Search

Copyright of Canadian Journal of Economics is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The current fiscal environment has driven Canadian universities to become more entrepreneurial, seeking out and competing over new sources of funding. Despite such intensifying competition, little effort has been made to document the promotional tactics that Canadian universities are using to render themselves appealing to external audiences. This study examines the contents of the home pages of English-speaking universities in Canada. It finds that, though there are some differences in the tactics that primarily undergraduate and research-intensive universities employ, both generally strive to emulate the same institutional 'template'. Moreover, the usage of more unorthodox promotional tactics, drawing on labour market rhetoric or discourses of inclusivity, is limited. These findings are theorised in relation to contemporary work within organisational sociology and strategic management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To help guide restoration efforts at a large-lake ecosystem (Lac la Biche) in Alberta, Canada, I used Ecopath modeling software to create an energetically plausible model representing the system prior to European settlement. Over the last 200 years, Lac la Biche has shifted from a system dominated by predatory fish (e.g., WalleyesSander vitreusand Northern PikeEsox lucius) to one dominated by forage fish and double-crested cormorantsPhalacrocorax auritus. In 2005, the Fisheries Management Branch of Alberta Environment and Sustainable Resource Development initiated a fisheries restoration program focused on increasing the abundance of Walleyes and average fish size in Lac la Biche; restoration would target a nondescript “historical” ecosystem configuration based on contemporary assumptions of what the system might have looked like. I used Ecopath to organize the main assumptions and information on the historical Lac la Biche ecosystem into an energetically plausible representation for the year 1800. From the modeling process, I learned that most of the assumptions regarding the trends in species biomass between contemporary and historical systems were appropriate guides for model balancing; however, the magnitude of the expected differences between 1800 and the present day were often larger than predicted, especially for infrequently sampled species (e.g., Yellow PerchPerca flavescens, White SuckersCatostomus commersonii, Spottail ShinersNotropis hudsonius, and BurbotLota lota). Testing the validity of single-species assumptions in an ecosystem context is important for improving our understanding of ecosystem structure and function. In a historical context, model creation based on assumptions and available information is important for developing ecosystem baselines that can provide context to and guide future fisheries management. Historical baselines are also important for highlighting ecosystem potential and productive capacity and for counteracting the effects of the shifting baseline syndrome. Received February 13, 2012; accepted August 2, 2013 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]