Understanding Consumers' Purchase Intention Towards Meat Produced Without Preventive Antibiotic Use.

Antibiotics are widely used to prevent healthy animals from getting diseases in livestock industries. Such practice has greatly contributed to the increase in antibiotic-resistant pathogens in animals and in the environment, which poses severe health threats to humans. This study aims to investigate consumers' purchase intention towards meat produced without preventive antibiotic use, and to identify key factors influencing this purchase intention.

Lure specificity, phenology, and damage caused by Epiphyas moths (Lepidoptera: Tortricidae) in Western Australian apple orchards.

Multiple Epiphyas species inhabit southwestern Western Australia, including Light Brown Apple Moth (LBAM) Epiphyas postvittana (Walker) (Lepidoptera: Tortricidae), a globally significant, polyphagous pest. This study evaluated the efficacy and specificity of lures designed for 3 Epiphyas species: E. postvittana, Epiphyas pulla (Turner), and the undescribed Epiphyas sp.

Field evaluation of female- and male-targeted traps for Ceratitis capitata (Diptera: Tephritidae).

Mediterranean fruit fly (Medfly) Ceratitis capitata (Wiedemann) (Diptera: Tephritidae) is a globally significant economic pest for which lure based trapping can be used to monitor established populations and for surveillance. Either female- or male-targeted traps can be used; however, recommendations on which to apply are inconsistent and many programs rely on male-targeted traps. Here, we compare the performance of male-targeted traps (Lynfield Trap with Trimedlure) and female-targeted traps (Biotrap Globe trap with the 3-component lure-TMA Plus) in apple orchards in south-west Western Australia over 2 years (September 2019 to September 2021).

The effect of information provision on consumers' risk perceptions of, support for a ban, and behavioral intention towards the preventive use of antibiotics in food animals.

Background: Antibiotics have been widely used in feed and drinking water for food animals to prevent them from getting sick. Such preventive use of antibiotics has become a contributor to increasing antibiotic resistance and thus poses threats to human health. However, consumers have little knowledge about this practice and the associated health risks of increasing transmission of antibiotic residues and antibiotic resistant bacteria.

Simulation to investigate site-based monitoring of pest insect species for trade.

Pest insect surveillance using lures is widely used to support market access requirements for traded articles that are hosts or carriers of quarantine pests. Modeling has been used extensively to guide the design of surveillance to support pest free area claims but is less commonly applied to provide confidence in pest freedom or low pest prevalence within sites registered for trade. Site-based surveillance typically needs to detect pests that are already present in the site or that may be entering the site from surrounding areas.

Consumer Trust in Food and the Food System: A Critical Review.

Increased focus towards food safety and quality is reshaping food purchasing decisions around the world. Although some food attributes are visible, many of the attributes that consumers seek and are willing to pay a price premium for are not. Consequently, consumers rely on trusted cues and information to help them verify the food quality and credence attributes they seek.

Species identification, phylogenetic analysis and detection of herbicide-resistant biotypes of Amaranthus based on ALS and ITS.

The taxonomically challenging genus Amaranthus (Family Amaranthaceae) includes important agricultural weed species that are being spread globally as grain contaminants. We hypothesized that the ALS gene will help resolve these taxonomic challenges and identify potentially harmful resistant biotypes. We obtained 153 samples representing 26 species from three Amaranthus subgenera and included in that incorporated ITS, ALS (domains C, A and D) and ALS (domains B and E) sequences.

Sellers' Revisited: A Big Data Reassessment of Historical Outbreaks of Bluetongue and African Horse Sickness due to the Long-Distance Wind Dispersion of Midges.

The possibility that outbreaks of bluetongue (BT) and African horse sickness (AHS) might occur long-distance wind dispersion (LDWD) of their insect vector ( spp.) was proposed by R. F.

Modelling seasonal habitat suitability for wide-ranging species: Invasive wild pigs in northern Australia.

Invasive wildlife often causes serious damage to the economy and agriculture as well as environmental, human and animal health. Habitat models can fill knowledge gaps about species distributions and assist planning to mitigate impacts. Yet, model accuracy and utility may be compromised by small study areas and limited integration of species ecology or temporal variability.

The Relative Importance of Genetic Diversity and Phenotypic Plasticity in Determining Invasion Success of a Clonal Weed in the USA and China.

