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This paper explores tensions and ambiguities for UK HE teachers during COVID-19. It analyses changed behaviours and routines for existing hybrid workers experienced in online pedagogy through three core axes of precarity and security; time and perceptions of time; and communication. Twelve participants supplied photographs and written narratives depicting their teaching during the pandemic. To understand working lives at this liminal time, we undertook three-level photographic and content analysis, examining the interplay between homeworking challenges and extremities with an accompanying range of emotional responses. Findings include changed routines, new independence, and tensions around resulting autonomy in a liminal lockdown phase when everyday life was anything but. Recommendations for HE management are to ensure that effective communication and collaboration are privileged between management and academic staff. Moving forward, the value of academic judgement and voice should be acknowledged as much as teaching capacity in strategic planning and tuition delivery. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Animal tolerance towards humans can be a key factor facilitating wildlife–human coexistence, yet traits predicting its direction and magnitude across tropical animals are poorly known. Using 10,249 observations for 842 bird species inhabiting open tropical ecosystems in Africa, South America, and Australia, we find that avian tolerance towards humans was lower (i.e., escape distance was longer) in rural rather than urban populations and in populations exposed to lower human disturbance (measured as human footprint index). In addition, larger species and species with larger clutches and enhanced flight ability are less tolerant to human approaches and escape distances increase when birds were approached during the wet season compared to the dry season and from longer starting distances. Identification of key factors affecting animal tolerance towards humans across large spatial and taxonomic scales may help us to better understand and predict the patterns of species distributions in the Anthropocene. The degree to which species tolerate human disturbance contributes to shape human-wildlife coexistence. Here, the authors identify key predictors of avian tolerance of humans across 842 bird species from open tropical ecosystems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores sensemaking narratives from teaching academics undertaking identity work in the context of a rapidly expanding digital education sphere. It considers the implications for emotional labour and status of digitised higher education teaching academics from the imposition of a rejuvenated New Public Management. We discuss possible tainting from fractured and short-term contractual arrangements alongside growth in managerialism, metrics and accountability. This study combines photographic ethnography and interviews to gain insight into uncertainties, anxieties, identity legitimations and participant responses to imposed changes within digitally evolving workspaces. The paper explores teaching cultures within two higher education institutions, on different points of a digital continuum, finding discourses of alienation, liminality and validation. Resultant 'sticky' or resistant behaviours in rapid adaptations to digital teaching life were heard as we aimed to understand what it means to teach in a digitised, neoliberal context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Successful retention of students through understanding their motivations and behaviours is a challenge to universities worldwide. Whilst the impact of withdrawals is an issue for all institutions, attrition for distance-learning providers is particularly problematic owing to higher non-completion rates, less physical visibility, and because distance-learners tend to have more complex lives. This paper examines students' personal stories explaining their decisions to withdraw from university study. It considers 641 written discourses initiated by students as part of their requests to withdraw, covering the challenges they face, and the complex combinations of factors that contribute to their decisions to give up. This qualitative approach was adopted as a necessary complement to the quantitative rush of metrics information that universities now provide on withdrawal figures. Three themes selected are: deferral/withdrawal, time available, and preparedness for study. The paper concludes that complementary qualitative insights both add clarity and detail to institutional understanding and reduces oversimplification of complex decision-making from unidimensional quantitative approaches. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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This paper demonstrates the importance of considering lived experiences of adjunct teaching staff during the introduction of automated student messaging services in a UK Business School. With cost-orientated moves to expanding online provision through emergent technologies and the growth of alternative HE strategies, traditional group-orientated student and tutor interactions are developing into a continuum. Automated messages aim to increase retention, and standardise the student experience in terms of academic qualification communications. These messages, however, have necessarily required tutors unlearning previous pedagogical support routines, thus changing academic roles and in consequence impacting academic identity processes. The investigation adds to emerging literature by examining the impact on a group of adjunct faculty staff during change introduction. Study into these changes to academic routines has value, as much existing retention literature privileges the institutional or student experience, and much of learning/unlearning literature is in a non-educational setting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the span of some 700 years the colonizing populations of Aotearoa New Zealand grew, with subsequent changes in levels of interaction and social affiliation. Historical accounts document that Māori society transformed from relatively autonomous village-based groups into larger territorial lineages, which later formed even larger geo-political tribal associations. These shifts have not been well-documented in the archaeological record, but social network analysis (SNA) of pXRF sourced obsidian recovered from 15 archaeological sites documents variable levels of similarity and affiliation. Three site communities and two source communities are defined based on the differential proportions of obsidian from 13 distinct sources. Distance and travel time between archaeological sites and obsidian sources were not the defining factors for obsidian source selection and community membership, rather social considerations are implicated. Some archaeological sites incorporated material from far off sources, and in some instances geographically close sites contained material from different sources and were assigned to different communities. The analytical site communities constitute relational identifications that partially correspond to categorical identities of current Māori iwi (tribal) territories and boundaries. Based on very limited temporal information, these site communities are thought to have coalesced sometime after AD 1500. By incorporating previously published and unpublished data, the SNA of obsidian artefacts defined robust network communities that reflect differential levels of Māori interaction and affiliation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Capsule:Trail cameras monitoring clutches of ground-nesting birds in Australia revealed survival rates and new causes of egg loss. We also show that nests with artificial eggs versus real eggs do not reveal the same information on predators. Aims:We describe the application of trail cameras for monitoring real and artificial clutches of ground-nesting birds through a series of case studies. We rate the degree of inference used when defining nest outcomes and assigning fates. Methods:Four case studies are presented, based on 326 deployments of cameras on real and artificial nests. Results:The probability of hatching varied between species and populations (40.0–83.3% hatched), but not between urban and rural habitats. The ‘degree of inference’ scores did not differ between species and contexts. Two case studies which examined habitat-mediated survival (ecological hypotheses) found no difference in survival between urban and rural habitats, nor between open and covered microhabitats. Another case study (a management hypothesis) found that predator exclusion cages increased clutch survival even though predators sometimes breached the cages and cages altered the assemblage of predators visiting the area. A fourth study revealed that the assemblage of predators eating eggs differed between real and artificial nests. Conclusion:Cameras enabled the survival and fate of most nests to be determined. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Disturbance of birds by human activities is increasing and is of conservation concern. Little is known of the flight initiation distances (FID) of birds to recreational canoeing, although this activity is common and can occur in wetland areas inaccessible to vehicle or pedestrian traffic. We compared the FID evoked by a walker with that evoked by a canoe for 13 birds in wetlands in north-western Queensland. Canoes evoked shorter FIDs compared with walkers (means ± 95 % confidence intervals; 32.9 ± 7.6 m and 47.5 ± 7.4 m, respectively). These data could be used to establish buffers or codes of conduct for canoeists in wetlands in arid northern Australia, especially when water levels are low. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents research which evaluates the widespread applications of automated camera systems in detecting wild mammals and birds. The study used infrared (IR) remote camera traps positioned at the Greater Otway National Park in Victoria to monitor and capture high-quality images of the species for educational and conservation purposes. It found that active IR system showed effective images capturing for larger animals and established benchmarking strategies on day/night video system.