core areas
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Abstract As urbanisation continues to reduce the available habitat for wildlife some species, such as the black-and-gold howler monkey (Alouatta caraya) in Pilar, southwest Paraguay, are making their homes in anthropogenic environments. Understanding an animal's home range is an important first step to understanding its ecological needs, an essential requirement for robust conservation plans. In this study we determined the home ranges and core areas of five groups of urban dwelling A. caraya using Minimum Convex Polygon (MCP) and Kernel Density Estimation (KDE) Analysis. We used a Spearman’s Correlation to explore the relationship between home range size and group size. All five groups had home ranges of less than 10 ha and used core areas of less than 1ha. Group size had no significant relationship to home range size. We provide the first estimates of home range for A. caraya in an urban environment in Paraguay. Though the home ranges of the urban A. caraya in Pilar, Paraguay fall at the smaller end of the spectrum of range sizes in Alouatta they are not abnormal for a species in this genus.

Recent interest in the subject of workplace spirituality and leadership emphasizes the integrative potential of spirituality in the workplace as a means of increasing cohesiveness and leadership effectiveness. Relatively little attention has, so far, been devoted to how spirituality could act as a force of developing leadership effectiveness within organizations. Since workplace spirituality and leadership together are in a developing phase of postmodern discourse, the bridge between the two needs to be narrowed down by identifying the reasons for the evident disconnection between workplace outcomes and leadership spirituality and probing possible moderators and mediators of this relationship. The chapter encapsulates the existing research evidence on spirituality and leadership effectiveness to identify the future research agenda in the area. The review reveals that workplace spirituality and leadership share a significant positive relationship and that improving the core areas of spirituality can improve various dimensions of leadership.

The key lubricants for the necessary functioning of any organization are money, machines, time, and humans. Human resources is the most important ingredient among them. Most projects fail because of ineptitude of those who administer the project, notably in government projects. Alternatively, advertisement for expert positions suffers as a result of poor coverage, late responses, non-transparency, and subjective selection during recruitment process. This work proposes a fuzzy system for the evaluation of human resources for the management of projects in core areas where professional services are expedient for supervision. It exposes the level of experience on the job, core competencies, exposure, and knowledge scope. A prototype fuzzy system for evaluation of human resource for project management, consisting of a user friendly menu-driven interface, was developed for evaluating the suitability of professionals for different roles within a project team. At the end of the work, it is expected that governments, companies, and various donor agencies would find the system useful when embarking on projects for an optimal result.

Protected areas play significant roles in protecting biodiversity by mitigating human activities. As an indicator for human activities, the human footprint (HF) can be used to assess the effectiveness of protected areas. We developed a HF dataset for the Sanjiangyuan region in China after localizing the global HF model. Then we used it to assess the effectiveness of Sanjiangyuan nature reserve (SNR) in mitigating human pressures. Our results suggest that the HF value for the Sanjiangyuan region was generally low from 1995 to 2015, with a fluctuating increasing trend. The SNR is partially effective in mitigating human pressures. For 2005–2010, the HF values decreased both within and outside the reserve with more decreases for the outside. For the three functional zones of the SNR, our results show that the HF values decreased during 2005–2010 for all of them, with the largest decrease in the experimental area, and increased during 2010–2015, with the lowest increase in the core areas. The results we obtained are consistent with ecological indicator-based assessments. It is a challenge for the government to balance conservation and development in establishing Sanjiangyuan National Park.

Potato (Solanum tuberosum L.) is one of the most important vegetable crops and the fourth most important edible crop after the three major cereal crops. It is considered as an approximately complete diet food because of its nutritional value. Its center of origin is Peru, South America. In Punjab, Pakistan, the districts of Sahiwal and Okara serve as the core areas of potato cultivation. Thirty-three potato genotypes were collected from the core areas of Punjab for characterization. The genetic diversity of potato germplasm was assessed on the basis of morphophysiological traits. This experiment was conducted with a randomized complete block design and three replications. The data on 14 morphological and physiological traits were recorded. Analysis of variance indicated the presence of highly significant variation for each physiological and morphological trait. Correlation analysis showed that plant yield was highly correlated with the number of tubers per plant (0.484), tuber weight (0.648), and chlorophyll contents (0.365). By contrast, tuber dry matter exhibited a significant highly negative association with tuber moisture content (−0.753). Algorithmic hierarchical cluster analysis allocated the genotypes into four distinct clusters. Cluster 2, which was the largest cluster, comprised 18 genotypes. By contrast, cluster 4 was the smallest cluster and contained only two genotypes. The results of diversity analysis obtained through hierarchical clustering were further validated through principal component analysis (PCA). PCA provided five significant principal components that contributed 72.39% of the total variation. The principal components of the biplot explained 41.95% of the total variation, with tuber moisture content and tuber dry matter as distinct traits. Cultivars ‘SH-5’, ‘SH 7-18’, ‘Simply Red,’ and ‘Ruby’ were the vertex genotypes in the biplot. Results indicated the prevalence of significant variation in the tested germplasm. Furthermore, the assessment of diversity at the molecular level is recommended for the further validation of genetic diversity.

