Conditional sex allocation in the Red Mason bee, Osmia rufa

Trivers' and Willard's hypothesis that natural selection favors sex allocation in relation to maternal condition assumes iteropary. Though this assumption is not met in most solitary Aculeata, the reproductive life span of semelparous females may be divided into discrete successive cycles by the risk of open-cell parasitism. Females can avoid losing their investment to parasites attacking the open cell only by limiting the provision time for each cell. The restriction of time available for the investment in a single progeny irrespective of the condition of the female leads to de facto iteropary. Moreover, in Hymenoptera, there are no costs for sex allocation due to the haplodiploid mode of sex determination. In sexually size dimorphic species, females in poor condition are predicted to invest in the smaller sex and vice versa. The resulting prediction of a conditional sex allocation in solitary Aculeata was tested in the Red Mason bee, Osmia rufa (Osmia bicornis), a stem or hole-nesting, polylectic, univoltine megachilid bee. Body size is a key component of condition in females of nest-constructing solitary bees. Large females collect the same amount of pollen and nectar in a shorter time than small ones and should suffer less from parasitism. We found that small females dealt with their handicap of a low provisioning performance by shifting the sex ratio toward sons (the smaller sex) and by reducing the body size of daughters. Large females, however, shifted their offspring sex ratio toward daughters, the sex that depends more on body size in its reproductive value. The sex ratio in the population met the expected Fisherian sex ratio. Although females allocated their investment in the sexes according to their body mass, the population-level investment was balanced.     

Made in conflict. Local residents' construction of a local environmental problem

The aim of this paper is to understand how local residents participate in the construction of local environmental problems and to evaluate a particular analytical approach in environmental sociology to study this phenomenon. The paper is based on an interview study with a sample of local residents. The analysis demonstrates how the local residents attempt to construct a local environmental problem. In particular, the study focuses on how involved actors are positioned, how different sorts of knowledge claims are used, and how the neglect the residents perceive from the authorities affects the attempt to construct a local environmental problem. The study shows that the local residents play a central role in the construction of the situation and that the evaluated model could be very helpful as an analytical tool in the investigation of local residents' participation in the construction of environmental problems.     

Climate change in mountain regions: how local communities adapt to extreme events

This paper examines how local communities adapt to climate change and how governance structures can foster or undermine adaptive capacity. Climate change policies, in general, and disaster risk management in mountain regions, in particular, are characterised by their multi-level and multi-sectoral nature during formulation and implementation. The involvement of numerous state and non-state actors at local to national levels produces a variety of networks of interaction and communication. The paper argues that the structure of these relational patterns is critical for understanding adaptive capacity. It thus proposes an expanded concept of adaptive capacity that incorporates (horizontal and vertical) actor integration and communication flow between these actors. The paper further advocates the use of formal social network analysis to assess these relational patterns. Preliminary results from research on adaptation to climate change in a Swiss mountain region vulnerable to floods and other natural hazards illustrate the conceptual and empirical significance of the main arguments.     

Evaluating the success of functional restoration after reintroduction of a lost avian pollinator

Conservation translocation is a common method for species recovery, for which one increasingly frequent objective is restoring lost ecological functions to promote ecosystem recovery. However, few conservation translocation programs explicitly state or monitor function as an objective, limiting the ability to test assumptions, learn from past efforts, and improve management. We evaluated whether translocations of hihi (Notiomystis cincta), a threatened New Zealand passerine, achieved their implicit objective of restoring lost pollination function. Through a pollinator-exclusion experiment, we quantified, with log response ratios (lnR), the effects of birds on fruit set and seed quality in hangehange (Geniostoma ligustrifolium), a native flowering shrub. We isolated the contributions of hihi by making comparisons across sites with and without hihi. Birds improved fruit set more at sites without hihi (lnR = 1.27) than sites with hihi (lnR = 0.50), suggesting other avian pollinators compensated for and even exceeded hihi contributions to fruit set. Although birds improved seed germination only at hihi sites (lnR = 0.22–0.41), plants at sites without hihi had germination rates similar to hihi sites because they produced 26% more filled seeds, regardless of pollination condition. Therefore, although our results showed hihi improved seed quality, they also highlighted the complexity of ecological functions. When an important species is lost, ecosystems may be able to achieve similar function through different means. Our results underscore the importance of stating and monitoring the ecological benefits of conservation translocations when functional restoration is a motivation to ensure these programs are achieving their objectives.     

