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1. Plant functional traits involved in carbon and water acquisition are likely to be adaptive across the range of a species if the availability of these resources varies across this range and are limiting to growth or fitness. At the interspecific level, leaf economic traits associated with rapid resource capture are correlated with fast growth rates. However, relationships between leaf traits and growth are poorly understood at the intraspecific level. 2. We examined two hypotheses: (i) leaf traits vary genotypically among Populus fremontii populations from different thermal environments; and (ii) leaf traits are related to growth rate of these P. fremontii populations. We used a common garden at the warm edge of P. fremontii distribution that included individuals transplanted from 11 provenances. Provenances varied in mean annual maximum temperature by 5·9 °C, reflecting a range of expected increases in temperature over the next 80 years. 3. Conservative leaf traits (e.g. low specific leaf area, N content, stomatal conductance, net photosynthetic rate and high leaf water-use efficiency) were positively related to growth rates of genotypes and populations, a pattern opposite of that widely reported among species in other studies. 4. Provenance temperature explained 75% of the variation in multivariate leaf traits with the warmest provenances having the most conservative traits and highest growth rates. Clinal genetic variation suggests that P. fremontii may be adapted to thermal environments. 5. Leaf area-to-sapwood area ratio was positively associated with growth rate, while leaf area-based net photosynthetic rate was negatively associated with growth rate; these results suggest that hydraulic architecture was more important than leaf-level photosynthetic rate in determining growth rate. 6. Synthesis. Our results suggest that conservative leaf traits promote rapid growth of P. fremontii genotypes in extremely hot environments. Thus, relationships between leaf economic traits among species do not necessarily apply to the range of variation among genotypes within species. The generality of this pattern should be examined for other species that will be exposed to climate warming. Moreover, our research shows that common garden provenance trials are useful for identifying genotypes best suited to a predicted warmer climate and for improving understanding of the physiological basis for adaptation to warm environments.

Fremont cottonwood ( Populus fremonti ) is a foundation riparian tree species that drives community structure and ecosystem processes in southwestern U.S. ecosystems. Despite its ecological importance, little is known about the ecological and environmental processes that shape its genetic diversity, structure, and landscape connectivity. Here, we combined molecular analyses of 82 populations including 1312 individual trees dispersed over the species' geographical distribution. We reduced the data set to 40 populations and 743 individuals to eliminate admixture with a sibling species, and used multivariate restricted optimization and reciprocal causal modeling to evaluate the effects of river network connectivity and climatic gradients on gene flow. Our results confirmed the following: First, gene flow of Fremont cottonwood is jointly controlled by the connectivity of the river network and gradients of seasonal precipitation. Second, gene flow is facilitated by mid-sized to large rivers, and is resisted by small streams and terrestrial uplands, with resistance to gene flow decreasing with river size. Third, genetic differentiation increases with cumulative differences in winter and spring precipitation. Our results suggest that ongoing fragmentation of riparian habitats will lead to a loss of landscape-level genetic connectivity, leading to increased inbreeding and the concomitant loss of genetic diversity in a foundation species. These genetic effects will cascade to a much larger community of organisms, some of which are threatened and endangered.

Studies on the effect of plant-species diversity on various ecological processes has led to the study of the effects of plant-genetic diversity in the context of community genetics. Arthropod diversity can increase with plant-species or plant-genetic diversity (Wimp et al. in Ecol Lett 7:776–780, 2004). Plant diversity effects can be difficult to separate from other ecological processes, for example, complementarity. We asked three basic questions: (1) Are arthropod communities unique on different host-plant genotypes? (2) Is arthropod diversity greater when associated with greater plant-genetic diversity? (3) Are arthropod communities more closely associated with host-plant genetics than the plant neighborhood? We studied canopy arthropods on Populus fremontii trees randomly planted in a common garden. All trees were planted in a homogeneous matrix, which helped to reduce P. fremontii neighborhood effects. One sample was comprised of few P. fremontii genotypes with many clones. A second sample was comprised of many P. fremontii genotypes with few clones. A second data set was used to examine the relationships between the arthropod community with P. fremontii genetic composition and the neighborhood composition of the focal host plant. Unique arthropod communities were associated with different P. fremontii genotypes, and arthropod community diversity was greater in the sample with greater P. fremontii genotypic diversity. Arthropod community similarity was negatively correlated with P. fremontii genetic distance, but arthropod community similarity was not related to the neighborhood of the P. fremontii host plant.

