Attitudes to community relations in Northern Ireland: signs of optimisim in the post-cease fire period?

This article uses attitudinal data to explore Catholic and Protestant perspectives on community relations and equality since the paramilitary cease fires in 1994. Although attitudes tend to fluctuate with the‘headline grabbing'events of the day, the article argues that there are signs that some fundamental changes have taken place in the post cease fire period. Of particular importance in this regard is the positive response recorded by the Catholic community towards government measures to tackle disadvantage and inequality. Equally significant is the protestant response to many of these measures which is often one of ambivalence rather than derision. In so far as the data appear to challenge the‘zero-sum'game that traditionally underpins relations between the two communities in Northern Ireland, they provide some grounds for optimism. Yet such optimism is tempered somewhat by the seeds of discontent which are manifest within the protestant community, particularly around issues of equality in employment and cultural traditions. Despite the more positive assessment of community relations and equality in 2002, it is argued that further monitoring will be required to determine the long-term effects of policy reform on relationships between the two communit

How simple grazing rules can lead to persistent boundaries in vegetation communities.

Natural landscape boundaries between vegetation communities are dynamically influenced by the selective grazing of herbivores. Here we show how this may be an emergent property of very simple animal decisions, without the need for any sophisticated choice rules etc., using a model based on biased diffusion. Animal grazing intensity is coupled with plant competition, resulting in reaction-diffusion dynamics, from which stable boundaries spontaneously emerge. In the model, animals affect their resources by both consumption and trampling. It is assumed that forage consists of two heterogeneously distributed competing resource species, one that is preferred (grass) over the other (heather) by the animals. The solutions to the resulting system of differential equations for three cases a) optimal foraging, b) random walk foraging and c) taxis-diffusion are presented. Optimal and random foraging gave unrealistic results, but taxis-diffusion accorded well with field observations. Persistent boundaries between patches of near-monoculture vegetation were predicted, with these boundaries drifting in response to overall grazing pressure (grass advancing with increased grazing and vice versa). The reaction-taxis-diffusion model provides the first mathematical explanation for such vegetation mosaic dynamics and the parameters of the model are open to experimental testing.

“Islands” in Holocene forests: implications for forest openness, landscape clearance and “culture-steppe” species

Human activity has undoubtedly had a major impact on Holocene forested ecosystems, with the concurrent expansion of plants and animals associated with cleared landscapes and pasture, also known as 'culture-steppe'. However, this anthropogenic perspective may have underestimated the contribution of autogenic disturbance (e.g. wind-throw, fire), or a mixture of autogenic and anthropogenic processes, within early Holocene forests. Entomologists have long argued that the north European primary forest was probably similar in structure to pasture woodland. This idea has received support from the conservation biologist Frans Vera, who has recently strongly argued that the role of large herbivores in maintaining open forests in the primeval landscapes of Europe has been seriously underestimated. This paper reviews this debate from a fossil invertebrate perspective and looks at several early Holocene insect assemblages. Although wood taxa are indeed important during this period, species typical of open areas and grassland and dung beetles, usually associated with the dung of grazing animals, are persistent presences in many early woodland faunas. We also suggest that fire and other natural disturbance agents appear to have played an important ecological role in some of these forests, maintaining open areas and creating open vegetation islands within these systems. More work, however, is required to ascertain the role of grazing animals, but we conclude that fossil insects have a significant contribution to make to this debate. This evidence has fundamental implications in terms of how the palaeoecological record is interpreted, particularly by environmental archaeologists and palaeoecologists who may be more interested in identifying human-environment interactions rather than the ecological processes which may be preserved within palaeoecological records.

Bradykinins and their precursor Cdnas from the skin of the Fire-Bellied Toad (Bombina orientalis)

Bradykinin and (Thr6)-bradykinin have been identified in the defensive skin secretion of the fire-bellied toad, Bombina orientalis. The homologous cDNAs for both peptides were cloned from a skin library using a 3'- and 5'-RACE strategy. Kininogen-1 (BOK-1) contained an open-reading frame of 167 amino acid residues encoding four repeats of bradykinin, and kininogen-2 (BOK-2) contained an open-reading frame of 161 amino acid residues encoding two repeats of (Thr6)-bradykinin. Alignment of both precursor nucleotide and amino acid sequences revealed a high degree of structural similarity. These amphibian skin kininogens/preprobradykinins are not biologically analogous to mammalian kininogens.

