The structure of stereotyped calls reflects kinship and social affiliation in resident killer whales (Orcinus orca)

A few species of mammals produce group-specific vocalisations that are passed on by learning, but the function of learned vocal variation remains poorly understood. Resident killer whales live in stable matrilineal groups with repertoires of seven to 17 stereotyped call types. Some types are shared among matrilines, but their structure typically shows matriline-specific differences. Our objective was to analyse calls of nine killer whale matrilines in British Columbia to test whether call similarity primarily reflects social or genetic relationships. Recordings were made in 1985–1995 in the presence of focal matrilines that were either alone or with groups with non-overlapping repertoires. We used neural network discrimination performance to measure the similarity of call types produced by different matrilines and determined matriline association rates from 757 encounters with one or more focal matrilines. Relatedness was measured by comparing variation at 11 microsatellite loci for the oldest female in each group. Call similarity was positively correlated with association rates for two of the three call types analysed. Similarity of the N4 call type was also correlated with matriarch relatedness. No relationship between relatedness and association frequency was detected. These results show that call structure reflects relatedness and social affiliation, but not because related groups spend more time together. Instead, call structure appears to play a role in kin recognition and shapes the association behaviour of killer whale groups. Our results therefore support the hypothesis that increasing social complexity plays a role in the evolution of learned vocalisations in some mammalian species.     

Particulate matter and metals partitioning in highway rainfall-runoff

This study investigated the particulate matter (PM) and metals in highway dry deposition and rainfall-runoff as a function of hydrologic transport and settling on an event basis. Events were differentiated as mass-limited (ML) and flow-limited (FL). Results indicate that unique and separate suspended sediment concentration (SSC) relationships with turbidity occurred for ML and FL events. Sixty minutes of quiescent settling produced a single SSC-turbidity relationship for all events. ML events transport higher proportions of settleable and sediment PM while FL events transported relatively higher suspended PM. For batch clarification with one hour of settling, ML events had generally higher treatment efficiencies compared to FL events for the same settling conditions. Highway dry deposition PM was hetero-disperse and coarse (d _{50 m} = 304 μm). Results indicate that the acidic rainfall is not a significant contributor to metals in runoff but is capable of leaching metals from dry deposition PM into runoff. Partitioning in retained runoff resulted in a particulate-bound predominance for most metals except Ca and Mg. While the finer fraction of dry deposition PM (< 75 μm) generates the highest metal concentrations, the highest metal mass is associated with the coarser fraction (> 75 μm).     

Recilia banda Kramer (Hemiptera: Cicadellidae), a vector of Napier stunt phytoplasma in Kenya

Napier grass (Pennisetum purpureum) is the most important fodder crop in smallholder dairy production systems in East Africa, characterized by small zero-grazing units. It is also an important trap crop used in the management of cereal stemborers in maize in the region. However, production of Napier grass in the region is severely constrained by Napier stunt disease. The etiology of the disease is known to be a phytoplasma, 16SrXI strain. However, the putative insect vector was yet unknown. We sampled and identified five leafhopper and three planthopper species associated with Napier grass and used them as candidates in pathogen transmission experiments. Polymerase chain reaction (PCR), based on the highly conserved 16S gene, primed by P1/P6-R16F2n/R16R2 nested primer sets was used to diagnose phytoplasma on test plants and insects, before and after transmission experiments. Healthy plants were exposed for 60 days to insects that had fed on diseased plants and acquired phytoplasma. The plants were then incubated for another 30 days. Nested PCR analyses showed that 58.3% of plants exposed to Recilia banda Kramer (Hemiptera: Cicadellidae) were positive for phytoplasma and developed characteristic stunt disease symptoms while 60% of R. banda insect samples were similarly phytoplasma positive. We compared the nucleotide sequences of the phytoplasma isolated from R. banda, Napier grass on which these insects were fed, and Napier grass infected by R. banda, and found them to be virtually identical. The results confirm that R. banda transmits Napier stunt phytoplasma in western Kenya, and may be the key vector of Napier stunt disease in this region.     

