Populations of the rare annual forb Amsinckia grandiflora may be declining because of competitive suppression by exotic annual grasses, and may perform better in a matrix of native perennial bunchgrasses. We conducted a field competition experiment in which Amsinckia seedlings were transplanted into forty 0.64-m 2 experimental plots of exotic annual grassland or restored perennial grassland. Th...

Objective: In recent years, farmers have shown great interest to using native drill planter rather than complex planters to grow vegetables. Methods: In this study, we tested a native planter Independent variables were the two types of substrate surface (asphalt and plowed field), three ground speed (3, 5 and 7 kph) and four types of seeds (tomatoes, onions, radishes and lettuce). Dependent var...

Expanding populations are often characterized by phenotypic shifts across the range. Processes like spatial sorting predict that phenotypes may be distributed along a range based on dispersal ability, where most dispersive individuals found at leading edges and least remain population core. Thus, traits correlated to also become spatially in same pattern. Cyrtophora citricola is an orb-web spid...

Agricultural landscapes can be characterized as a mosaic of habitat patches interspersed with hostile matrix, or as a gradient of patches ranging from suitable to unsuitable for different species. Arthropods moving through these landscapes encounter a range of edges, with different permeability. Patches of native vegetation in these landscapes may support natural enemies of crop pests by provid...

In this study, Hidden Markov Models (HMMs) were used to evaluate pronunciation. Native and non-native speakers were asked to pronounce ten Dutch words. Each word was subsequently evaluated by an expert listener. Her main task was to decide whether a word was spoken by a native or a non-native speaker. For each word type, two versions of prototype HMMs were defined: one to be trained on tokens p...

An ex situ germplasm collection of the endangered Cycas micronesica was established in a transition zone between biodiverse native forest and mature stands of the invasive species Leucaena leucocephala. Soil chemical properties were determined for the 2 tree cover types to inform management decisions. Total carbon, total nitrogen, calcium, and net ammonification were greater in native forest co...

This paper reports on a multilingual investigation into the effects of different masker types on native and non-native perception in a VCV consonant recognition task. Native listeners outperformed 7 other language groups, but all groups showed a similar ranking of maskers. Strong first language (L1) interference was observed, both from the sound system and from the L1 orthography. Universal aco...