As trainers we need to be able to \"start strong\". A study conducted at the Harvard School of Psychology suggests that as a presenter you have just ten seconds before the audience will judge your efficacy as a speaker. So turn off the PowerPoint, put down the training manual and hit them with a startling statistic, a hypothetical question, a quote or a story that will have them thinking, \"Hmmm this is going to be worthwhile\". In some of the workshops I deliver I am told, \"Oh, but my topic is so boring!\" Funny though, when each topic is examined, the opposite is true. All you need to do is find more staples. Staples are the things that make our message stick. They do this by increasing the emotional quotient. They may be case studies, quotes, metaphors, diagrams, analogies or startling statistics. They are anything that makes the audience think, to pique their curiosity, to make them laugh and to make them care. The inclusion of a logical argument enables us to justify our purchase-or in the case of a participant at a workshop, justify our time and memory invested in the topic. Here, too, Clarity is King. Bludgeoning them with multiple jars of jam will only confuse and agitate. Be selective with the information you present. They don't need to know the \"Safety Standard la. 233\", they only need to know how to recognise the problem and what to do about it. Great sales people ask for the business. My training version of \"Will that be cash or charge?\" is: \"Ok, so what are the takeaway points here? What do we do on Monday? How does this look in your workplace?\" People are more likely to commit to something if they verbalise it themselves. Encourage your participants to share their action items with the group

[Richard Maloney] is an experienced sports coach. The last third of The Minds Of Winning Teams is dedicated to indepth and candid interviews with some of the world's well-known elite athletes and coaches.

A few years into my training career I was running my 'Stand up, Speak up and Persuade' workshop for a new client. During the 'meet and greet' and introductions I ask lots of questions in order to gauge their confidence and experience in public speaking. Once I had recovered I smiled at the group and said \"Let's have a quick break and we'll meet back in ten minutes\" and I took off after her. I was able to persuade her to come back and join the group and promised she would not have to speak if she didn't want to. As trainers we are indoctrinated with the 'learning outcomes' and the 'units of competency' and are constantly focusing on delivering information to meet these standards. As a speaker, your objectives are broader. You don't have time to tell them everything they need to know and if you try, you will either overwhelm them with too much information leaving them feeling confused, or you can end up presenting them with a 'DO THIS' list which is uninspiring and results in their inner ten year old speaking up and saying \"Yeah? Make me!\" Get a 'Grab' - A study by the Harvard Business School of psychology suggests that once you start speaking you have 10 seconds before your audience decides whether this will be a good presentation or a bad one. Don't squander this opportunity by saying \"Hello, my name is [Sharon Ferrier] and today I'm going to talk about...\" Start with a 'grab'. Your grab may be a startling statistic, a hypothetical question, a picture or a story, then smile and watch them lean in and become engaged as you start to win them over.

As I celebrated [Patrick]'s 12th birthday and with Samuel's 9th birthday coming up, I'm once again pausing, reflecting and reviewing my journey. In my business I have achieved the perfect balance of training, consulting and keynotes. Though, interestingly enough, as much as I love the adrenaline rush of being on stage, it is the training that I enjoy most. I love seeing the whirr and click on people's faces and I know that they've internalised what I've been sharing with them and they will see and do things differently. Someone once asked at a National Speakers Association of Australia meeting what was the difference between speaking and training and someone cheekily replied \"About five grand!\" When I first became a trainer I quickly realised that I talked too much. As a trainer it's not what you say that is so important, it's what they say. And you need to allow for silence and contemplation so you can hear the quiet 'click' that let's you know, \"Yes! they've got it.\" If you follow my presentation plan, have a strong objective, tailor it to your audience and are knowledgeable and engaging, here's what will happen: 75% of the audience will say 'That was great -1 get it - good job!' 20% will say 'OMGyou rock my world!' Essentially, you got lucky:you delivered to them the right message at the right time. And 5% will say 'That sucked' Why ? Who knows?Maybe they ran over the cat on the way to your workshop, maybe you look like their ex or the kid who used to tease them in grade six, all I know is that you can't win over all people all the time. We all have our 'soft spots' things that don't come naturally to us, tasks that, for us, require extra effort. Pick your soft spots that require attention, not all do. One of my soft spots is that I cannot rollerblade, and you know what? I can live with that. But when I realised that my 'talking too much' was a liability this became a soft spot that needed to be addressed.