Dangerous student car drop-off behaviors and child pedestrian–motor vehicle collisions: An observational study

Objectives: The objective of this study was to examine the association between dangerous student car drop-off behaviors and historical child pedestrian–motor vehicle collisions (PMVCs) near elementary schools in Toronto, Canada.

Methods: Police-reported child PMVCs during school travel times from 2000 to 2011 were mapped within 200 m of 118 elementary schools. Observers measured dangerous student morning car drop-off behaviors and number of children walking to school during one day in 2011. A composite score of school social disadvantage was obtained from the Toronto District School Board. Built environment and traffic features were mapped and included as covariates. A multivariate Poisson regression was used to model the rates of PMVC/number of children walking and dangerous student car drop-off behaviors, adjusting for the built environment and social disadvantage.

Results: There were 45 child PMVCs, with 29 (64%) sustaining minor injuries resulting in emergency department visits. The mean collision rate was 2.9/10,000 children walking/year (SD = 6.7). Dangerous drop-off behaviors were observed in 104 schools (88%). In the multivariate analysis, each additional dangerous drop-off behavior was associated with a 45% increase in collision rates (incident rate ratio [IRR] = 1.45, 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.02, 2.07). Higher speed roads (IRR = 1.27, 95% CI, 1.13, 1.44) and social disadvantage (IRR = 2.99, 95% CI, 1.03, 8.68) were associated with higher collision rates.

Conclusions: Dangerous student car drop-off behaviors were associated with historical nonfatal child PMVC rates during school travel times near schools. Some caution must be taken in interpreting these results due small number of events and limitations in the data collection, because collision data were collected historically over a 12-year period, whereas driving behavior was only observed on a single day in 2011. Targeted multifaceted intervention approaches related to the built environment, enforcement, and education could address dangerous drop-off behaviors near schools to reduce child PMVCs and promote safe walking to school.     

Search for a natural scientific measure of economy

Through human history, wealth has been measured in grain, gold, and, now, dollars. Though counterfeiting of coins and notes goes back a long way, it is only with electronic financial accounting in a global economy tainted by toxic loans and imaginary funds that there is an urgency to search for a realistic objective way to monitor and regulate what we are doing to our Earth and ourselves. Various schemes using analysis of utility functions, oil equivalents, entropy, energy, and other units have been tried and, while helping to understand some basic processes and flows, have always been swamped by the machinations of financiers and the attention big sums of money attract. Now, the concept of exergy, pioneered in Eastern Europe in the 1950s, is being researched, developed, and applied, especially in China, driven by the desperation to measure the reality beyond the twin specters of global financial and environmental crises. A rough inventory of the matter in the biosphere at the coordinate details of an angstrom and an appreciation of how humans harness and manipulate electromagnetic forces can be enlightening as to what is and is not sustainable. Without that understanding, any financial estimate and proposed stimulus packages or IMF reform will be wildly wrong and may even be headed in the wrong direction.     

Long Term Trends in Liver Neoplasm Epizootics of Brown Bullhead in the Black River, Ohio

Since 1980, liver neoplasms in brown bullhead and polynuclear aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH) in sediment have been researched in a series of studies on the Black River in Lorain, Ohio. In the early 1980s the liver cancer prevalence in fish of age 3 and older was high, ranging from 22% to 39% of the adult population. These high cancer rates corresponded to high levels of PAHs in the sediment resulting from long-term releases by an upstream coking facility (USX). In 1983 this coking plant was closed, and by 1987 the PAH in sediment had declined by about two orders of magnitude. Coincidentally the tumor prevalence in 1987 was only about one-fourth of that in the early 1980s. In 1990, the most contaminated sediments were dredged. Neoplasm surveys in 1992 and 1993 found liver tumor frequencies in mature bullhead were as high as or higher than in the early 1980s. However liver tumor incidence declined in 1994, especially among age 3 fish, where neoplasm incidence was zero. These age 3 fish were the first group sampled that were not present during the 1990 dredging. These data are consistent with a hypothesis that the increase in tumor prevalence in 1992 and 1993 was caused by exposure to buried PAH-contaminated sediments released by the dredging. This research points out the insight provided by long term effects studies.     

