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Item Open Access Adaptive Differentiation in the General-Purpose Genotype Invasive Plant Erythranthe guttata(2024) Millar AO; Chapman, HazelHighly plastic general-purpose genotypes are a frequent occurrence among invasive plants. Yet, it remains uncertain to what extent genetic adaptation can co-occur with such elevated levels of plasticity. Understanding the interplay between these two evolutionary strategies is essential to better predict invasive success and future climate change responses. We investigated the potential for local adaptation along an altitudinal gradient in introduced New Zealand populations of the highly plastic invasive herb, Erythranthe guttata. We asked a) whether there were phenotypic differences between upland and lowland E. guttata populations along our gradient; b) whether any differences were consistent with known adaptive patterns; and c) whether any adaptive patterns exist alongside high plasticity to elevation. Samples from 38 E. guttata populations from upland and lowland Canterbury were grown from cuttings in a lowland and an upland common garden, where we measured a broad range of growth and reproductive traits. We found significant adaptive differentiation between upland and lowland populations over almost all measured traits. Upland populations had earlier and more intense flowering compared with lowland populations. Lowland plants were taller and had larger leaves with higher photosynthetic rates than upland plants. These differences occurred alongside high levels of unspecialised plasticity to the growing environment. Synthesis: We found that over a period of less than 150 years the environment along an altitude gradient of 120km has selected for distinct lowland and upland phenotypes of E. guttata. These changes reflect common selective pressure associated with altitude gradients, increasing reproductive success at higher altitudes and increased competitive ability at lower altitudes. This rapid local adaptation occurred alongside high plasticity within the growing environment, showing that highly plastic invasive species still retain the capacity to genetically adapt to novel environments.Item Open Access Exploring Empathy Development in Mechanical Engineering Students During Conceptual Design Task(2024) Stilwell, George; Gooch SCONTEXT Students studying mechanical engineering are exposed to a range of engineering design methodologies to aid them through a variety of engineering design tasks. In a 4th year mechanical systems design class, mechanical engineering students were given a broad design task for a situation where they need to ideate, evaluate, and develop concepts to aid someone with reduced limb function due to a cervical spinal cord injury (SCI). This type of design problem is topical, as engineers are increasingly required to incorporate universal design principles such that the products they develop can be used by a diverse group of users. This study provide insight into how well undergraduate students compete a design task which requires them to empathise with a use that has different function to themselves. PURPOSE Few researchers have investigated the development of empathy in undergraduate mechanical engineering students as they complete a conceptual design task. The purpose of this study was to investigate how students’ empathy, in terms of their understanding of the specific requirements, limitations and life perspective of an end user with a cervical SCI develop during a concept design task. This data will provide useful insights that will enable the current teaching method to be evaluated and improved. METHODOLOGY Three anonymous online surveys were completed with the class to gather information regarding how students’ self-reported understanding of the end users’ requirements, limitations and life perspective change over the course of the design task. To compare student responses to how well their designs could be used by an individual with a cervical SCI, the designs submitted by students were evaluated against three objective measures. ACTUAL OUTCOMES The results of the surveys showed that students’ self-reported understanding of requirements, limitations and life perspective increased throughout the duration of the conceptual design task. Students commented on the value of discussing the details of the project with both a registered physiotherapist and an individual with a C6 cervical SCI. When the concept designs were compared to the results from the objective measures, many students had submitted designs that were ultimately unusable by the target population of the design problem. This result indicated that many students overestimated their self-reported understanding of the end user. CONCLUSIONS This work highlighted that the current teaching methods enabled students to increase their self reported empathy and understanding for the end user through the completion of a conceptual design task. However, many students were not able to accurately evaluate their own understanding, as solutions were submitted that were unable to be used independently by the Proceedings of AAEE 2024, University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand. Copyright © George Stilwell, Shayne Gooch, 2024 target population. Future work could investigate changes to the current teaching methods. This could include the development of an alternative or virtual reality