Reproductive periodicity of a Penaeus esculentus population near Low Islets,Queensland, Australia

Since a major expense in the aquaculture of prawns is the location of gravid females, an investigation into the spawning habits of a north Queensland population of P. esculentus was begun as part of a wider survey of the East coast penaeid populations. This 31-month survey revealed a period of high reproductive potential limited to the autumn for both the new season prawns just reaching sexual maturity and the remnants of the last season's prawn population. The autumn sexual maturation was followed by a quiescent period through early spring when maturation again proceeded to the spawning period in the following autumn. In fact, the new season prawns' rapid sexual and somatic growth in the autumn was repeated by both generations in the summer and early autumn during the 3-year study. The temporal coincidence of both sea temperature and rainfall patterns with both somatic and gonad growth was investigated.     

Strong fisheries management and governance positively impact ecosystem status

Fisheries have had major negative impacts on marine ecosystems, and effective fisheries management and governance are needed to achieve sustainable fisheries, biodiversity conservation goals and thus good ecosystem status. To date, the IndiSeas programme (Indicators for the Seas) has focussed on assessing the ecological impacts of fishing at the ecosystem scale using ecological indicators. Here, we explore fisheries ‘Management Effectiveness’ and ‘Governance Quality’ and relate this to ecosystem health and status. We developed a dedicated expert survey, focused at the ecosystem level, with a series of questions addressing aspects of management and governance, from an ecosystem‐based perspective, using objective and evidence‐based criteria. The survey was completed by ecosystem experts (managers and scientists) and results analysed using ranking and multivariate methods. Results were further examined for selected ecosystems, using expert knowledge, to explore the overall findings in greater depth. Higher scores for ‘Management Effectiveness’ and ‘Governance Quality’ were significantly and positively related to ecosystems with better ecological status. Key factors that point to success in delivering fisheries and conservation objectives were as follows: the use of reference points for management, frequent review of stock assessments, whether Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated (IUU) catches were being accounted for and addressed, and the inclusion of stakeholders. Additionally, we found that the implementation of a long‐term management plan, including economic and social dimensions of fisheries in exploited ecosystems, was a key factor in successful, sustainable fisheries management. Our results support the thesis that good ecosystem‐based management and governance, sustainable fisheries and healthy ecosystems go together.     

A universal agro-hydrological model for water and nitrogen cycles in the soil-crop system SMCR_N: Critical update and further validation

Agro-hydrological models have widely been used for optimizing resources use and minimizing environmental consequences in agriculture. SMCR_N is a recently developed sophisticated model which simulates crop response to nitrogen fertilizer for a wide range of crops, and the associated leaching of nitrate from arable soils. In this paper, we describe the improvements of this model by replacing the existing approximate hydrological cascade algorithm with a new simple and explicit algorithm for the basic soil water flow equation, which not only enhanced the model performance in hydrological simulation, but also was essential to extend the model application to the situations where the capillary flow is important. As a result, the updated SMCR_N model could be used for more accurate study of water dynamics in the soil-crop system. The success of the model update was demonstrated by the simulated results that the updated model consistently out-performed the original model in drainage simulations and in predicting time course soil water content in different layers in the soil-wheat system. Tests of the updated SMCR_N model against data from 4 field crop experiments showed that crop nitrogen offtakes and soil mineral nitrogen in the top 90 cm were in a good agreement with the measured values, indicating that the model could make more reliable predictions of nitrogen fate in the crop-soil system, and thus provides a useful platform to assess the impacts of nitrogen fertilizer on crop yield and nitrogen leaching from different production systems.     

Partitioning the Mortality Risk Associated with Inadequate Passive Transfer of Colostral Immunoglobulins in Dairy Calves

This study developed a method to partition the risk of mortality in dairy calves in the 1st 16 weeks of life. Observed population mortality and the relative risk of mortality in each serum protein concentration stratum were used to determine the population baseline mortality rate and the mortality rate due to inadequate passive transfer of colostral immunoglobulin. A total of 3,479 calves were studied, 8.2% of which died before 16 weeks of age. The population baseline mortality rate was 5.0% and the mortality rate due to inadequate passive transfer was 3.2%. Thirty-nine percent of the observed mortality was attributed to inadequate passive transfer. This partitioning of risk between passive transfer-related and unrelated sources should prove useful in conducting investigations of calf mortality problems in dairy herds.     

Vermicomposting of sewage sludge: Effect of bulking materials on the growth and reproduction of the earthworm Eisenia andrei

The effect of different residual bulking agents (paper, cardboard, grass clippings, pine needles, sawdust and food wastes) in mixtures with sewage sludge (1:1 dry weight) on the growth and reproduction of Eisenia andrei, Bouché 1972 was studied in smallscale laboratory experiments with batches of sixty earthworms. The maximum weight achieved and the highest growth rate were attained in the mixture with food waste (755±18 mg and 18.6±0.6 mg day⁻¹ respectively) whereas the smallest size and the lowest growth rate was achieved in the mixture of sewage sludge with sawdust (572±18 mg and 11±0.7 mg day⁻¹ respectively). The earthworms showed much higher reproductive rates in the paper and cardboard mixtures (2.82±0.39 and 3.19±0.30 cocoons earthworm⁻¹ week⁻¹ respectively) compared to the control with sewage sludge alone (0.05±0.01 cocoons earthworm⁻¹ week⁻¹).     