Sustainable Development and Institutional Design: The Example of the Mersey Basin Campaign

The Mersey Basin Campaign was established in 1985 in the North West of England to address continuing problems of water quality and associated landward dereliction of the River Mersey and its tributaries. The Campaign's premise that water quality should be improved both for its own sake and as a stimulus to regeneration has proved to be well founded and has subsequently been extended to embrace community action to help nurture watercourse improvement and care. The Campaign can now be seen as a model for engaging co-ordinated environmental action through a partnership approach. This paper explores the nature of the Mersey Basin Campaign as an example of the new structures which are being developed in order to help deliver the new environmentalpolicy agenda. It is argued that the Campaign stands as a model for what will become an increasing need to develop focused environmental planning and management at the sub-regional and regional scales.     

Salt Marsh Diking and Restoration: Biogeochemical Implications of Altered Wetland Hydrology

Experimental short-term desalination and drainage of salt marsh cores in greenhouse microcosms caused Spartina production to increase after one growing season, reflecting decreased salt stress and sulfide toxicity. However, production thereafter declined, likely due to pyrite oxidation and acidification in drained treatments and sulfide accumulation in waterlogged treatments. A survey of longer-term (decadal) effects of diking on peat composition of Cape Cod, Massachusetts, USA, marshes revealed acidification, Fe(II) mobilization, and decreased organic content in drained sites. Despite the aerobic decomposition of organic matter, abundant nutrients remained as sorbed NH₄ and mineral-bound PO₄. In diked, seasonally waterlogged sites, porewater alkalinity, sulfide, ammonium and orthophosphate were much lower, and organic solids higher, than in adjacent natural marsh. Seawater was added to cores from diked marshes to study the effects of tidal restoration. Salination of the drained peat increased porewater pH, alkalinity, ammonium, orthophosphate, Fe, and Al; copious ammonium N, and Fe(II) for sulfide precipitation favored Spartina growth. Salination of diked–waterlogged peat increased sulfate reduction and caused 6–8 cm of sediment subsidence. The resulting increase in porewater sulfides and waterlogging decreased vigor of transplanted Spartina alterniflora. Results indicate that seawater restoration should proceed cautiously to avoid nutrient loading of surface waters in drained sites or sulfide toxicity in diked–waterlogged marshes.     

Contradictory findings in studies of sex ratio variation in roe deer (Capreolus capreolus)

Patterns of sex ratio variation and maternal investment reported in the literature are often inconsistent. This could be due to intra- and inter-specific variation in social systems, but may also be a result of the a posteriori nature of much of this type of analysis or the testing of models which are inappropriate. Two recent papers reported directly opposed results concerning variation in offspring sex ratios in relation to maternal condition in roe deer, interpreting the results as support for the Trivers and Willard model and for the local resource competition hypothesis, respectively. In this paper, we present data on offspring sex ratios and early juvenile body weight from two long-term studies of this species to test predictions arising from these two models concerning sex biases in litter composition and maternal care. First, we observed no consistent pattern of sex differences in an index of weaning weight or body weight at 1 month old in either population, indicating a lack of sex bias in maternal care. However, in one population, higher maternal body weight was associated with higher juvenile body weight of daughters, but not of sons. Secondly, we found a negative, but not statistically significant, relationship between maternal body weight and litter sex ratio such that heavier females tended to produce more daughters and lighter females to produce more sons. These results indicate that roe females which have additional investment potential available do not invest it in sons, as predicted by the Trivers and Willard model. Our results may provide some support that roe deer are subject to local resource competition acting at the level of the individual mother; however, the fact that particular trends in sex ratio data can be explained in functional terms provides no indication that they are actually adaptive. Received: 9 December 1997 / Accepted after revision: 11 November 1998