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The Eastern Archaic, Historicized offers an alternative perspective on the genesis and transformation of cultural diversity over eight millennia of hunter-gatherer dwelling in eastern North America. For many decades, archaeological understanding of Archaic diversity has been dominated by perspectives that emphasize localized relationships between humans and environment. The evidence, shows, however that Archaic people routinely associated with other groups throughout eastern North America and expressed themselves materially in ways that reveal historical links to other places and times. Starting with the colonization of eastern North America by two distinct ancestral lines, the Eastern Archaic was an era of migrations, ethnogenesis, and coalescence—an 8,200-year era of making histories through interactions and expressing them culturally in ritual and performance.

Migration was embraced as a general phenomenon by cultural historical archaeologists in the Eastern Woodlands, subsequently rejected by processualists, and recently invoked again with greater frequency due to advances in both method and theory. However, challenges remain in regard to establishing temporal correlations between source and host regions and identifying the specific mechanisms of migration and their archaeological correlates. Bayesian modeling, in combination with insights from recent modeling of migration processes, supports the inference that migration was a causal factor for shifts in settlement observed in the archaeology of the Woodland period (ca. 1000 BC to AD 1050) cultures of the eastern Gulf Coast subregion.

Aim Much research has quantified species responses to human‐modified ecosystems. However, there is limited work on how human‐modified ecosystems may reshape competitive interactions between species. Using a 19‐year study across 3 million ha, we aimed to answer the question: Are levels of interference competition between bird species context dependent and influenced by habitat structure and productivity? We focussed on the hyper‐aggressive behaviour of the Noisy Miner (Manorina melanocephala), which is recognized as a key threatening process for other woodland bird species in Australia. Whether environmental conditions such as amount of forest cover and net primary productivity (NPP) mediate the Noisy Miners' impact remains untested at large spatiotemporal scales. Location Temperate woodlands of south‐eastern Australia. Methods We gathered data on bird site occupancy from repeated surveys of field sites and assembled satellite data on tree cover and NPP. We constructed Bayesian multi‐species occupancy/detection models of bird species in woodland patches and tested the fixed and interactive effects of Noisy Miner presence, the amount of tree cover, NPP, and time. We quantified the responses of 31 species, many with known interactions with the Noisy Miner documented previously at fine spatial scales. Results We identified negative associations between the Noisy Miner and 18 bird species, including, unexpectedly, both small and large bodied taxa. Site occupancy in some species was influenced by interactions between Noisy Miner presence and increasing amounts of tree cover or productivity. For some species, interference competition by the Noisy Miner is context‐dependent and mitigated by increasing tree cover and/or increasing NPP. Main Conclusions Our analyses revealed that woodland bird conservation in our study region will be promoted by protecting refugia characterized by areas of high NPP and high tree cover. Preventing vegetation clearing that reduces tree cover could reduce interference competition by the Noisy Miner on parts of the remaining woodland bird community, including species of conservation concern.

David Geoffrey Dalgliesh, naval surgeon was born on 22 March 1922 to Kenneth and Ellen Dalgliesh. With three sisters and a younger brother he grew up in Sidcup, Kent, in semi-rural surroundings of gardens, fields and woodlands where he developed a lasting love of natural history. Aged nine he learnt woodwork, a manual skill that re-emerged later in his gift for surgery. He attended Merchant Taylor's School until 1939, taking the 1st MB examination in preparation for entering medical school. When World War II began in September 1939 he was of military age but compulsorily reserved as a future doctor. After a gap year as agricultural labourer, fire watcher and founder member of the Local Defence Volunteers (forerunner of the Home Guard), David joined St Thomas's Hospital Medical School in 1940. His early months of study coincided with the London blitz, in which every city hospital was fully involved and severely tested. Later he served in emergency dressing stations, set up in southern England to treat casualties returning from the Normandy invasion. On graduating MRCS and LRCP in 1946, David had gained an unusual but invaluable practical training in emergency medicine.

The decomposition of large vertebrate carcasses generates small‐scale disturbances characterized by changes in soil chemistry and new opportunities for plant establishment. Yet few studies have examined whether this effect is still evident several years after death, or has consequences for landscape‐scale heterogeneity. We examined soil chemistry and plant species richness and composition at 12 kangaroo carcasses (~30 kg initial mass) five years after their initial placement. Each carcass was paired with a nearby “control” site for comparison. We found that soil phosphorus was eight times higher at carcasses than at control sites, but that nitrogen concentration was similar. We also found that plant composition was substantially different between each carcass and control pair, with 80% of carcasses dominated by exotic species (mostly weedy annuals). Notably, overall variability in plant species composition across carcass sites was not different from the variability at control sites, indicating that the colonization of carcasses by weedy species did not have a homogenizing effect on plant assemblages across our study landscape. Our study demonstrates that a localized effect of large vertebrate carcasses on soil and plants was still evident after five years, indicating a state shift in the soil–plant dynamics at a carcass site. However, the effect of carcasses on landscape‐scale plant community heterogeneity was minimal because colonization was by weedy plants already present in the landscape.

