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Batina, M. C. & Reese, C. A. 2010: A Holocene pollen record recovered from a guano deposit: Round Spring Cavern, Missouri, USA. Boreas, 10.1111/j.1502-3885.2010.00186.x. ISSN 0300-9483. Bat guano deposits have been the subject of relatively few palynological studies. The studies to date have focused on the most modern samples only, and therefore the full potential of bat guano as an archive for fossil pollen analysis remains unknown. In this paper we report the results of pollen analysis on an 88-cm vertical profile of fossil bat guano from Round Spring Cavern, Missouri. Four AMS radiocarbon dates were in sequence and showed that the guano pile was active between 8155 and approximately 550 cal. yr BP. Pollen is well preserved throughout the profile, with most samples containing less than 10% indeterminable pollen. Wind-pollinated taxa are better represented than insect-pollinated taxa, and pollen concentrations range from 842 to 371 660 grains cm. As expected, the dominant vegetation types represented by the pollen assemblage are oak and pine, in accordance with the region's oak-hickory-pine forest. However, there are discrepancies between the guano pollen record and the results of a lake pollen study conducted in southern Missouri. We propose several possible factors that may be influencing the guano pollen record and provide direction for further investigation into the palaeoecological potential of bat guano. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to advance the methodology for studying service assessment by comparing self-report and agency-generated methods. This study compares 30-day self-reported service use for homeless individuals (N = 229) randomly recruited from a single urban environment (St Louis, Missouri) with similar data collected from a broad array of service agencies providing homeless, substance abuse and outpatient mental health services across the same environment. Comparisons were made between self-report and agency-based data on shelter use, outpatient mental health service use (case management, psychiatric treatment, group therapy), outpatient substance abuse service use (case management, counselling, group therapy) and drop-in/day treatment use. Consistently low levels of kappa scores (all under 0.4) and correlation coefficients (only shelter use demonstrated significant agreement) were found. Findings demonstrated that the two methods of collecting service data are generally not concordant at the individual level. Certain demographic characteristics (increased age, being male, non-white ethnicity) and diagnoses (cocaine abuse/dependence, mania, schizophrenia) were associated with decreased reliability between the two methods of data collection. The two methods of assessment appeared to capture overlapping but not identical information. Each method of assessment has different utility to researchers and providers wishing to assess service use. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]