Disasters, the Media and Social Structures: A Typology of Credibility Hierarchy Persistence Based on Newspaper Coverage of the Love Canal and Six Other Disasters

The starting-point of this paper is the assumption that credibility and the right to be heard are differentially distributed in any social system and therefore a 'hierarchy of credibility' exists. To test this, the media coverage of the Love Canal, New York, hazardous waste landfill disaster and six other disasters was examined to determine if this hierarchy exists in all cases. A hierarchy of credibility emphasising the views of established news sources with routine and habitual access to the media was demonstrated in the majority of events examined. However, the Love Canal disaster was one of two where this hierarchy was disrupted due to a number of factors. These included the contentious or political nature of the event, its duration, the extent of competition for credibility and coverage among news sources, the extent of information shortage, the type of news medium, the degree of sympathetic and representational salience of victims and the extent to which they organised and achieved status as 'newsmakers'. Building on disaster research, a model of the operation of the credibility hierarchy in coverage of disasters is presented and discussed.     

EPA's Environmental Technology Verification Program: An Evaluation of a Public‐Private Process

The Environmental Technology Verification Program (ETV) was started by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in October 1995 to generate independent and credible data on the performance of innovative technologies that have the potential to improve protection of public health and the environment. The purpose of this program is to help organizations, industries, businesses, states, communities, and individuals make better‐informed decisions when selecting new environmental technologies. The program has now been in existence for six years and the following article presents, for the first time, the results achieved to date and the program's future operating plans. © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Conserving invertebrate diversity in agricultural, forestry and natural ecosystems in Australia

Continental Australia and Tasmania cover a wide range of latitudes from tropical regions in the north through the arid and semi-arid core to cool temperature regions further south. Vegetation is equally varied and because of this and the continent's isolation during the Tertiary, floral and faunal diversity and endemism are very high. Europeans arrived 200 years ago and since that time have markedly modified the landscape by clearing and changing the vegetation, predominantly for agricultural and urban development. Both accidental and deliberate introductions of stock, weeds, crops, trees and pasture plants have also caused enormous changes to Australian environments. In the last few years the deleterious effects of some of these changes have been relaised, for example the extent of soil degradation. Measures are being taken to rectify problems and techniques are being introduced which benefit both primary producers and other users of the land and also nature conservation. Some of these measures for a more sustainable use of the land are illustrated here for four vegetation types, eucalypt woodland, native forests, grasslands and arid systems. They include adopting native tree species for timber production and native grasses for pasture, retention of native vegetation and paying attention to conservation of invertebrates in Parks and Reserves.     

Mutualistic Benefits Generate an Unequal Distribution of Risky Activities Among Unrelated Group Members

Recent studies provide a new challenge to the adequacy of theories concerning the evolution of cooperation among nonrelatives: some individuals perform high-risk activities while others do not. We examined a communal hymenopteran species, Lasioglossum (Chilalictus) hemichalceum, to determine why group members engaged in demonstrably risky activities (foraging) tolerate the selfish behavior (remaining in the nest) of unrelated nestmates. Experimental removal of adult females indicated that their presence is required for the protection of brood from ant predators. Nonforagers ensure the continued presence of adults in the nest if the risk-taking foragers die, thereby safeguarding the survival of forager offspring. This results in an unequal distribution of risky activities within social groups in which avoidance of risky activities by some group members is ultimately beneficial to risk takers. Received: 10 June 1997 / Accepted in revised form: 25 May 1998     

Female association preferences based on olfactory cues in the guppy,<Emphasis Type="Italic"> Poecilia reticulata</Emphasis>

Guppies are highly sexually dimorphic. Females have been shown to mate preferentially with males with various visible traits and previous studies investigating mate choice have focussed on these visual cues. However, guppies have been shown to respond behaviourally to odour cues from conspecifics as well as from predators. Therefore, sexual selection in guppies may act on multiple sensory modalities, but so far only visual cues have been investigated. Here, we used a specially designed olfactory choice tank to determine whether females could detect other guppies on the basis of their olfactory cues only, and to determine whether females preferred to associate with males or females and whether they could distinguish between different males. We show that female guppies associated preferentially with other females when given a choice between water containing the odour cues from another fish and water containing no odour cues. When females were presented with olfactory cues from a male and a female, they investigated the female initially, but then most reversed their decision and swam to the male. Furthermore, we demonstrate that females associated preferentially with certain males based upon olfactory cues alone, but that this choice was in direct opposition to that made when the females received only visual cues from the same males.Communicated by: M. Abrahams