We expand the concept of \"old growth\" to encompass the distinct ecologies and conservation values of the world's ancient grass-dominated biomes. Biologically rich grasslands, savannas, and open-canopy woodlands suffer from an image problem among scientists, policy makers, land managers, and the general public, that fosters alarming rates of ecosystem destruction and degradation. These biomes have for too long been misrepresented as the result of deforestation followed by arrested succession. We now know that grassy biomes originated millions of years ago, long before humans began deforesting. We present a consensus view from diverse geographic regions on the ecological characteristics needed to identify old-growth grasslands and to distinguish them from recently formed anthropogenic vegetation. If widely adopted, the old-growth grassland concept has the potential to improve scientific understanding, conservation policies, and ecosystem management.

Vernalisation requirement is an agriculturally important trait that postpones the development of cold‐sensitive floral organs until the spring. The family Rosaceae includes many agriculturally important fruit and berry crops that suffer from crop losses caused by frost injury to overwintering flower buds. Recently, a vernalisation‐requiring accession of the Rosaceae model woodland strawberry (Fragaria vesca) has been identified in northern Norway. Understanding the molecular basis of the vernalisation requirement in this accession would advance the development of strawberry cultivars better adapted to temperate climate. We use gene silencing, gene expression analysis, genetic mapping and population genomics to study the genetic basis of the vernalisation requirement in woodland strawberry. Our results indicate that the woodland strawberry vernalisation requirement is endemic to northern Norwegian population, and mapping data suggest the orthologue of TERMINAL FLOWER1 (FvTFL1) as the causal floral repressor. We demonstrate that exceptionally low temperatures are needed to downregulate FvTFL1 and to make these plants competent to induce flowering at low postvernalisation temperatures in the spring. We show that altered regulation of FvTFL1 in the northern Norwegian woodland strawberry accession postpones flower induction until the spring, allowing plants to avoid winter injuries of flower buds that commonly occur in temperate regions.

Aim Large‐scale habitat creation is crucial to mitigate the current ecological crisis, but scientific evidence on its effects on biodiversity is scarce. Here, we assess how assemblages of a biodiverse group (moths) develop over time in habitat creation sites. We use temperate woodlands as a case study, and compare species assemblages in restored and mature habitat patches. We also identify local‐ and landscape‐level attributes associated with high species richness and abundance. Location Central Scotland, United Kingdom. Methods We surveyed moths in a chronosequence of 79 temperate woodland patches encompassing woodland creation sites (20–160 years old) and mature “ancient” woodlands (250+ years old). We used structural equation models, generalized linear models and ordination techniques to quantify moth community responses to woodland creation, and degree of similarity to moth assemblages in ancient woodlands. Results Woodland creation sites harboured large numbers of moth species (212), were dominated by woodland generalists and had high species turnover. Moth abundance and diversity increased with woodland connectivity. Macromoths were more abundant and diverse in younger woodlands; micromoth specialists occurred more frequently in older woodland creation sites. Ancient woodlands had similar moth abundance/richness than woodland creation sites (except for fewer macromoth woodland specialist species), but their species composition was somewhat different. Patterns of beta diversity (low nestedness) indicated that moth species in woodland creation sites are not simply subsets of species in ancient woodlands. Main conclusions To benefit moth communities, woodland creation sites should be structurally diverse and in close proximity to other woodlands. At the landscape scale, a mosaic of woodland patches of different ages is likely to increase moth beta (and consequently gamma) diversity. Ancient woodlands and woodland creation sites each host substantial proportions of “unique” species; individual woodland patches contain distinctive moth assemblages and should be protected and valued for their contribution to regional moth diversity.

1. Grazing by domestic livestock is one of the most widespread land uses world-wide, particularly in rangelands, where it co-occurs with grazing by wild herbivores. Grazing effects on plant diversity are likely to depend on intensity of grazing, herbivore type, co-evolution with plants and prevailing environmental conditions. 2. We collected data on climate, plant productivity, soil properties, grazing intensity and herbivore type, and we measured their effects on plant species richness from 451 sites across 0.4 M km² of semi-arid rangelands in eastern Australia. We used structural equation modelling to examine the direct and indirect effects of increasing grazing intensity by different herbivores (cattle, sheep, kangaroos, rabbits) on native and exotic plant species richness across all sites, and in subsets focusing on three woodland communities spanning a gradient in productivity. 3. Direct effects of grazing by all herbivores were strongest under low productivity but waned with increasing productivity. Increases in the intensity of recent and historic livestock grazing corresponded with greater exotic plant richness under low productivity and less native plant richness under both low and moderate productivity. Rabbit effects were greatest under moderate productivity. Overall, the effects of kangaroos were benign. Grazing indirectly affected native and exotic plant richness by increasing soil phosphorus and reducing soil health (i.e. nutrient cycling). 4. Synthesis and applications. Our study shows that livestock grazing increases exotic species richness but reduces native richness, while kangaroo grazing increases native richness in environments with low productivity. The results provide clear messages for land managers and policy makers: (1) the coexistence of livestock grazing and plant diversity is only possible within more productive environments and (2) grazing under low or moderate productivity will impact upon native and exotic plant richness.