Peripheral populations often experience more extreme environmental conditions than those in the centre of a species' range. Such extreme conditions include habitat loss, defined as a reduction in the amount of suitable habitat, as well as habitat fragmentation, which involves the breaking apart of habitat independent of habitat loss. The 'threshold hypothesis' predicts that organisms will be mo...

We assessed the potential impacts of land-use changes resulting from a change in the current biofuel policy on biodiversity in Europe. We evaluated the possible impact of both arable and woody biofuel crops on changes in distribution of 313 species pertaining to different taxonomic groups. Using species-specific information on habitat suitability as well as land use simulations for three differ...

In an experiment in a southern Australian estuary, patches of seagrass canopy were removed to test the importance of the canopy to fish in areas where all other factors were known to be consistent with seagrass presence. The total number of fish was slightly lower in patches cleared of seagrass than in patches of undisturbed seagrass, but was not as low as in unvegetated patches. The benthic ha...

In this brief note, I explore the cognitive mechanisms involved in interpreting the meanings of events, as conveyed through language. Specifically, I examine the notion of event simulation in the construction of linguistic meaning. Simulations are a special class of minimal models, generated from linguistic input, under a number of agentoriented cognitive constraints. An integral part of this m...

The ecosystem services approach to resource management considers all services provided by ecosystems to all sections of the community. As such, it could be used to assess sustainability of human development and equity in resource use. To facilitate the approach, tools are required at the level of detail at which policy and management decisions are made. We have developed spatially explicit mode...

Bandicota bengalensis, a predominant species inhabiting irrigated fields is a potential pest on agricultural crops and is known to live in extensive burrow systems. The burrow opening covered with mud which is an indicator of its activity seems to be discontinuous. An analysis of burrow systems and their occupations indicated reuse of abandoned burrow systems by new entrants. A study simulated ...

Activity patterns of Penaeus merguiensjs, P. esculentus and Metapenaeus endeavouri were studied in response to simulated tidal and day-night cycles in the laboratory. When these cycles were imposed separately, each species was more active at night and near the times of high tide. However, when the tidal and day-night cycles were imposed together, the relative strengths of the responses to the 2...

Monitoring a diffuse event with a wireless sensor network differs from well studied applications such as target tracking and habitat monitoring and therefore we suggest that new approaches are needed. In this paper we propose a novel low power technique based on a multiple agent framework. We show how a set of simple rules can produce complex behavior that encompasses event characterization and...