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This paper examines how Estonian and foreign tourists to Saaremaa Island perceive their future experiences in light of a bridge built from mainland Estonia to the island. A logistic regression resulted in six predictors (two demographic and four sense of place scales) of perceived future effects of a proposed bridge on future experience, accounting for 18% of the variance. The six predictors of perceived effects of a potential bridge to the mainland on future holiday experience to Saaremaa Island were nationality, education, socio-cultural context, memory, aesthetics, and wellbeing sense of place scales. Estonians were more positive about the bridge, which supports previous discussions of the essence of home and wellbeing. Wellbeing was the strongest and only positive predictor followed by educational level, memory, socio-cultural context, aesthetics, and nationality, which were all negative. Highlights allude to the predictive power of sense of place on perceived environmental change of development (bridge to island) to future experience among tourists. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent studies on the use of wild food plants have identified various reasons for their use and underlined their importance as an emergency food supply. This work analysed the content of narratives obtained as comments regarding the reasons for using or not using wild food plants mentioned during 48 semi-structured recorded interviews. The results show that past demand for the diversification of food experiences and taste was essential for the consumption of wild plants, while the present concern for the disappearance of wild food taxa familiar from childhood is one of the main reasons for decrease in their consumption. This indicates that people do not really feel that they need to use wild food plants anymore (except for the health benefits), and that they are concerned that their favourite plants are no longer available. The erosion of the practical use of wild food plants is also supported by the very small frequency in which the influence of teachings coming from outside the community was mentioned in discussions of both the past and present, and thus the loss of traditional uses is not really substituted by new uses acquired from elsewhere. Further research is needed to understand lay perceptions of the changes that have occurred in nature, society and the economy, in the context of their influence on the everyday use of wild food plants to appreciate the ways in which knowledge erosion takes place and to find means of retaining this basic knowledge within the society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Silurian thelodont Phlebolepis elegans Pander from Saaremaa, Estonia, is one of the most-often illustrated early vertebrates, yet its external morphology has remained poorly known and experts seldom agree about its probable body form. We examined hundreds of articulated specimens from the type locality (Himmiste Quarry) to reconstruct its morphological features. We found that a reconstruction published more than four decades ago by A. Ritchie was the best available till now. We disagreed mostly in that the mouth is not terminal, but subterminal, and there is a slight development of a rostrum dorsal to the mouth. The pectoral fin originates close behind the orbits, but is otherwise similar to Ritchie's reconstruction. We also found the caudal fin to be much larger, more flexible and more symmetrical (though not perfectly symmetrical) than earlier reconstructions, with a large dorsal lobe and an even larger ventral lobe, and a fin web supported by slender 'ray-like' scale-covered lobes. The shape, number and location of the branchial openings are notably still not certainly known. Our preferred morphological features are represented by an artist's restoration. With this revised understanding, future representations of Phlebolepis elegans can be based on more reliable information and its morphology can be compared more accurately with that of other early vertebrates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]