I love all forms of water sports, and was an experienced swimming instructor having had taught at various 'vac-swims' around South Australia. 'The kids are going to love me!' I thought confidently. 'They'll be going to their ordinary classes and then hightailing it down to the pool for an hour of learning, fun and frivolity!' One recommendation I make in my Staple it to their heads-how to make your training stick (see August 2011 issue, pp 18-19) is to rethink your 'learning objectives' slide. I have been looking over workshop slide kits on topics that I know well and have felt completely overwhelmed by the objectives listed. For example, 'At the end of this workshop you will be able to ...' can chill the heart of the most enthusiastic student. Delete 'constructive criticism' from your vocabulary- it's one of management's great oxymorons. (Construct = build up; criticise = tear down). Remember the parenting motto: praise in public and criticise in private. Well, I pulled them aside telling them that I had a special project for them. I then explained how I needed them to be able to demonstrate some of the scary things to the rest of the class and then encourage the others to have a go. 'Do we have a deal?' I said, 'I'm relying on you and you have an important job, are you up for it?' Then we shook hands on it. By helping them 'face their fears and do it anyway5 they not only improved their skills but also became a role model for others.

In this series of studies, I was interested in how a common life history constraint among a phylogenetically related group of insects could have differential effects on their expressed ecology and resultant distribution and abundance across the landscape. The gall-inducing sawflies in the Family Tenthredinidae all share the common constraint of depositing eggs into plant tissue. They use a saw-like ovipositor, hence their namesake, to perform this function. In Chapter 1, I investigate the fine structure of the ovipositor of the stem galling sawfly, Euura lasiolepis, to identify the presence of chemoreceptors. The constraint that this ovipositor has in determining the expressed ecology is complicated by the resource utilized by the female. Within the phylogenetically related group of gall-inducing sawflies, there are multiple gall forms based on the niche utilized by each species. They include stem gallers, bud gallers, petiole gallers, mid-rib gallers, leaf-lamina gallers, and leaf-edge gallers. In Chapter 2, I compare the population dynamics of two different gall forms, the stem galler and the leaf-lamina gallers. I chose to compare these two gall forms because of the different resources they use on a plant. Their differential exploitation of resources within a single host plant can cause marked differences in their resultant population dynamics. I tested the resource-heterogeneity hypothesis and found that when resources are very similar they allow females to lay eggs across a wider range of possibilities than for females whose target resource is more heterogeneous. Consequently, larval performance is consistently higher in the species that targets a more homogeneous resource, i.e., the leaf-lamina gallers. Therefore, the stem gallers showed a strong preference-performance linkage and the leaf-lamina gallers did not. Variation in target resources of specialized insects can define how sensitive a species will be to a dynamic environment, thus dictating their abundance and distribution. In Chapter 3, I describe how community similarity, richness, and abundance change with distance and habitat isolation in this phylogenetically related group of insects across the range of their single host plant, Salix lasiolepis. I found a highly nested subset structure in this sawfly assemblage that was not explained by distance, but by the connectedness of their habitat. Connected habitat types have a significantly different community composition, and higher richness and abundance than isolated habitats. The nested subset pattern seen in these sawflies was most likely extinction-dominated due to the low dispersal distance of species in this taxon and the highly fragmented distribution of the host plant. The predicted species extinction order was as follows: mid-rib galler (Euura sp.), petiole galler (Euura sp.), stem-galler (Euura lasiolepis), leaf-lamina galler (Pontania sp.), leaf-edge galler (Phyllocolpa sp.) which also mimics the evolutionary order of this group with Phyllocolpa being the most primitive. Conservation planning based on our data would suggest that connected habitats or long-coherent drainages are essential for sawfly persistence because extinction risk in the isolated habitats or fragmented drainages was extreme.

As an external consultant I can look at their problem with \"fresh eyes\" and provide them with an objective viewpoint and solutions that they may not have considered. I find it pays to be brutally honest in these meetings. Often the expectations on what I can deliver in a full-day workshop or a one-hour keynote are unrealistic and, as my credibility as a trainer/speaker is only as good as my last job, I need to be very clear on what the need is and how I can assist in meeting it. \"How do you see this working?\" and \"Where do we go from here?\" helps the client verbalise and cement their plans. Discover if the training manager's understanding reflects the participants' reality by investigating via questionnaires, phone calls or \"secret shopper\" activities. Wants are easy to come across, but unless you dig deeper you risk providing a service that either misses the mark completely or just skims the surface. As a naturally inquisitive person I enjoy the challenge of donning my archaeological garb, getting out my spade and pick and jumping in, \"boots 'n all\" to uncover the real need.