experience to help student develop a better understanding of the unique challenges of people who have reduced function.Item Open Access Patterns of fruit production in tropical forests are shifting with negative outnumbering positive trends(2024) Hacket-Pain A; Adienge A; Bogdziewicz M; Bush E; Chapman, Hazel; Memiaghe H; Ofosu-Bamfo B; Satake A; Journe VThe impacts of climate change and anthropogenic disturbance are increasingly evident in the structure and demographics of tropical forests, yet the response of tree reproduction remains poorly understood. As fruit and seed production is the first step in forest recruitment, this gap is critical to understanding tropical forest resilience. Tropical fruits are important in diets of numerous frugivores and are essential resources for local human communities, thus changes in fruit quantity and composition could have cascading effects on ecosystems and the people who depend on them. In this study, we demonstrate that forest fruit production is shifting across tropical sites, with negative species-level trends occurring four times more frequently than positive ones across a network of 17 sites. At two sites in west Africa, community-level fruit production has declined by 25% and 52% in recent decades, and fruit production is also declining in Panama. Nevertheless, trends in fruit production are diverse across sites. While major spatial and temporal gaps in data coverage remain, by leveraging the expanding network of long-term monitoring, collaborative research has the potential to identify current trends in tropical fruit production and their drivers. This will enable robust predictions of future trends and advance our understanding of tropical forest vulnerability to environmental changeItem Open Access Trends in bird counts 1978–2020 in a New Zealand Nothofagus forest with variable control of mammalian predators(Resilience Alliance, Inc., 2022) Rossignaud, L; Kelly, Dave; Spurr, EB; Flaspohler, DJ; Allen RB; Brockerhoff, Eckehard G.Many New Zealand native bird species are threatened by introduced mammalian predators, and pest management programs are common in the country. Despite that, measuring the efficacy of such programs is often limited by resources, and thus the long-term population status of many native birds is not well documented. Here, we examined long-term population trends of forest bird species and changes in the bird community structure at Craigieburn Forest Park, where there was intermittent control of stoats (Mustela erminea). We analyzed 10,938 5-min bird point counts covering the periods 1978–1982, 1999–2004, and 2019–2020 in an old-growth Nothofagus (southern beech) forest. We assessed trends over time in the counts of each bird species with season, elevation, and site as co-variables. We also tested for a relationship with variable seed crops of the mast-seeding canopy tree, N. solandri var. cliffortioides. Bellbird (Anthornis melanura) was the only native species showing a continuous increase over time. In the first 25 years of the study, stoat control was intermittent, and more native birds decreased than increased. In later years, stoat control was continuous, and more native species increased than decreased. Large Nothofagus seed crops were associated with significant increases in all six exotic bird species tested, but only one of nine native bird species. These findings suggest that long-term trends of bird populations are influenced by the interactions of species vulnerability to stoat predation and the consistency of pest control efforts. Unfortunately, ship rats (Rattus rattus), which were absent at Craigieburn before 2010, are now common and may pose a new threat to native birds. Our results show that systematic long-term bird and seedfall monitoring, including careful archiving of sampling information, is helpful to guide conservation of the remaining native birds of New Zealand.Item Open Access Effects of competition and habitat heterogeneity on native-exotic plant richness relationships across spatial scales(Wiley, 2022) Rossignaud L, L; Kimberley MO; Kelly, Dave; Fei S; Brockerhoff, Eckehard G.; Sabatini FMAim: The biotic resistance hypothesis posits that greater native species richness limits invasions of exotic species. However, negative native-exotic richness relationships (NERRs) may reverse with increasing spatial scale, seemingly refuting the hypothesis. Here, we explore the effects of species competitive interactions, environmental factors, habitat heterogeneity and vertical vegetation tiers on the NERRs across spatial scales in native forests. Location: New Zealand. Methods: We combined vegetation, land cover and climate data to predict exotic richness from native richness at different vertical tiers (ground to canopy), land cover, plant competition (tree basal area, native ground cover), mean annual temperature and total rainfall. We considered four spatial scales, from single 20 × 20 m plots on an 8-km grid to groups of plots across grids up to 128 km. Habitat heterogeneity was measured using the variance of climatic conditions among plots within a group. Results: A negative native tree-exotic richness relationship (NTERR) was observed at plot level but reversed with increasing spatial scale. Species competitive interactions showed a negative relationship with exotic richness at small/intermediate scales (≤32 km). Rainfall and temperature heterogeneity contributed to the