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  The theme covers a spectrum of environments, with research focusing
on microbial populations in desert soils, the impact of climate change on desert birds, the use of mountain ants as bioindicators of temperature change, and soil erosion as a critical environmental issue. Mathematical modelling can be used to test assumptions relating to ecological processes, such as the Allee effect and critical survival thresholds. The theme also includes the latest research on the effects of environmental change on marine mammals, and the coexistence of two species of differing lifespan and body size and how they organise their reproductive biology in unison with the changes in day length and temperature.
76 The Namib Desert – surviving through a dry spell
78 African Soil Microbiology Project
79 Fairy Circles – solving one of Earth’s little mysteries
80 Hot, hotter, gone? The impact of climate change on desert birds
82 Soil erosion – a critical environmental issue
83 Mountain ants as bioindicators
84 Mathematical modelling for biological systems
86 Party after dark – a tale of two shrews
87 Marine mammals and environmental change
 Perdebergkoppies – Adriaan Oosthuizen
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NATURAL ENVIRONMENTS





















































































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