The effect on earthworm populations of methods of spraying benomyl in an apple orchard

Compared with high volume (2240 litre/ha) sprays, low (560 litre/ha) and ultra-low volume (45 litre/ha) sprays of benomyl were less toxic to earthworms. The decrease in populations was proportional to the quantity of fungicide deposited on the ground; regression lines, probit (% reduction) on log (fall out in g/ha), are given for populations of Lumbricus terrestris and all species together. The reduction in numbers was similar for all species except L. terrestris and Allolobophora longa, L. terrestris was more susceptible to the deposits than the other species; A. longa was less affected, probably because it was in summer diapause.     

Relative potency of culture supernatants of <Emphasis Type="Italic">Xenorhabdus</Emphasis> and <Emphasis Type="Italic">Photorhabdus</Emphasis> spp. on growth of some fungal phytopathogens

In previous research, concentrated metabolites produced by bacteria of the genera Xenorhabdus and Photorhabdus (which are symbionts of entomopathogenic nematodes) were reported to be highly suppressive to fungal and oomycete plant pathogens. Conceivably, application of non-concentrated bacterial filtrates would be more economically feasible compared to using concentrated metabolites. We evaluated the potency of 10 % v/v cell-free supernatants of the bacteria X. bovienii, X. nematophila, X. cabanillasii, X. szentirmaii, P. temperata, P. luminescens (VS) and P. luminescens (K22) against Fusicladium carpophilum (peach scab), F. effusum (pecan scab), Monilinia fructicola (brown rot), Glomerella cingulata (anthracnose) and Armillaria tabescens (root rot). A bioactive compound derived from Photorhabdus bacteria, trans-cinnamic acid (TCA), was also compared with the bacterial filtrates. Fungal colony size based on manual measurements was compared for accuracy to measurements taken by image analysis. Supernatants of Xenorhabdus spp. exhibited stronger suppressive effects on spore germination and vegetative growth when compared with Photorhabdus spp. Overall, TCA was the most effective treatment; vegetative growth was completely inhibited by TCA (1.27 mg/ml). TCA treatments also suppressed spore germination of F. carpophylium and F. effussum by approximately 90 %. The efficacy of supernatants varied among Xenorhabdus species depending on the species tested, but X. szentirmaii filtrates tended to cause greater inhibition relative to the other bacteria supernatants. Manual measurement of colony diameter required at least two replicate estimates of the colony to avoid a type II error. Area measurements were slightly overestimated based on ruler measurements, but did not affect the outcome of the analysis. Supernatants of Xenorhabdus spp., Photorhabdus spp., or TCA, did not cause any phytotoxic effects when applied to various plant species in the greenhouse. Our results indicate the potential of using TCA or Xenorhabdus cell free supernatants as bio-fungicides. Such a product, based on bacterial culture supernatants, would be economically viable, marketable and easily applicable by the end-users in many situations.     

Complexity in modelling forest ecosystems: How much is enough?

The levels-of-integration concept in ecology suggests that while the population and community levels of biological organization provide understanding, they do not provide an adequate basis for predicting future states of populations, communities or ecosystems. Empirical models of populations and communities are implicitly ecosystem level because they are based on measures of the results of all past determinants that affected the populations and communities in question. They can be good predictors under unchanging conditions, but they are not able to predict for changing conditions, which requires the explicit representation of those ecological processes that are anticipated to change. The question addressed in this paper is: how does the performance of a “simple” stand-level model change as representations of these processes are added, and how much complexity is enough? Examples are given of change in performance of the ecosystem management model FORECAST run as a light competition model as nutrient regulation of growth and understory interactions are added singly or in combination. These examples are framed in comparisons of simulations for a white spruce stand in the in boreal mixedwood region in northern British Columbia, for a long-term thinning-fertilization trial in a Douglas-fir stand on southern Vancouver Island, and for yield decline in Chinese fir in south eastern China. It is concluded that the effect of adding complexity on the predictions of this model depends on the time scale of the simulation and the management or natural disturbance regime that is being simulated. The results supported Occam's razor: that models should be as simple as possible but as complex as necessary.     

Integrated vegetation designs for enhancing water retention and recycling in agroecosystems

Long term studies have shown strong links between vegetation clearing and rainfall declines and more intense droughts. Many agroecosystems are exposed to more extreme weather and further declines in rainfall under climate change unless adaptations increase the retention of water in landscapes, and its recycling back to the lower atmosphere. Vegetation systems provide vital feedbacks to mechanisms that underpin water vapour recycling between micro- and meso-scales. Various heterogeneous forms of vegetation can help generate atmospheric conditions conducive to precipitation, and therefore, increase the resilience of agroecosystems to drought and climatic extremes. The aim of this paper is to demonstrate how vegetation can be designed for agroecosystems to enhance recycling of water vapour to the atmosphere through the regulation of surface water and wind, and heat fluxes. The structure of the paper revolves around five functions of integrated vegetation designs that can help underpin the restoration of water recycling through enhanced retention of stormwater, protection from wind, moistening and cooling the landscape, production of plant litter, and contribution toward regional scale climate and catchment functioning. We also present two supplementary functions relevant to land and natural resource managers which may also be integrated using these designs.