Valuation and reporting of native fauna in monetary terms: compatibility between a market-Based system and natural resources?

A change in community values and priorities has introduced ethical,
environmental and social issues into the way in which business conducts
its activities. There are an increasing number of managed investment funds focusing on socially responsible investment (SRI) by concentrating on firms that operate according to predetermined criteria for environmental, social and ethical issues. For investors in these funds environmental stewardship issues are integrated with concern over financial resources and performance. In this paper the accounting and reporting by business activities concerned with conservation of wildlife are examined. The world of accounting has functioned for many years with relatively few accounting standards devoted to specialised industry needs. In 1998 the Australian Accounting Standards Board and in 2001 the International Accounting Standards Board issued standards devoted to agriculture. Both standards deal with the reporting of managed biological assets and require application of essentially the same approaches despite the Australian standard requiring net market value while the International standard requires fair value. In this paper we analyse how one conservation firm Earth Sanctuaries Ltd. (ESL) has applied AASB 1037 and then we explore the implications for conservation firms operating in geographical locations outside Australia. It is suggested that AASB 1037 and indeed lAS 41 may not provide value appropriate information for investor decisions relating to accounting profits for such firms. Our examination shows that it is appropriate to reconsider accounting guidelines provided by these standards in order to link the information relating to economic and environmental performance. Transparency may be improved by a move closer to Elkington 's (1997) triple bottom line reporting. We therefore contend that the issues arising from the use ofAASB 1037 and lAS 41 need to be widely considered by all standard setters, particularly given the increasing attention to SRI.

Barriers to cross-fertilization between populations of a widely dispersed Polychaete species are unlikely to have arisen through gametic compatibility arms-races

Although there are theoretical reasons to suspect that gametic incompatibility may develop readily among populations of broadcast spawning marine invertebrates, there have been very few studies documenting geographic patterns of interpopulation incompatibility for any species. To address this we determined how successfully individuals of the intertidal serpulid polychaete, Galeolaria caespitosa, can cross-fertilize within and among populations from across temperate Australia. Fertilization assays revealed asymmetrical differences between very distantly located populations from different coasts, with near-complete incompatibility between eggs from Sydney with sperm from Adelaide, but the reverse cross (Adelaide eggs, Sydney sperm) was reasonably compatible. Although that pattern was congruent with a clear difference in Cytochrome B sequences between worms on the south and east coasts of Australia, we also detected some indication of interpopulation incompatibility within the genetic grouping on east coast, between two populations separated by only 220 km. We then assessed whether commonly proposed gametic compatibility arms-races could account for these patterns. Our results suggest reduced gametic compatibility may reduce a female's maximum fertilization potential, resulting in a cost to this potential mechanism for reducing polyspermy. Consequently, the apparently rapid development of reproductive barriers here seems unlikely to have been driven by arms-races involving sexual conflict over fertilization rate.

An empirical and logical exploration of the strategic compatibility of best practice and product innovation : preliminary insights from Australian and New Zealand manufacturing industry

In an attempt to enhance debate focused on an established academic controversy, this study re-investigated selected data from the 1994 AMC survey of Australian and New Zealand manufacturing practices to test the hypothesis that best practice and product innovation may be incompatible generic business strategies. A modification of Robert G. Cooper’s Stage-Gate product development model was used as a theoretical framework to create a measurable construct of ‘product innovation’ as a strategy and compare two groups: firms committed to a best practice strategy (BPs) and firms not utilising best practice (Non-BPs). Eight variables were scrutinised. After logical critique was added to statistical data analysis, four major insights emerged.

(1) Tests yielded several statistically significant but substantively inconclusive results because both studied groups had nearly identical profiles in rating innovation as the factor of lowest importance to commercial success and because the definitional framework which guided construction of the survey instrument treated innovation as a second-order issue. (2) Currently, best practice and product innovation are logically incompatible by definition. (3) Even if the definition of best practice were changed, it is likely that the additional key process of innovation would remain incompatible with the existing key process of benchmarking. (4) However, until the definition of best practice does make an attempt to include innovation as a key process rather than an outcome, testing any hypothesis of strategic compatibility between a best practice focus and an innovation focus will be both empirically difficult and logically unnecessary.