Tissue distribution of polychlorinated naphthalenes (PCNs) and non-ortho chlorinated biphenyls (non-ortho CBs) in harbour porpoises (Phocoena phocoena) from Swedish waters

Polychlorinated naphthalenes (PCNs) and non-ortho chlorinated biphenyls (non-ortho CBs) were analysed in blubber, nuchal fat, liver, muscle, kidney and brain of three male harbour porpoises (Phocoena phocoena) from the west coast of Sweden. To estimate spatial variation, PCNs and non-ortho CBs were analysed in six blubber samples collected at different anatomical sites of each animal. Highest wet weight concentrations of ΣPCNs were detected in the lipid rich tissues (blubber and nuchal fat) and liver (520–730 and 520 pg/g, respectively) and lowest in brain (22 pg/g). TetraCNs were most abundant in muscle, kidney and brain, while the hexaCNs were most abundant in the lipid rich tissues and liver. The highest lipid weight concentration recorded (11 ng/g) was for the hexaCN congeners no. 66/67 in liver. These coeluting hexaCN congeners accounted for 80–100% of total hexaCNs in all tissues examined.Concentrations of Σnon-ortho CBs were highest in lipid rich tissues (220–280 pg/g wet weight). Non-ortho CB no. 77 and 169 constituted between 62–86% and 4.9–9.3%, respectively, of total Σnon-ortho CBs. No major variation of Σnon-ortho CB concentrations was found between the six different blubber sites but higher ΣPCN concentrations (wet weight) were found dorsally at the peduncle. Toxic equivalent concentrations (TEQs) showed that non-ortho CB no. 126 was the main contributor to total TEQs in all tissues, except liver in which hexaCN congener nos. 66/67 contributed to about 50% of total TEQs.     

Cryptic prey colouration increases search time in brown trout (<Emphasis Type="Italic">Salmo trutta</Emphasis>): effects of learning and body size

Little is known about how cryptic colouration influences prey search in near-surface aquatic habitats, although such knowledge is critical for understanding the adaptive value of colour crypsis as well as the perceptive constraints influencing foraging behaviour in these environments. This study had two main aims: (1) to investigate how background colour matching by prey affects foraging efficiency by brown trout parr and (2) to investigate how foraging ability on cryptic and conspicuous prey is affected by fish size at age (reflecting dominance). We addressed these questions by training wild brown trout parr to forage individually on live brown-coloured maggots on a cryptic (brown) or conspicuous (green) background. A separate experiment confirmed the absence of trout preference for brown or green substrate. The results show that prey background colour matching increases search time in brown trout. Search time generally decreased by learning, but conspicuous prey remained an easier prey to find throughout the six training trials. Thus, perceptive constraints appear to limit search efficiency for cryptic prey, suggesting that cryptic colouration can confer survival benefits to prey in natural environments. Smaller fish generally found conspicuous prey faster than larger individuals, whereas search time for cryptic prey was not influenced by body size. This suggests that smaller individuals compensate for inferior competitive ability by increasing foraging activity rather than improving cognitive ability. The technique of varying cognitive demands in behavioural tasks could be used more in future studies aimed at distinguishing motivational effects from cognitive explanations for variation in behavioural performance.     

Scale-dependent variation in coral community similarity across sites, islands, and island groups

Community similarity is the proportion of species richness in a region that is shared on average among communities within that region. The slope of local richness (alpha diversity) regressed on regional richness (gamma diversity) can serve as an index of community similarity across regions with different regional richness. We examined community similarity in corals at three spatial scales (among transects at a site, sites on an island, and islands within an island group) across a 10 000-km longitudinal diversity gradient in the west-central Pacific Ocean. When alpha diversity was regressed on gamma diversity, the slopes, and thus community similarity, increased with scale (0.085, 0.261, and 0.407, respectively) because a greater proportion of gamma diversity was subsumed within alpha diversity as scale increased. Using standard randomization methods, we also examined how community similarity differed between observed and randomized assemblages and how this difference was affected by spatial separation of species within habitat types and specialization of species to three habitat types (reef flats, crests, and slopes). If spatial separation within habitat types and/or habitat specialization (i.e., underdispersion) occurs, fewer species are shared among assemblages than the random expectation. When the locations of individual coral colonies were randomized within and among habitat types, community similarity was 46-47% higher than that for observed assemblages at all three scales. We predicted that spatial separation of coral species within habitat types should increase with scale due to dispersal/extinction dynamics in this insular system, but that specialization of species to different habitat types should not change because habitat differences do not change with scale. However, neither habitat specialization nor spatial separation within habitat types differed among scales. At the two larger scales, each accounted for 22-24% of the difference in community similarity between observed and randomized assemblages. At the smallest scale (transect-site), neither spatial separation within habitat types nor habitat specialization had significant effects on community similarity, probably due to the small size of transect samples. The results suggest that coral species can disperse among islands in an island group as easily as they can among sites on an island over time scales that are relevant to their establishment and persistence on reefs.     

