosion which are affected by a complex interplay of physical environmental parameters at the coast. Many assessments of coastal vulnerability to sea-level rise have been detailed and localised in extent. There is a need for regional assessment techniques which identify areas vulnerable to sea-level rise. Four physical environmental parameters – elevation, exposure, aspect and slope, are modeled on a regional scale for the Northern Spencer Gulf (NSG) study area using commonly available low-resolution elevation data of 10 m contour interval and GIS-based spatial modeling techniques. For comparison, the same parameters are modeled on a fine-scale for the False Bay area within the NSG using high-resolution elevation data. Physical environmental parameters on the two scales are statistically compared to coastal vulnerability classes as identified by Harvey et al. [1] using the Spearman rank-correlation test and stepwise linear regression. Coastal vulnerability is strongly correlated with elevation and exposure at both scales and this relationship is only slightly stronger for the high resolution False Bay data. The results of this study suggest that regional scale distributed coastal process modeling may be suitable as a first cut in assessing coastal vulnerability to sea-level rise in tide-dominated, sedimentary coastal regions. Distributed coastal process modeling provides a suitable basis for the assessment of coastal vulnerability to sea-level rise of sufficient accuracy for on-ground management and priority-setting on a regional scale.