Phenotypic plasticity has been proposed as an important adaptive strategy for clonal plants in heterogeneous habitats. Increased phenotypic plasticity can be especially beneficial for invasive clonal plants, allowing them to colonize new environments even when genetic diversity is low. However, the relative importance of genetic diversity and phenotypic plasticity for invasion success remains largely unknown.

Are high-impact species predictable? An analysis of naturalised grasses in northern Australia.

Predicting which species are likely to cause serious impacts in the future is crucial for targeting management efforts, but the characteristics of such species remain largely unconfirmed. We use data and expert opinion on tropical and subtropical grasses naturalised in Australia since European settlement to identify naturalised and high-impact species and subsequently to test whether high-impact species are predictable. High-impact species for the three main affected sectors (environment, pastoral and agriculture) were determined by assessing evidence against pre-defined criteria.

Development of microsatellite markers for the invasive weed Parthenium hysterophorus (Asteraceae).

Premise Of The Study: Microsatellite primers were developed for Parthenium hysterophorus to investigate its genetic structure and genetic diversity.

Methods And Results: Using the combined biotin capture method, 15 microsatellite primer sets were isolated and characterized. All markers showed polymorphism, and the number of alleles per locus ranged from two to nine across 60 individuals from two populations.

Differential influence of clonal integration on morphological and growth responses to light in two invasive herbs.

Background And Aims: In contrast to seeds, high sensitivity of vegetative fragments to unfavourable environments may limit the expansion of clonal invasive plants. However, clonal integration promotes the establishment of propagules in less suitable habitats and may facilitate the expansion of clonal invaders into intact native communities. Here, we examine the influence of clonal integration on the morphology and growth of ramets in two invasive plants, Alternanthera philoxeroides and Phyla canescens, under varying light conditions.

Phenotypic plasticity influences the size, shape and dynamics of the geographic distribution of an invasive plant.

Phenotypic plasticity has long been suspected to allow invasive species to expand their geographic range across large-scale environmental gradients. We tested this possibility in Australia using a continental scale survey of the invasive tree Parkinsonia aculeata (Fabaceae) in twenty-three sites distributed across four climate regions and three habitat types. Using tree-level responses, we detected a trade-off between seed mass and seed number across the moisture gradient.

Tackling contentious invasive plant species: a case study of buffel grass in Australia.

Introduced plants that have both production values and negative impacts can be contentious. Generally they are either treated as weeds and their use prohibited; or unfettered exploitation is permitted and land managers must individually contend with any negative effects. Buffel grass (Cenchrus ciliaris) is contentious in Australia and there has been no attempt to broadly and systematically address the issues surrounding it.

Phenotypic divergence during the invasion of Phyla canescens in Australia and France: evidence for selection-driven evolution.

Rapid adaptive evolution has been advocated as a mechanism that promotes invasion. Demonstrating adaptive evolution in invasive species requires rigorous analysis of phenotypic shifts driven by selection. Here, we document selection-driven evolution of Phyla canescens, an Argentine weed, in two invaded regions (Australia and France).

Interaction between seed dormancy-release mechanism, environment and seed bank strategy for a widely distributed perennial legume, Parkinsonia aculeata (Caesalpinaceae).

Background And Aims: Parkinsonia aculeata (Caesalpinaceae) is a perennial legume with seeds that have hard-seeded (physical) dormancy and are potentially very long-lived. Seed dormancy is a characteristic that can both help maximize the probability of seedling establishment and spread the risk of recruitment failure across years (bet-hedging). In this study, dormancy-release patterns are described across the diverse environments in which this species occurs in order to test whether wet heat (incubation under wet, warm-to-hot, conditions) alone can explain those patterns, and in order to determine the likely ecological role of physical dormancy across this species distribution.

Wet-season dormancy release in seed banks of a tropical leguminous shrub is determined by wet heat.

Background And Aims: Hard-seeded (physical) dormancy is common among plants, yet mechanisms for dormancy release are poorly understood, especially in the tropics. The following questions are asked: (a) whether dormancy release in seed banks of the tropical shrub Parkinsonia aculeata (Caesalpiniaceae) is determined by wet heat (incubation under wet, warm to hot, conditions); and (b) whether its effect is modified by microclimate.

Methods: A seed burial trial was conducted in the wet-dry tropics (northern Australia) to compare dormancy release across different habitats (open, artificial cover, ground cover and canopy cover), burial depths (0, 3 and 20 cm) and burial durations (2, 6 and 14 weeks).