Parental supervision and discomfort with children walking to school in low-income communities in Cape Town,South Africa

Objective: The risk of pedestrian injury is compounded for children living in low-income communities due to factors such as poor road and pedestrian infrastructure, reliance on walking as a means of transport, and compromised supervision. Parents play an important role in child pedestrian safety. The primary objective of this study was to examine the effects of child pedestrian variables on parental discomfort with regard to letting their child walk to and from school and on the frequency of adult supervision.

Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted using a convenience sample from 3 schools participating in a pedestrian safety school initiative. The schools are situated in low-income, high-risk communities in the City of Cape Town. A parent survey form was translated into isiXhosa and sent home with learners to those parents who had consented to participate. The response rate was 70.4%, and only parents of children who walk to and from school were included in the final sample (n = 359). Child pedestrian variables include the time taken to walk to school, parental rating of the child's ability to safely cross the road, and the frequency of adult supervision.

Results: More than half of parents reported that their child walked to and from school without adult supervision. About 56% of children took less than 20 min to walk to school. Most parents (61%) were uncomfortable with their child walking to school, although the majority of parents (55.7%) rated their child's ability to cross the road safely as better or significantly better than average (compared to peers). The parents did not perceive any differences in pedestrian risk factors between boys and girls or between younger (6–9 years) and older (10–15 years) children. The time spent by a child walking to school and parents' perceptions of their child's road-crossing ability were found to be significant predictors of parental discomfort (in letting their child walk). Younger children and children who spent less time walking were more likely to be supervised by an adult.

Conclusions: Many South African schoolchildren have to navigate the roads without adult supervision from a young age. Caregivers, especially in low-income settings, often have limited options with regard to getting their child to school safely. Regardless of the child's age and gender, the time that they spend on the roads is an important factor for parents in terms of pedestrian safety.     

Does monensin in chicken manure from poultry farms pose a threat to soil invertebrates?

Monensin is a carboxylic polyether ionophore used in the poultry industry as a coccidiostat. It enters the environment via manure from broiler farms. In spite of its potential presence in the environment, information concerning monensin residues in manure and soil and its toxicity to soil organisms are insufficient. In the present study, two beneficial soil invertebrate species, earthworms (Eisenia andrei) and woodlice (Porcellio scaber), were used to assess the toxicity of monensin. Animals were exposed to a range of monensin concentrations via soil or food. Earthworm reproduction was found to be the most susceptible endpoint (NOEC=3.5 mg kg(-1) dry soil; EC(50)=12.7 mg kg(-1) dry soil), while no adverse effects were recorded in isopods (NOEC?849mgkg(-1) dry soil, NOEC?357mgkg(-1) dry food). The obtained toxicity data were compared with potential concentrations of monensin in soil. In view of this, manure from broiler chickens treated with monensin at a poultry farm was sampled. According to monensin and nitrogen concentrations in the chicken manure and the degradation time of monensin, the predicted environmental concentration (PEC) was calculated. PEC of monensin is around 0.013 mg kg(-1) soil if manure is used after 3 months of composting and 0.05 mg kg(-1) soil if used without storage. Data for earthworm reproduction was used to estimate the predicted no-effect concentration (PNEC). If fresh chicken manure is applied to terrestrial ecosystems, the risk quotient (PEC/PNEC ratio) is above 1, which indicates that monensin might pose an environmental risk under certain conditions. To prevent this, it is strongly recommended to compost chicken manure for several months before using it as fertiliser.     

Framework for integrating sustainability into remediation projects

The US Sustainable Remediation Forum (SURF) created this Framework to enable sustainability parameters to be integrated and balanced throughout the remediation project life cycle, while ensuring long‐term protection of human health and the environment and achieving public and regulatory acceptance. Parameters are considerations, impacts, or stressors of environmental, social, and economic importance. Because remediation project phases are not stand‐alone entities but interconnected components of the wider remediation system, the Framework provides a systematic, process‐based approach in which sustainability is integrated holistically and iteratively within the wider remediation system. By focusing stakeholders on the preferred end use or future use of a site at the beginning of a remediation project, the Framework helps stakeholders form a disciplined planning strategy. Specifically, the Framework is designed to help remediation practitioners (1) perform a tiered sustainability evaluation, (2) update the conceptual site model based on the results of the sustainability evaluation, (3) identify and implement sustainability impact measures, and (4) balance sustainability and other considerations during the remediation decision‐making process. The result is a process that encourages communication among different stakeholders and allows remediation practitioners to achieve regulatory goals and maximize the integration of sustainability parameters during the remediation process. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.