positive NTERR at the largest scale. Adjacent exotic grassland cover had a positive relationship with exotic richness across all scales but did not prevent the NTERR from reversing. Main conclusions: Our analysis shows the importance of considering vegetation structure and adjacent land covers, along with spatial heterogeneity and climatic factors, when testing the biotic resistance hypothesis in forest ecosystems. There is a clear indication that biotic resistance is primarily driven by native trees in the overstorey, probably by limiting resources available to ground tier plants. The results support the notion that the NERR is driven by competitive interspecific interactions at small spatial scales and by habitat heterogeneity at larger scales.Item Open Access Uniformity in speech: the economy of reuse and adaptation across contexts(Open Library of the Humanities, 2024) Derrick, Donald; Mayer, C; Gick, BNorth American English (NAE) flaps/taps and rhotic vowels have been shown to exhibit extreme variability that can be categorized into subphonemic variants. This variability provides known mechanical benefits in NAE speech production. However, we also know languages reuse gestures for maximum efficiency during speech production; this uniformity of behavior reduces gestural variability. Here we test two conflicting hypotheses: Under a uniformity hypothesis in which extreme variability is inherent to rhotic vowels only, that variability can still transfer to flaps/ taps and non-rhotic vowels due to adaptation across similar speech contexts. But because of the underlying reliance on extreme variability from rhotic vowels, this uniformity hypothesis does not predict extreme variability in flaps/taps within non-rhotic English dialects. Under a mechanical hypothesis in which extreme variability is inherent to all segments where it would provide mechanical advantage, including flaps/taps, such variability would appear across all English dialects with flaps/taps, affecting adjacent non-rhotic vowels through coarticulation whenever doing so would provide mechanical advantage. We test these two hypotheses by comparing speech-rate-varying NAE sequences with and without rhotic vowels to sequences from New Zealand English (NZE), which has flaps/taps, but no rhotic vowels at all. We find that NZE speakers all use similar tongue-tip motion patterns for flaps/taps across both slow and fast speech, unlike NAE speakers who sometimes use two different stable patterns, one for slow and another fast speech. Results show extreme variability is not inherent to flaps/taps across English dialects, supporting the uniformity hypothesis.Item Open Access Thesis for sale [Podcast](2024) Bartneck, ChristophWhat do you do if somebody else publishes your thesis as a book? This is what happened to Andrew Vonasch. Together, we investigated this new type of scam. We discovered a flood of stolen theses and the thieves’ method to publish them on Amazon and through other resellers. I interviewed Richard Elliott and sought legal advice from Ursula Cheer. We confronted IngramSpark with this scam. They removed the theses from their system but made it practically impossible to prosecute the offenders.Item Open Access Humanoidization: Costs, Demand, and the Future of Work [Podcast](2024) Bartneck, Christoph; Allan DHumanoid robot companies are promising that humanoids will fast become our friends, colleagues, employees, and the backbone of our workforce. As Elon Musk described it when he first unveiled Tesla's Optimus: "It will upend our idea of what the economy is... it will be able to do basically anything humans don't want to do... it's going to bring an age of abundance." But how close are we to this reality? What are the key costs associated with operating a humanoid? Can companies deploy them profitably? Will humanoids take our jobs, and if so, what should we be doing to prepare? To explore these questions, Dwain Allan and I interviewed Will Jackson, Jo Cribb, and Bruce McDonald.Item Open Access Human aeroecology(2024) Derrick, DonaldItem Open Access Assessing the Validity of the Quartile Risk Model of Dissociation for Predicting Deliberate Self-Harm(Informa UK Limited, 2019) Dorahy, Martin; Carrell, JM; Thompson, NDeliberate self-harm (DSH) involves a physical act with the intent of harming the self. There are many precipitants to this behavior, with dissociation receiving increasing attention. The current study examined the quartile risk model for predicting deliberate self-harm, which proposes that four quadrants of dissociation (low normative, high normative, low clinical, and high clinical) represent varying levels of risk for engagement in DSH. The model posits that quadrants one and three (low normative, low clinical), protect against engagement in deliberate self-harm. Quadrants two and four (high normative, high clinical), represent an increased risk of engaging in DSH. The current study also investigated the association between shame and deliberate self-harm. College students (n = 247) completed measures assessing trait dissociation, state and trait shame, and deliberate self-harm. Results did not support the quartile risk model, rather they suggested a general increasing level of deliberate self-harm with heightened dissociation. Furthermore, trait shame was significantly associated with deliberate self-harm. Significantly more state shame was found to occur before engaging in deliberate self-harm