In this report, we analyze the 2021 data, focusing on how respondents feel the COVID-19 pandemic has influenced their sexual and reproductive health in two core areas: fertility preferences and access to care, including use of telehealth. We note disparities according to individuals’ race and ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender identity, income level and economic well-being. To assess the ongoing scope and magnitude of the impacts of the pandemic, we also examine findings on comparable measures from the 2020 and 2021 GSRHE studies. These data provide four key findings: The pandemic has continued to shift fertility preferences and impede access to sexual and reproductive health care, including contraceptive services. The impacts reported in the summer of 2021 are smaller than those reported earlier in the pandemic but remain pervasive. The pandemic continues to have disproportionate effects on the sexual and reproductive health of those already experiencing systemic social and health inequities. Telehealth services are bridging gaps in sexual and reproductive health care resulting from pandemic-related upheaval, particularly for those who already experience barriers to accessing health care.

Abstract This plenary speech provides an overview of applications of corpus research in several core areas of applied linguistics, including second language acquisition and language assessment. It does this by showcasing a number of recent studies carried out by or with involvement of the author. These studies all focus on phraseological aspects of language and demonstrate the importance of studying its patterned nature. The studies also illustrate how corpora and corpus-analytic techniques can allow us as applied linguists to contribute to solving problems in other disciplines (such as legal scholarship or music theory) and hope to thereby encourage more interdisciplinary research collaborations between corpus linguists and scholars from other fields.

Movement behavior and habitat use of the long-eared bat species Plecotus auritus and Plecotus austriacus were studied in the Havelland region in Brandenburg (Germany). Data collection included mist-netting, radiotelemetry, reconstruction of prey items, and monitoring of roosting sites. Body measurements confirm a high degree of phenotypic similarity between the two species. Total activity areas (100% Minimum Convex Polygons, MCPS) of Plecotus austriacus (2828.3 ± 1269.43 ha) were up to five-fold larger compared to Plecotus auritus (544.54 ± 295.89 ha). The activity areas of Plecotus austriacus contained up to 11 distinct core areas, and their mean total size (149.7 ± 0.07 ha) was approximately three-fold larger compared to core areas of Plecotus auritus (49.2 ± 25.6 ha). The mean distance between consecutive fixes per night was 12.72 ± 3.7 km for Plecotus austriacus and 4.23 ± 2.8 km for Plecotus auritus. While Plecotus austriacus was located most frequently over pastures (>40%) and meadows (>20%), P. auritus was located mostly within deciduous (>50%) and mixed forests (>30%) in close vicinity to its roosts. Roost site monitoring indicates that the activity of P. austriacus is delayed relative to P. auritus in spring and declined earlier in autumn. These phenological differences are probably related to the species’ respective diets. Levins’ measure of trophic niche breadth suggests that the prey spectrum for P. auritus is more diverse during spring (B = 2.86) and autumn (B = 2.82) compared to P. austriacus (spring: B = 1.7; autumn: B = 2.1). Our results give reason to consider these interspecific ecological variations and species-specific requirements of P. auritus and P. austriacus to develop adapted and improved conservation measures.

The taxonomically important characters and subgeneric subdivision of Dichagyris are presented with several historical and nomenclatural considerations. Subdivision of D. vallesiaca is revised based on the type material of the known subspecies. The D. psammochroa group is revised, with description of a new species, D. kurbatskyi from Kazakhstan, and one new subspecies, D. psammochroa kopetdaghimena from the Kopet-Dagh massif. The D. taftana group is revised, with the description of a new species (D. guentereberti from Afghanistan) and two new subspecies (D. taftana elborsasta and D. taftana safavida, from different areas of Iran). The eastern sister species of D. humilis, D. hypotacta from Afghanistan and Pakistan, is described. Major phylogenetic clades of Dichagyris s. str. are associated to western Palaearctic and/or Central Asiatic mountainous regions. Core areas of allopatric speciation of Dichagyris s. str. are discussed with taxonomic considerations and outlook on the subgenera Yigoga and Albocosta, as well.

There is evidence that cattle grazing in forests limits big cat abundance. There is concern, too, about competition with wild ungulate prey through bottom-up effects on vegetation. Hence, there have been calls to remove or control forest livestock grazing in aid of restoring endangered large carnivores and their prey. To help inform scientific debate and decision making, we explored cattle-vegetation-prey dynamics in Northeast Tiger and Leopard National Park, northeast China and present a reappraisal of livestock grazing in the context of coexistence and an integrated approach to land use in China. Inside long-term forest grazing enclosures, wild boar (Sus scrofa) density increased with cattle density. Roe deer (Capreolus pygargus) density and occurrence probability of wild boar and roe deer were not influenced by cattle density. Wild ungulate densities were not related with the number of annual shoots, i.e., forage plant abundance. The presence/absence and abundance of annual shoots was not related with cattle density. Wild ungulate density had mixed associations with vegetation structure; arbor tree diameter at breast height (DBH) and habitat “openness” increased with cattle density. Finally, inside and outside enclosures had different vegetation characteristics and wild boar densities, while roe deer densities were equal. We conclude that cattle density and associated changes to vegetation have positive, negative, and neutral effects on two wild ungulate prey species. Each of these factors warrant consideration in evidence-based management decisions in regard to regulating ungulate community composition to support different large predators as preferred prey in core areas and corridors of habitats.