Factors affecting breeding success in Peregrine Falcons (Falco peregrinus macropus) across Victoria 1991 - 2012

Peregrine Falcon’s lifetime reproductive outputs are influenced more by the quality of the nest site than by the environmental landscape in which they live. The installation of a nest boxes significantly improves breeding outcomes. Uniquely, Victorian Peregrines use novel (non-cliff) nest sites and disperse considerably shorter distances to adopt these sites.

Australian children's independent mobility levels: secondary analyses of cross-sectional data between 1991 and 2012

This study investigated changes in Australian children's independent mobility levels between1991 and 2012. Data from five cross-sectional studies conducted in 1991, 1993, 2010, 2011 and 2012 were analysed. Parent and child surveys were used to assess parental licences for independent mobility and actual independent mobility behaviour in children aged 8–13 years. Findings show declines in the proportion of young children (≤10 years of age) being allowed to travel home from school alone (1991: 68%, 1993: 50%, 2010: 43%, 2011: 45%, 2012: 31%) and travel on buses alone (1991: 31%, 1993: 15%, 2010: 8%, 2011: 6%, 2012: 9%). Furthermore, the proportion of children travelling independently to school decreased (1991: 61%, 1993: 42%, 2010: 31%, 2011: 32%, 2012: 32%). Significantly fewer girls than boys travelled independently to school at each time point (p ≤ .001). Overall, the findings suggest that Australian children's independent mobility levels declined between 1991 and 2012.

Adjuvant therapy, not mammographic screening, accounts for most of the observed breast cancer specific mortality reductions in Australian women since the national screening program began in 1991

There has been a 28% reduction in age-standardised breast cancer mortality in Australia since 1991 when the free national mammographic program (BreastScreen) began. Therefore, a comparative study between BreastScreen participation and breast cancer age specific mortality trends in Australia was undertaken for two time periods between 1991 and 2007, where women aged 50–59 and 60–69 years, who were invited to screen, were compared to women aged 40–49 and 70–79 years who were not invited, but who did have access to the program. There were mortality reductions in all four age groups between 1991–1992 and 2007, resulting in 5,849 (95% CI 4,979 to 6,718) fewer women dying of breast cancer than would have otherwise been the case. Women aged 40–49 years, who had the lowest BreastScreen participation (approximately 20%), had the largest mortality reduction: 44% (95% CI 34.8–51.2). Women aged 60–69 years, who had the highest BreastScreen participation (approximately 60%), had the smallest mortality reduction: 19% (95% CI 10.5–26.9). As BreastScreen participation by invited women aged 50–69 years only reached a maximum of about 55–60% in 1998–1999, a decline in mortality in Australian women cannot be attributed to BreastScreen prior to this time. Thus, almost 60% of the Australian decline in breast cancer mortality since 1991 cannot be attributed to BreastScreen. Therefore, mammographic screening cannot account for most of the reductions in breast cancer mortality that have occurred in Australian women since 1991 and may have contributed to over-diagnosis. Most, if not all, of the reductions can be attributed to the adjuvant hormonal and chemotherapy, which Australian women have increasingly received since 1986.

Record of the deep marine Clinocythereis australis Ayress and Swanson, 1991 (Ostracoda) from the upper Miocene Tambo River Formation, Gippsland Basin, Australia : Palaeo-oceanographic and biostratigraphic implications

Fossils of the deep marine ostracod, Clinocythereis australis Ayress & Swanson, 1991 occur within the Tambo River Formation, Gippsland Basin, southeastern Australia and record an approximately 6 Ma phase of late Miocene coastal ocean upwelling within this region. The presence of deep marine faunal elements within late Miocene Mitchellian strata is in contrast to the absence of such faunal elements in latest Miocene Cheltenhamian and younger marine strata of the Bass Strait hinterland. The absence of deep marine faunal elements in post-Mitchellian onshore strata is due to the Kosciusko Uplift, which transformed Bass Strait into a wholly shallow seaway placing adjacent coastal regions beyond the reach of ocean upwelling influences.