The Department of Conservation and Land Management (CALM) was a department of the Government of Western Australia that was responsible for implementing the state's conservation and environment legislation and regulations. It was created by the Conservation and Land Management Act 1984, also known as the CALM Act, which is still in force as of 2020[update].The Department of Conservation and Land Management was responsible from 22 March 1985 to 30 June 2006 for protecting and conserving the State of Western Australia’s environment; this included managing the state's national parks, marine parks, conservation parks, state forests, timber reserves and nature reserves.The Conservation Commission of Western Australia, responsible for assessing and auditing the performance of the department, was also created by the CALM Act. Now (as of 2020[update] renamed the Conservation and Parks Commission), its functions have broadened, with its purpose stated as "to act as an independent and trusted community steward and government advisor for the protection of Western Australia’s biodiversity and conservation estate while fostering its appreciation and sustainable use".
It has long been hypothesised that introduced species can evolve to become better competitors, which in turn will enable some of them to become invasive. The evolution of increased competitive ability hypothesis (EICA) gives a possible answer for why some introduced plants become invasive by stating that they can escape natural coevolved enemies (pests, pathogens and herbivores) in their new environment, thus allowing them to shift resource allocation from producing expensive chemical defences, towards a higher growth rate and competitive ability. In order to test if there is evidence for increased competitive ability in introduced populations, we examined the performance of three Rumex species ( R. obtusifolius, R. crispus and R. conglomeratus , Polygonaceae) from their native (United Kingdom) and introduced ranges (New Zealand), when grown alone and in competition with a conspecific from the same or a different provenance. Based on the predictions of EICA, we hypothesised that plants from the introduced provenance would: (i) have a faster growth rate and a larger biomass at harvest; and (ii) would perform better in competition with a conspecific from the native provenance than one from the introduced provenance. Intraspecific competition reduced biomass by as much as 50%. However, contrary to expectations, we found no difference between the performance of plants from native and introduced provenances when grown in direct competition with each other. Plant performance when grown with a conspecific from the same provenance was similar to performance when paired with one from a different provenance, showing that there was no provenance effect. These results were consistent for all three Rumex species. Our findings contradict the predictions of the EICA hypothesis suggesting that other factors are needed to explain the success of Rumex species in New Zealand.
With the progress of the reform of institutions,our government will bring forward higher requests to the budget management of grassroots institutions,which is influenced by the inertial thinking and the convention in budget management,the unscientific and non-standard extensive budget management don't adapt to the requirements of the new situations.And how will the grassroots institutions build the budget management mechanism including planning,executing,supervising,examining a budget and the system of rewards and punishment.At first,institutions should value the work of budget management.Then they should set up a budget management organization using the method which I call it "zero-based budget management",that is to say,planning at each level and summarizing unified and during the budget executing,grading the control of responsibility,strengthening the management of the project funds and developing the supervising function of the inner auditing department.At last,it is crucial to carry out the examining and evaluating mechanism of the budget executing status,the simulating mechanism and the accountability system to make the expenditure management of grassroots institutions more standard,meanwhile effectively protect the budget and to improve the level of the grassroots institutions budget management.
Abstract Soil erosion vulnerability and extreme rainfall characteristics over the Mediterranean semi-arid region of Tunisia are crucial input for estimation of siltation rate in artificial reservoirs. A comprehensive high-resolution database on erosive rainfall, together with siltation records for 28 small reservoirs, were analysed for this region, the Tunisian Dorsal (the easternmost part of the Atlas Mountains). The general life-span of these reservoirs is only about 14 years. Depending on the soil degradation in the different catchments, the corresponding reservoirs display a wide range of soil erosion rates. The average soil loss was 14.5 t ha−1 year−1 but some catchments display values of up to 36.4 t ha−1 year−1. The maximum 15-min duration rainfall intensity was used to determine the spatial distribution of rainfall erosivity. The northwestern parts of the Tunisian Dorsal display the most extreme rainfall erosivity. Spatial erosion patterns are to some extent similar; however, they vary greatly according to their location in the “soil degradation cycle”. This cycle determines the soil particle delivery potential of the catchment. In general, the northwestern parts of the Dorsal display modest soil erosion patterns due to the already severely degraded soil structure. Here, the soil surface is often the original bedrock. However, the greatest soil erosion occurs in the mid-eastern parts of the Dorsal, which represents the “degradation front”. The latter corresponds to the area with highest erosion, which is continuously progressing westward in the Dorsal. The large variation between the erosive rainfall events and the annual soil loss rates was explained by two important factors. The first relates to the soil degradation cycle. The second factor corresponds to the degradation front with the highest soil loss rates. At present this front is located at 300 m altitude and appears to be moving along an 80-km westward path starting from the east coast. A better understanding of the above can be used to better manage soils and soil covers in the Tunisian Dorsal area and, eventually, to decrease the soil erosion and reservoir siltation risk. Citation Jebari, S., Berndtsson, R., Bahri, A. & Boufaroua, M. (2010) Spatial soil loss risk and reservoir siltation in semi-arid Tunisia. Hydrol. Sci. J. 55(1), 121–137.
Based on the study of perception development of children during their growth and experience in landscape architecture design,suggestions were made for the reference to the parents and designers.
Abstract Acacia saligna is being developed as an agroforestry crop for the southern agricultural regions of Australia. This study investigated the breeding system of A. saligna to generate basic knowledge for breeding and utilization of the species. Allozyme markers were used to investigate the mating system of four populations of the species. All the populations had high outcrossing rates, with a mean multilocus outcrossing rate of 0.91. The implications of a highly outcrossed mating system to the utilization of A. saligna are discussed.