relative to after. Results suggest shame and dissociation are related to increased DSH.Item Open Access Trait-habitat associations explain novel bird assemblages mixing native and alien species across New Zealand landscapes(Wiley, 2022) Barnagaud, JY; Brockerhoff, Eckehard G.; Mossion, R; Dufour, P; Pavoine, S; Deconchat, M; Barbaro, L; Thomassen HAim: Species introductions have reshaped island faunas for the last 200 years, often threatening native biodiversity. Approximately equal numbers of native and alien species currently co-occur in the New Zealand avifauna, but they show distinct habitat use. Antagonistic interactions, habitat affinities and legacies of introduction history may concur to explain their segregation along habitat gradients. To investigate these processes, we explored how habitat, ecological traits and introduction history relate with the current composition of bird assemblages. Location: New Zealand. Taxon: Birds. Methods: We analysed 917 bird point counts spread along habitat and elevation gradients in the Canterbury region, South Island and related 10 ecological traits to landscape composition using a three-table ordination method known as “RLQ analysis”, accounting for spatial autocorrelation and phylogeny. We tested whether alien species’ positions in the RLQ were related to proxies of introduction history. Results: Eighteen endemic, 11 native and 19 alien species were distributed along a gradient from forest to open-habitat assemblages, in relation to foraging mode, nesting site and body size. A second gradient segregated species between native and exotic forests according to territoriality, sedentarity and diet. Traits accounted for the separation of native and alien bird species in forests, but not in open habitats. Phylogenetic signals emerged from the separation of native and alien species by forest type, and spatial structures suggested a landscape-level, rather than regional or local determinism. These correlations were independent of introduction history, although open-habitat assemblages tended to host alien species introduced later in time. Main conclusions: Habitat type and resource availability explain the spatial partitioning of New Zealand bird assemblages between native and alien species more consistently than competitive exclusion. We conclude that trait-mediated ecological differences among species have likely played a predominant role in species’ segregation among landscapes, while maintaining endemic bird assemblages in native forests.Item Open Access The lack of access to anti-epileptic drugs in rural India(BMJ, 2015) Mathias, KaarenItem Open Access Sexual selection on non-ornamental traits is underpinned by evidence of genetic constraints on sex-biased expression in dusky pipefish(2024) Tosto N; Rose E; Mason H; Mank J; Flanagan, SarahSpecies without dimorphic secondary sex characteristics easily visible to humans, such as diference in size or morphology, are expected to experience low levels of sex-specifi c selection. However, monomorphism in classic visible traits could be a result of genetic or physiological constraints that prevent the sexes from reaching divergent fi tness optima. Additionally, biochemical and molecular work has revealed a variety of less easily observed phenotypes that none-the-less exhibit profound dimorphism. Sex- specifi c selection could act on these more subtle, less visible, traits. We investigate sex-specifi c selection in the polygynandrous dusky pipe sh (Syngnathus oridae), which lacks size, color, and morphological dimorphism. Using experimental breeding populations, we revealed that although males and females have similar opportunities for sexual selection, only males experience signi ficant sexual selection pressures on body size. We also investigated patterns of sex-biased and sex-specifi c gene expression in gonads, livers, and gills, and tested whether genes with highly divergent expression patterns between the sexes are more likely to be tissue specifi c, and therefore relieved of genetic constraints. We. Sex-bias in gene expression was widespread, although the reproductive organs had the most sex-biased and sex-specifi c genes. Sex-specifi c selection on gene expression in gills was primarily related to immune response, whereas the liver and gonads had a wide variety of cellular processes, as well as reproductive proteins, showing sex-biased expression. These sex-biased genes are likely less constrained by pleiotropy, as they were more organ-speci fic in their expression patterns. Altogether, we nd evidence for ongoing and historical sex-specifi c selection in the dusky pipe sh.Item Open Access Why the Indo-Pacific needs a self-confident America(Institute for Indo-Pacific Affairs, 2024) Tan, Alex; Vanvari NItem Open Access Mākū: te hā o Haupapa: Moisture, the breath of Haupapa(2023) Marks S; Randerson J; Shearer R; Bull R; Purdie, HeatherItem Open Access New Zealand’s Economic Security Dilemma: International Pressures, Domestic Constraints(Institute for Indo-Pacific Affairs, 2024) Tan, Alex; Vanvari NItem Open Access Item Open Access Lost voices: ethnic diversity in the New Zealand parliament will decline after the 2023 election(2023) Tan, Alex; Vanvari NItem Open Access Reading the tea leaves: Taiwan's November 2022 ‘midterm’ elections(9DashLine, 2023) Tan, Alex; Kumar MItem Open Access American democracy: the poster child of what exactly?(Stuff.co.nz, 2022) Mills K; Tan, Alex