The New South Wales Office of Environment and Heritage (OEH), a former division of the Government of New South Wales between April 2011 and July 2019, was responsible for the care and protection of the environment and heritage, which includes the natural environment, Aboriginal country, culture and heritage, and built heritage in New South Wales, Australia. The OEH supported the community, business and government in protecting, strengthening and making the most of a healthy environment and economy within the state. The OEH was part of the Department of Planning and Environment cluster and managed national parks and reserves.Following the 2019 state election, the agency was abolished and most functions of the agency were assumed by the Department of Planning, Industry and Environment with effect from 1 July 2019. The heritage functions were assumed by the Department of Premier and Cabinet, but would be transferred back to the Department of Planning and Environment on 1 April 2022.
Taxonomic lists are important tools for efficient communication about biodiversity. The processes by which they are created and maintained need to be robust, scientifically sound, and transparent. Articulating and scoring a set of governance quality indicators provides a way to assess the relative strengths of list management, gives list users a means to assess the quality of this process, augments the information available to list aggregators, and allows patterns to be measured over time and among forms of life. Based on published principles, we created 12 governance quality indicators which we tested on 16 lists spanning a range of taxonomic groups. Independence of taxonomy from nomenclature scored most strongly, but scores for local and regional involvement were lower. The governance quality indicators may eventually provide a rubric for assessing best practice species list governance but now need a period of further testing, review, and refinement before they are institutionalized.
Apple is one of the most important pollinator‐dependent fruit crops worldwide. To secure high‐quality yields, it is crucial to know which, and to what extent, pollinating insects contribute to its pollination success as measured by fruit set, fruit weight and seed set. We perform a meta‐analysis of field studies conducted across multiple orchards on insect‐mediated pollination in apple cultivation, using raw data from 29 studies, totalling 532 orchard replicates. We assessed the extent of pollen limitation on different pollination outcomes and assessed the contribution of honeybees, wild bees and bee species richness to apple pollination. Across all studies, we detected strong evidence of pollen limitation for fruit set and seed set, but not for fruit weight. Honeybees were the most abundant flower visitors (average relative visitation of 71.9%) compared to wild bees; but when correcting for their pollination efficiency, the relative pollination contribution of honeybees was lower compared to their relative visitation (vice versa for solitary bees). We conclude that honeybee visitation rate did not influence fruit or seed set; yet increasing honeybee visitation had a small, negative effect on fruit weight. Fruit set was not influenced by wild bee visitation rate, whereas wild bee visitation had a small, but clear positive effect on fruit weight and seed set. Bee species richness had a small, positive effect on seed set; whereas it did not affect fruit set and fruit weight. Syntheses and applications. Our study highlights that pollen limitation is common in this global crop. While managed honeybees are dominant pollinators, a diverse community of wild bees contributes significantly to apple pollination and high‐quality yield. The positive effect of wild bees and species richness on fruit weight and seed set demonstrates that wild bee pollination results in better‐quality fruit production (increased weight & seed set). Therefore, our synthesis highlights the importance of conserving pollinator diversity to maintain pollination services. The absence of a clear effect of honeybee visitation rate on fruit and seed set, coupled with its negative impact on fruit weight, suggests a need for further optimisation of honeybee management to improve the cost‐efficiency of pollination management.
Recently, there has been a substantial increase in the availability and use of low-cost particulate matter sensors in a wide range of air quality applications. They carry the promise of revolutionising air quality monitoring, yet considerable reservations exist regarding their performance and capabilities, thus hindering the broader-scale utilization of these devices. In order to address these concerns and assess their feasibility and accuracy for various applications, we evaluated six low-cost PM2.5 sensors (the Sharp GP2Y1010AU0F, Shinyei PPD42NS, Plantower PMS1003, Innociple PSM305, Nova SDS011 and Nova SDL607) in laboratory and field conditions using two combustion aerosols, concrete dust and ambient particles. In assessing the performance of these sensors, we focussed on indicators such as the linearity, accuracy and precision, critically differentiating between these qualities, and employed inter-comparison (the coefficient of determination, R2). In the laboratory, all sensors responded well, with an R2 > 0.91 when the PM2.5 concentration was > 50 µg m–3, as measured by the DustTrak. In particular, the PMS1003 demonstrated good accuracy and precision in both laboratory and ambient conditions. However, some limitations were noted for the tested sensors at lower concentrations. For example, the Sharp and Shinyei sensors showed poor correlations (R2 < 0.1) with the DustTrak when the ambient PM2.5 concentration was < 20 µg m–3. These results suggest that the sensors should be calibrated individually for each source in the environment of their intended use. We demonstrate that when tested appropriately and used with a full understanding of their capabilities and limitations, low-cost sensors can serve as an unprecedented aid in a broad spectrum of air quality applications, including the emerging field of citizen science.
Airborne particulate matter (PM2.5) was sampled at Richmond and Liverpool, located in the Sydney Basin, Australia, and ion beam analysis was used to obtain the elemental composition. Using self-organising maps to classify synoptic weather systems, it was found that high PM2.5 concentrations were associated with high pressure systems located to the east of the sampling sites. The highest median sulfur was associated with weak synoptic conditions and high soil dust days were more often associated with frontal systems. To investigate the effect of local flows in the Sydney Basin, the Weather Research and Forecasting model (WRF) was used to generate meteorological data of 12 km resolution. A comparison was made between back trajectories generated using the higher-resolution WRF data, the 0.5° by 0.5° Climate Forecast System data and the 1° by 1° Global Data Assimilation System data. It was found that for high soil dust days, there were small differences between the different back trajectories. However, under weak synoptic conditions (high sulfur days), the back trajectories generated from higher resolution data showed larger variations over a 24 hr period. This was attributed to the meandering of local winds and sea-breezes. Lower altitude back trajectories, generated from low resolution data, passed more often over the power stations located on the western side of the Great Dividing Range (while the sampling sites are on the east). This demonstrates the need for higher resolution meteorological data for generating low altitude back trajectories when the source and receptor are separated by hilly terrain. In estimating the number of high sulfur days for which a power station was crossed, there was up to 20
Yams (Dioscorea) consist of approximately 600 species in the world. Yams are considered a staple food in Asia, tropical and subtropical regions. Genetic erosion and unsustainable harvesting practices are among the main problems associated with wild yam plants. This study was conducted with the objectives to enumerate wild yam species composition and environmental parameters affecting its growth and abundance. Systematic sampling of the study site was carried out based on different land aspects. Line transects were laid out in selected land aspects within the elevation range of 825 – 1935 m. Five plots in each transect with a 100 m plot interval comprising seven transects were laid out in the study area. Each plot was divided into sub-plot of 20 x 20 m, 5 x 5 m, and 1 x 1 m to enumerate trees, shrubs, and herbs respectively. Seven species of yams were found from the broadleaved forest and spearman correlation showed negative association of yam abundance with tree counts and canopy closure. The areas with higher density of trees had low count of yam abundance. Yam grows well in open canopy in lower altitudes comparing to high altitudes. Yam abundance was positively related with shrubs, herbs, soil moisture, soil organic matter, soil organic carbon, and nitrogen content. Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) showed significant difference of yam abundance in 7 different transects due to different ecological parameters influencing the abundance in different transects though transect being in a broadleaved forest.