Towards consistency, rigour and compatibility of risk assessments for ecosystems and ecological communities

Ecosystem-level conservation is increasingly important at global, national and local levels. Many jurisdictions have developed and apply their own protocols for assessing the threat status of ecosystems, often independently, leading to inconsistencies between and within countries which are problematic for cross-jurisdictional environmental reporting. Australia is a good example of these historic legacies, with different risk assessment methods applied nationally and in most states. The newly developed criteria for the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Ecosystems (RLE) provide a framework to compare and contrast apparently divergent protocols. We critically reviewed the Australian protocols and compared them with the IUCN RLE, based on the following components of a risk assessment protocol: (i) categories of threat; (ii) assessment units; (iii) underlying concepts and definitions; (iv) assessment criteria; (v) uncertainty methods; and (vi) assessment outcomes. Despite some differences in specific objectives, criteria and their expression, the protocols were structurally similar, included broadly similar types of criteria, and produced assessment outcomes that were generally concordant. Alignment with the IUCN RLE would not require extensive changes to existing protocols, but would improve consistency, rigour and robustness in ecosystem risk assessment across jurisdictions. To achieve this, we recommend: (i) more quantitative assessments of functional change; (ii) separation of management and policy considerations from risk assessment; and (iii) cross-referencing of assessment units in different jurisdictions. We argue that the focus on processes and ecological function, rather than only patterns, is key to robust risk assessment. © 2014 The Authors.

The more pieces, the better the puzzle: sperm concentration increases gametic compatibility

The genetic benefits individuals receive from mate choice have been the focus of numerous studies, with several showing support for both intrinsic genetic benefits and compatibility effects on fertilization success and offspring viability. However, the robustness of these effects have rarely been tested across an ecologically relevant environmental gradient. In particular, sperm environment is a crucial factor determining fertilization success in many species, especially those with external fertilization. Here, we test the importance of sperm environment in mediating compatibility-based selection on fertilization using a factorial breeding design. We detected a significant intrinsic male effect on fertilization success at only one of four sperm concentrations. Compatibility effects were significant at the two highest sperm concentrations and, interestingly, the magnitude of the compatibility effect consistently increased with sperm concentration. This suggests that females are able to modify the probability of sperm-egg fusion as the amount of sperm available increases.

Contract enforcement and incentive compatibility in large economies with differential information: the role of exact feasibility

We consider exchange economies with a continuum of agents and differential information about finitely many states of nature. It was proved in Einy, Moreno and Shitovitz (2001) that if we allow for free disposal in the market clearing (feasibility) constraints then an irreducible economy has a competitive (or Walrasian expectations) equilibrium, and moreover, the set of competitive equilibrium allocations coincides with the private core. However when feasibility is defined with free disposal, competitive equilibrium allocations may not be incentive compatible and contracts may not be enforceable (see e.g. Glycopantis, Muir and Yannelis (2002)). This is the main motivation for considering equilibrium solutions with exact feasibility. We first prove that the results in Einy et al. (2001) are still valid without free-disposal. Then we define an incentive compatibility property motivated by the issue of contracts’ execution and we prove that every Pareto optimal exact feasible allocation is incentive compatible, implying that contracts of a competitive or core allocations are enforceable.

Schistosome/mollusk: genetic compatibility

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)

Evaluation of thermal compatibility between core and veneer dental ceramics using shear bond strength test and contact angle measurement

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)

Phylogenetic relationship between species of genus Cattleya as a function of crossing compatibility

The applicability of the gradcd fertility method in the study of the phylogenctic distance of orchids was investigated with emphasis on the production of F1 hybrid secds with cmbryos. Specics of the genus Cattleya, subgenera Monophyllae, Aurantiacae and Cattleya wece used and the results compared with those obtained with morphological and chemical methods.

Reproductive compatibility and chromosome pairing in the Drosophila buzzatii complex

Fertility (percentage of fertile crosses) and the degree of synapsis in salivary gland chromosomes in isofemale lines of Drosophila buzzatii, D. serido, D. koepferae and D. seriema were analysed. D. buzzatii was completely sterile in intercrosses with strains from the other species except for D. koepferae. The other species intercrossed to a greater or lesser degree, but also differed between crossing directions. Homologous pairing in salivary gland preparations of strains and hybrids conformed with the data on fertility. The lowest degree of synapsis was present in hybrids between D. koepferae and D. buzzatii, D. seriema and D. koepferae and D. koepferae and D. serido. These species also exhibited the lowest degree of reproductive compatibility. Hybrids between D. seriema and D. serido showed an intermediate degree of synapsis (pairing absent in the proximal and distal chromosome ends), as well as fertility greater than that found in the other interspecific crosses. Results of the fertility of crosses involving strains of a single species, compared with data in the literature, indicated that intraspecific divergence occurred in D. serido and D. koepferae.