The distribution and numbers of cheetah in southern Africa.

Assessing the numbers and distribution of threatened species is a central challenge in conservation, often made difficult because the species of concern are rare and elusive. For some predators, this may be compounded by their being sparsely distributed over large areas. Such is the case with the cheetah The IUCN Red List process solicits comments, is democratic, transparent, widely-used, and has recently assessed the species.

Animal density and track counts: understanding the nature of observations based on animal movements.

Counting animals to estimate their population sizes is often essential for their management and conservation. Since practitioners frequently rely on indirect observations of animals, it is important to better understand the relationship between such indirect indices and animal abundance. The Formozov-Malyshev-Pereleshin (FMP) formula provides a theoretical foundation for understanding the relationship between animal track counts and the true density of species.

Seasonal fluctuations in birth weight and neonatal limb length; does prenatal vitamin D influence neonatal size and shape?

Background: Birth weight is known to fluctuate with season of birth, however, there is little information about seasonal variation in neonatal anthropometric measures.

Aims: The aim of this study was to examine seasonal fluctuations in birth weight and selected anthropometric measures.

Study Design And Subjects: The birth weight of singletons born after at least 37 weeks gestation was extracted from a perinatal register in south-east Queensland (n=350,171).

The population structure of ten Newfoundland outports.

Island populations are most informative in the study of the genetic structure of human aggregates. These populations are often of small size, thus violating the Hardy-Weinberg assumption of infinite size. Some geographically isolated island populations are further subdivided by religion, ethnicity, and socioeconomic factors, reducing their effective sizes and facilitating genetic changes due to stochastic processes.

Effects of religion, economics, and geography on genetic structure of Fogo Island, Newfoundland.

The population structure of Fogo Island, Newfoundland is described using geography, religious affiliation, economic factors (such as the presence of a fish-packing plant), and genetic markers. Five different analytic methods, R-matrix analysis, r VS. mean per locus heterozygosity, predicted kinship (ϕ), mean first passage time, and Mantel matrix comparisons, were applied to the Fogo Island genetic and demographic data.

Multiple-sited (heterotopic) pregnancy after in vitro fertilization and gamete intrafallopian transfer.

Pregnancies occurring simultaneously in different body sites (heterotopic pregnancies) are a rare condition thought to occur in 1 of 30,000 spontaneous pregnancies. Individual cases may occur after in vitro fertilization (IVF) or gamete intrafallopian transfer (GIFT). In the past 4 1/2 years, our unit has performed 6,204 IVF/GIFT or pronuclear stage transfer cycles of treatment.

A survey of women with unplanned exnuptial pregnancies in Brisbane.

The social circumstances of women with exnuptial unplanned pregnancies were surveyed, and the differences between those continuing with their pregnancy and those who decided to terminate their pregnancy were compared. Women who continued their pregnancies were younger, poorer, less educated, and more likely to be employed in unskilled jobs when compared with those who decided to have their pregnancy terminated.