Using eDNA metabarcoding to understand the effect of fire on the diet of small mammals in a woodland ecosystem.

Food acquisition is a fundamental process that drives animal distribution and abundance, influencing how species respond to changing environments. Disturbances such as fire create significant shifts in available dietary resources, yet, for many species, we lack basic information about what they eat, let alone how they respond to a changing resource base. In order to create effective management strategies, faunal conservation in flammable landscapes requires a greater understanding of what animals eat and how this change following a fire.

Edge effects in fire-prone landscapes: Ecological importance and implications for fauna.

Edges are ecologically important environmental features and have been well researched in agricultural and urban landscapes. However, little work has been conducted in flammable ecosystems where spatially and temporally dynamic fire edges are expected to influence important processes such as recolonization of burnt areas and landscape connectivity. We review the literature on fire, fauna, and edge effects to summarize current knowledge of faunal responses to fire edges and identify knowledge gaps.

Human-modified habitats facilitate forest-dwelling populations of an invasive predator, Vulpes vulpes.

Invasive and over-abundant predators pose a major threat to biodiversity and often benefit from human activities. Effective management requires understanding predator use of human-modified habitats (including resource subsidies and disturbed environments), and individual variation within populations. We investigated selection for human-modified habitats by invasive red foxes, Vulpes vulpes, within two predominantly forested Australian landscapes.

Survey design for precise fire management conservation targets.

Common goals of ecological fire management are to sustain biodiversity and minimize extinction risk. A novel approach to achieving these goals determines the relative proportions of vegetation growth stages (equivalent to successional stages, which are categorical representations of time since fire) that maximize a biodiversity index. The method combines data describing species abundances in each growth stage with numerical optimization to define an optimal growth-stage structure that provides a conservation-based operational target for managers.

Do multiple fires interact to affect vegetation structure in temperate eucalypt forests?

Fire plays an important role in structuring vegetation in fire-prone regions worldwide. Progress has been made towards documenting the effects of individual fire events and fire regimes on vegetation structure; less is known of how different fire history attributes (e.g.

Opposing Responses of Bird Functional Diversity to Vegetation Structural Diversity in Wet and Dry Forest.

Disturbance regimes are changing worldwide, and the consequences for ecosystem function and resilience are largely unknown. Functional diversity (FD) provides a surrogate measure of ecosystem function by capturing the range, abundance and distribution of trait values in a community. Enhanced understanding of the responses of FD to measures of vegetation structure at landscape scales is needed to guide conservation management.

Bird functional diversity decreases with time since disturbance: Does patchy prescribed fire enhance ecosystem function?

Animal species diversity is often associated with time since disturbance, but the effects of disturbances such as fire on functional diversity are unknown. Functional diversity measures the range, abundance, and distribution of trait values in a community, and links changes in species composition with the consequences for ecosystem function. Improved understanding of the relationship between time since fire (TSF) and functional diversity is critical given that the frequency of both prescribed fire and wildfire is expected to increase.

Predicting faunal fire responses in heterogeneous landscapes: the role of habitat structure.

Predicting the effects of fire on biota is important for biodiversity conservation in fire-prone landscapes. Time since fire is often used to predict the occurrence of fauna, yet for many species, it is a surrogate variable and it is temporal change in resource availability to which animals actually respond. Therefore prediction of fire-fauna relationships will be uncertain if time since fire is not strongly related to resources.

Youth leadership program for changing self-image and attitude toward people with disabilities.

Society has a negative attitude toward people with intellectual disabilities or psychiatric disabilities. It is well documented that they are subjected to prejudice, stigma, and negative attitudes (Di Giulio, 2003; Finger, 1994). Professional literature indicates that information about disabilities and encounters with persons with disabilities can change negative attitudes (Carter, Hughes, Copeland, & Breen, 2001; Krajewski & Flaherty, 2000).

Influence of biodynamic preparations on compost development and resultant compost extracts on wheat seedling growth.

Biodynamic (BD) agriculture, a form of organic agriculture, includes the use of specially fermented preparations, but peer-reviewed studies on their efficacy are rare. Composting of a grape pomace and manure mixture was studied in two years (2002 and 2005) with and without the BD compost preparations. Water extracts of finished composts were then used to fertigate wheat seedlings, with and without added inorganic fertilizer.

Perceived altruism: a neglected factor in initial intervention.

Perceived altruism, an attitude that clients may attribute to those who work with them, was examined in a qualitative and quantitative study about the impact of volunteers in drop-in centers for youth at risk in Israel. Data were collected by interviews, observations, case studies, and questionnaires. The results show that the volunteers' unique contribution affected the service as a whole.

The role of the social worker in the face of terrorism: Israeli community-based experience.

Terrorism and its aftermath have become part of the Western way of life, and social workers have a central role to play in helping affected families and their communities. Drawing on community-based experience in Israeli communities, the authors examine the planning of multidisciplinary teams and how their planning was put into effect in their communities in several terrorist attacks. The authors use reports of social workers, community volunteers, and clients to map the phases of the activity, the roles and goals of the social workers with different focal systems during the phase stages, and the tasks that the social workers carried out.

Keeping and disclosing a secret among people with HIV in Israel.

This study examined the association of key variables with the intention to disclose and actual disclosure to an additional significant other of being HIV-infected. Sixty-five participants were recruited from five AIDS/HIV centers in Israeli hospitals. Participants completed questionnaires at entry to the study.

Showing results in community organization.

This article describes a community organization program and its tangible results in a stigmatized neighborhood in the center of Israel. The program lasted six years; its central goal was the autonomy of the community, the empowerment of its residents, and collaboration among the human services workers and between them and the resident leaders. The results, measured objectively and quantitatively, included a large increase in the number of community activists; strong and statistically significant increases of self-esteem and mastery of surroundings; increase in family, service delivery, and community empowerment among the activists, and the participation of residents and outsiders in a project to build their own homes in the neighborhood.