Modern humans in Sarawak, Malaysian Borneo, during Oxygen Isotope Stage 3: palaeoenvironmental evidence from the Great Cave of Niah

During recent reinvestigations in the Great Cave of Niah in Borneo, the ‘Hell Trench’ sedimentary sequence seen by earlier excavators was re-exposed. Early excavations here yielded the earliest anatomically-modern human remains in island Southeast Asia. Calibrated radiocarbon dates, pollen, algal microfossils, palynofacies, granulometry and geochemistry of the ‘Hell Trench’ sequence provide information about environmental and vegetational changes, elements of geomorphic history and information about human activity. The ‘Hell’ sediments were laid down episodically in an ephemeral stream or pool. The pollen suggests cyclically changing vegetation with forest habitats alternating with more open environments; indicating that phases with both temperatures and precipitation reduced compared with the present. These events can be correlated with global climate change sequences to produce a provisional dating framework. During some forest phases, high counts of Justicia, a plant which today colonises recently burnt forest areas, point to fire in the landscape. This may be evidence for biomass burning by humans, presumably to maintain forest-edge habitats. There is evidence from palynofacies for fire on the cave floor in the ‘Hell’ area. Since the area sampled is beyond the limit of plant growth, this is evidence for human activity. The first such evidence is during an episode with significant grassland indicators, suggesting that people may have reached the site during a climatic phase characterised by relatively open habitats ~50 ka. Thereafter, people were able to maintain a relatively consistent presence at Niah. The human use of the ‘Hell’ area seems to have intensified through time, probably because changes in the local hydrological regime made the area dryer and more suitable for human use.

Crossing forest thresholds: inertia and collapse in a Holocene sequence from south-central Spain

A Holocene palaeoecological sequence from Villaverde, south-central Spain, is presented. The pollen stratigraphy is used to infer past vegetation changes within a catchment area that represents the boundary between semi-arid, plateau and mountain vegetation. From c. 9700–7530 cal. yr BP, Pinus is dominant, probably as a result of a combination of a relatively dry climate and natural fire disturbance. From c. 7530–5900 cal. yr BP, moderate invasion by Quercus appears to be a migrational response following increased moisture and temperature, but in part shaped by competitive adjustments. From c. 5900–5000 cal. yr BP, the pine forests are replaced by deciduous-Quercus forests with an important contribution from Corylus, Betula, Fraxinus and Alnus. Mediterranean-type forests spread from c. 5000 to 1920 cal. yr BP coincident with expansions of Artemisia, Juniperus and other xerophytes. From c. 1920–1160 cal. yr BP, Pinus becomes dominant after a disturbance- mediated invasion of the oak forests. Human impact upon the regional landscape was negligible during the Neolithic, and limited in the Bronze and Iron Ages. Local deforestation and the expansion of agro-pastoral activities occur after c. 1600 cal. yr BP.

Postglacial formation and dynamics of North Patagonian Rainforest in the Chonos Archipelago, Southern Chile

Pollen analysis of continuous sediment cores from two lakes in the northern Chonos Archipelago (44S) in southern Chile shows a complete postglacial record of vegetation change. The fossil records indicate that deglaciation was complete in the northern Chonos by at least 13,600 14Cyr BP. Ericaceous heath and grassland persisted for more than 600 years after deglaciation under the influence of dry/cold climates and frequent burning. Nothofagus-Pilgerodendron-Podocarpus forest, with modern analogues in the southern Chonos Archipelago, was established across the northern islands by 12,400 14Cyr BP under increasingly warm and wet climates. There is no evidence for a return to cooler climates during the Younger Dryas chronozone. The rise of Tepualia stipularis and Weinmannia trichosperma as important forest components between 10,600 and 6000 14Cyr BP may be associated withclimates that were warmer than present. The collapse of Pilgerodendron communities during this time may have been triggered by a combination of factors related to disturbance frequency including tephra deposition events, fire and climate change. After 6000 14Cyr BP Pilgerodendron recovers and Nothofagus-Pilgerodendron-Tepualia forest persists until the present. European logging and burning activity may have increased the susceptibility of North Patagonian Rainforest to invasion by introduced species and to future collapse of the long-lived Pilgerodendron communities.