“Pussy cat, pussy cat where have you been..?” Evaluating the use of stable isotopes, radiogenic isotopes and trace elements for investigating the ecology of Panthera leo

1. Understanding the behaviour and ecology of large carnivores is becoming increasingly important as the list of endangered species grows, with felids such as Panthera leo in some locations heading dangerously close to extinction in the wild. In order to have more reliable and effective tools to understand animal behaviour, movement and diet, we need to develop novel, integrated approaches and effective techniques to capture a detailed profile of animal foraging and movement patterns. 2. Ecological studies have shown considerable interest in using stable isotope methods, both to investigate the nature of animal feeding habits, and to map their geographical location. However, recent work has suggested that stable isotope analyses of felid fur and bone is very complex and does not correlate directly with the isotopic composition of precipitation (and hence geographical location). 3. We present new data that suggest these previous findings may be atypical, and demonstrate that isotope analyses of Felidae are suitable for both evaluating dietary inputs and establishing geo-location as they have strong environmental referents to both food and water. These data provide new evidence of an important methodology that can be applied to the family Felidae for future research in ecology, conservation, wildlife forensics and archaeological science.

Convergence accommodation in orthoptic practice

Aims. Orthoptists are familiar with AC/A ratios and the concept that accommodation drives convergence, but the reverse relationship, that of the accommodation associated with convergence, is rarely considered. Methods. This article reviews published evidence from our laboratory which has investigated the drives to both vergence and accommodation. All studies involved a method by which accommodation and vergence were measured concurrently and objectively to a range of visual stimuli which manipulate blur, disparity and proximal/looming cues in different combinations. Results Results are summarised for both typical and atypical participants, and over development between birth and adulthood. Conclusions For the majority of typical children and adults, as well as patients with most heterophorias and intermittent exotropia, disparity is the main cue to both vergence and accommodation. Thus the convergence→accommodation relationship is more influential than that of accommodative vergence. Differences in “style” of near cue use may be a more useful way to think about responses to stimuli moving in depth, and their consequences for orthoptic patients, than either AC/A or CA/C ratios. The implications of a strong role for vergence accommodation in orthoptic practice are considered.

Le développement de la prosodie dans le syndrome de Williams et le syndrome de Down chez des enfants de langue anglaise

The aim of the present study is to investigate the developmental profile of three aspects of prosody function, i.e. affect, focus and turn-endings in children with Williams and in those with Down’s syndrome compared to typically developing English speaking children. The tasks used were part of the computer-based battery, Profiling Elements of Prosody for Speech Communication (Peppe, McCann & Gibon, 2003). Cross-sectional developmental trajectories linking chronological and non-verbal mental age and affects and turn-ending functions of prosody were constructed. The results showed an atypical profile in both clinical populations. More interestingly, the profiles were atypical for different reasons, suggesting multiple and possibly different developmental pathways to the acquisition of prosody in these two populations.