The foraging movements of 13 Pteropus alecto from four camps in suburban Brisbane were monitored over two summer and one winter season between 1998 and 2000. By means of radio-telemetry, the flying-foxes were tracked to their foraging sites over 49 nights for a total of 237 h. Data from flying-foxes tracked from dusk to dawn showed that bats travelled directly to a foraging site early in the night and undertook smaller movements between foraging sites for the remainder of the night. Bats undertook a greater number of nocturnal movements during a food resource shortage than during a season of greater resource abundance. Mean distances (±s.e.) travelled from camps to foraging sites varied between camps and ranged from 2.9 ± 0.3 km (n = 24) to 7.6 ± 0.07 km (n = 2). In all three seasons, flying-foxes foraged on a variety of native and exotic plant species. Dominant exotics included Cocos palms (Sygarus romanzoffiana), Chinese elm trees (Celtis sinensis) and Cadaghi (Corymbia torrelliana), while highly utilised native food plants included figs (Ficus spp.), grevilleas (Grevillea spp.) and bottlebrushes (Callistemon spp.).

Program assignments are traditionally an area of serious concern in maintaining the integrity of the educational process. Systematic inspection of all solutions for possible plagiarism has generally required unrealistic amounts of time and effort. The "Measure Of Software Similarity" tool developed by Alex Aiken at UC Berkeley makes it possible to objectively and automatically check all solutions for evidence of plagiarism. We have used MOSS in several large sections of a C programming course. (MOSS can also handle a variety of other languages.) We feel that MOSS is a major innovation for faculty who teach programming and recommend that it be used routinely to screen for plagiarism.

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To hold a little microbat in your hand, its body the size of the end of your thumb, is nothing but astounding. Its head is nearly the size of a man’s fingernail, its tiny ears are twitching as it struggles to get free, and then it bares its teeth to try and scare you into letting it go. Inside that tiny head is a powerhouse of information. Some of our little bats know the entire landscape of our east coast, and can pinpoint a cave entrance in dense forest 500 km from its last home. When they get there they know what to do – where to forage, which bat to mate with and how to avoid local predators. A Natural History of Australian Bats uncovers the unique biology and ecology of these wonderful creatures. It features a description of each bat species found in Australia, as well as a section on bat myths. The book is enhanced by stunning colour photographs from Steve Parish, most of which have never been seen before.

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Background The cultural connections of the Maidu to the lands they inhabit are profound with burning being a major component of their culture. California black oak plays an important role in the lifeways of many Indigenous tribes and Native peoples tend black oaks. We used multiple lines of evidence to reconstruct Indigenous fire use in a mixed conifer forest in the northern Sierra Nevada. This includes summarizing oral traditions by the Mountain Maidu, quantifying current and historical forest structure, and characterizing fire effects in an area impacted by the 2021 Dixie Fire. Results The promotion of fire, both lighting- and human-ignited, has always been part of Mountain Maidu land stewardship. The mixed conifer forests in our focal study site had very high tree densities that were dominated by small, shade-tolerant species and the historic mean fire return interval was 8.6 years. Twenty-three fire intervals of 10 years or less and 11 fire intervals of 5 years or less were recorded. Based on forest inventory data collected in 1924, a majority of the forests in the broader region surrounding our focal site (82%) did not experience high levels of conifer competition. This is a stark contrast to contemporary forest conditions which showed that 73% of forests either were experiencing full site occupancy or were within the zone of imminent mortality. Contemporary forests not experiencing high levels of conifer competition had the highest density of large California black oak while forests in the zone of imminent mortality had the lowest density of large California black oak. Conclusions Fire exclusion and suppression led to a slow, albeit catastrophic, shift for California black oaks. The mixed conifer forests sampled in the early 1920s had very low tree densities and were dominated by large ponderosa and sugar pine trees which would have allowed California black oak to thrive. The number of very short fire intervals recorded is difficult to explain by lightning alone, pointing to the management of this area for Indigenous purposes. The 2021 wildfire resulted in 100% mortality of all conifer trees in the area but 61% of the California black oaks resprouted. This provides an opportunity to remove the conifer snags and allow the California black oaks to regain dominance. It would take active stewardship to produce the oak dominance again but it is possible and could be co-led by the Maidu and federal managers.

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