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The development of a dynamic cell model of the abundant Geobacter sulfurreducens has shown that a kinetic representation of key components of cell metabolism has matched microbial growth dynamics seen in chemostat experiments. The studies have shown that simplified model representations of microbial dynamics in the subsurface that depended on extracellular conditions are derived by parameterizing emerging properties of the kinetic cell model.

Byline: Nada Trunk Sirca, Ziga Cepar, Dusan Lesjak, Milan Zver Population ageing has important implications for demand in the field of education in Slovenia. We analyse the basic implications of an ageing society for the demand for the formal education of youth and for lifelong learning. Next, we research the system of recognition of nonformal and experiential learning, especially in higher education, and the potential role of Europass in such a system when trying to restore balance in the higher-education market. In the last section of the paper, we draw main conclusions about the developments in the field of education and the role of lifelong learning and Europass in it.

Several analyses are conducted to examine the research and conservation measures related to the ecology of Canada lynx (Lynx canadensis) and snowshoe hare in the southern range. The southern populations of these lynx and hares are shown not to exhibit the periodic cylicity, and hence need to maintain a continuous connection with the northern populations.

The vital rates generated from a landscape-level study documenting reproductive parameters from 2001 to 2003 were used to develop a stage-based model representing the female mallard population in the Great Lakes. The results suggested that increasing duckling survival via conservation programs focused on wetlands might have high potential to improve [lambda] due to the high sensitivity of [lambda].

Bacterial population dynamics and microscopy were used to study the behavior and growth of Escherichia coli O157:H7 on lettuce leaves in pre- and postharvest model. The results revealed that leaf age and nitrogen abundance affect the fitness of E. coli 0157:H7 in the lettuce phyllosphere.

The cementum light band widths on sectioned premolar teeth were measured and compared to determine age at first reproduction (AFR) for the northern sea otter (Enhydra lutris kenyoni). The result support the use of cementum as an indicator of past reproduction in individual female otters which can be applied to estimate average AFR of otters as well as other mammal species.

The patterns of molecular diversity are examined to test for population reductions related with colonization of, and adaptation to, the novel habitats. Results are consistent with a demographic cost of adaptation to novel environments.

A classic Mendelian model with recessive control of low litter size is used for determining the litter size in the arctic fox. The novel use of complex segregation analysis has given a special importance to non-additive genetic variance, which the standard quantitative genetic models have not considered.

The study focused on a species of grass, Anthoxanthum odoratum, growing in plots within the longest running ecological experiment, the Part Grass Experiment at Rothamsted Experimental Station, Harpenden, UK. It is stated that these plots were originally set up in 1856 to test the reactions of meadow vegetation to different fertilizer applications, procedures, which have generated enormous amounts of data on plant physiological responses, population dynamics, and community ecology.

Spatial synchrony refers to coincident changes in the abundance or other time-varying characteristics of geographically disjunct populations. Clarifying the mechanisms behind spatial synchrony could ultimately provide critical information for understanding and managing species conservation, pest outbreaks, and disease epidemiology.

The World Conservation Union (IUCN) Red List categorizes the species that are critically endangered, endangered and vulnerable into a set of five criteria (A-E). The criterion E is quantitatively defined by three specified threshold extinction risks (50%, 20%, 10%), each associated with a particular time frame. It is suggested that the guidelines to the IUCN Red List criteria must include three reference lines for the interpretation of the Population Viability Analysis (PVA) results.

The Crustacean communities are studied for 3 years in a set of extant ephemeral wetlands in Illinois to examine the effects of habitat fragmentation on the genetic structure of extant crustacean metapopulations. It is concluded that the conversion of former wet prairie to agriculture may have reduced the metapopulations and that the conservation programs can preserve much of the historical biodiversity of ephemeral wetlands.

Author(s): Tim Coulson (corresponding author) [1]; Sonya Clegg (corresponding author) [1, 2] A little more than a century ago, humans had pushed Antarctic fur seals (Arctocephalus gazella) to the brink [...]

A study of the visibility of demography and noise in ecological data and its utility in population management and conservation in detecting and predicting population responses to environmental change is presented. A non-linear and demographically explicit model is used to study the correlation between population dynamics and the visibility of the signature of the noise in noise-modulated dynamics.

It is commonly thought that cranial measurements provide much better information for estimating 'racial' affinity than postcranial dimensions. Historically, anthropologists have neglected the postcranial skeleton in multivariate discriminant analyses designed to assess biological affinity (e.g., Howells, 1973). Here, we show that postcranial skeletal measurements can be used to develop multivariate discriminant functions that distinguish populations as successfully as discriminant functions based on crania. Post-cranial measurements of recent males and females of Europeans, Asians and Native Americans, and Africans were analyzed. Groups from these populations each consisted of roughly 25 males and 25 females. The group sizes by sex ranged from 7-41 individuals, but most groups had roughly equal numbers of males and females. A total of 122 measurements were collected on each complete skeleton. The measurements concentrated upon the appendicular skeleton and the limb girdles, capturing the lengths, midshaft diameters, and articular dimensions of the major long bones (excluding the fibula) and similar dimensions of a number of hand and foot bones. Using reduced data sets of 30 variables, preliminary results show that canonical variates analyses (CVAs) of the post-cranial data using SAS produce 80-100 percent correct classification. Initial cross-validation was conducted by splitting the most numerous samples in hall omitting one half from the calculations to produce the discriminant axes, then interpolating the omitted samples back into the resulting discriminant space. The cross-validation results produced a reduction to between 80-60 percent of individuals who were correctly classified. However, these errors tended to misclassify individuals as members of morphologically similar groups. Discriminant classification on the basis of postcranial dimensions therefore appears to be comparable in precision to classifications based on cranial data and should prove to be very useful in a variety of areas including forensic contexts.

Policies to control diseases caused by invasive alien species should be extended to cover endangered wild species, ecosystems and their services--not just humans, livestock and cultivated plants. Of the 100 [...]

In 1812 on his last trip through northern New York and New England, Wilson visited Charles Trowbridge's museum where he saw a single stuffed phalarope. He sketched the bird in [...]