Do females pay attention to secondary sexual coloration in vervet monkeys (Chlorocebus aethiops)?

Several primate species show sexual dichromatism with males displaying conspicuous coloration of the pelage or skin. Studies of scrotal coloration in male vervet monkeys (Chlorocebus aethiops) suggest that it is an important intrasexual signal, with relatively dark, colourful males dominating paler males. To date, no studies have examined the influence of male colour on intersexual social interactions in vervet monkeys. The primary goal of the present study was to evaluate whether female vervet monkeys attend to male coloration. We experimentally introduced females, housed with either “pale” or “dark” males, to stimulus males whose scrota were pale, dark, or pale but painted to look dark. Overall, during introductions, females did not differ in time spent directing affiliative behaviour toward pale, dark, and painted males; however, females, permanently housed with dark males, spent significantly more time directing affiliative behaviour toward pale than painted males. When the stimulus male was pale, affiliative exchanges between males and females were longer than when the stimulus male was painted. Home male colour was not related to female-initiated aggression. Home male colour was also not related to male-initiated aggression, although painted stimulus males were more likely to initiate aggression than pale stimulus males. These findings lead us to conclude that females pay attention to male coloration, but do not bias their interactions toward males solely on the basis of natural male coloration.     

Sex differences in survival costs of reproduction in a promiscuous primate

In sexually promiscuous mammals, female reproductive effort is mainly expressed through gestation, lactation, and maternal care, whereas male reproductive effort is mainly manifested as mating effort. In this study, we investigated whether reproduction has significant survival costs for a seasonally breeding, sexually promiscuous species, the rhesus macaque, and whether these costs occur at different times of the year for females and males, namely in the birth and the mating season, respectively. The study was conducted with the rhesus macaque population on Cayo Santiago, Puerto Rico. Data on 7,402 births and 922 deaths over a 45-year period were analyzed. Births were concentrated between November and April, while conceptions occurred between May and October. As predicted, female mortality probability peaked in the birth season whereas male mortality probability peaked in the mating season. Furthermore, as the onset of the birth season gradually shifted over the years in relation to climatic changes, there was a concomitant shift in the seasonal peaks of male and female mortality. Taken together, our findings provide the first evidence of sex differences in the survival costs of reproduction in nonhuman primates and suggest that reproduction has significant fitness costs even in environments with abundant food and absence of predation.     

Developing a passion for work passion: Future directions on an emerging construct

Although the passion that people demonstrate at work would appear to be a topic of considerable interest and importance to organizational scholars and practitioners, we know virtually nothing about it. In response, we introduce the work passion construct, discuss what we currently understand, and provide needed directions for future research. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Bioconcentration of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons by the freshwater oligochaete Lumbriculus variegatus

Tissue residues of the PAHs, anthracene, fluorene, fluoranthene and pyrene were determined in Lumbriculus variegatus at four time intervals during both a 96-h exposure period to monitor uptake, and a 96-h clean water period to assess depuration. Mean BCFs were 2390, 1210, 452 and 1920 for fluoranthene, anthracene, fluorene and pyrene, respectively. BCFs were positively correlated with the octanol/water partition coefficient values of the four PAHs. Depuration occurred most rapidly for fluorene, followed by anthracene and fluoranthene. No apparent depuration of pyrene was observed during the 96-h depuration period. Because of rapid depuration of some PAHs, it appears that the 24 h clean water gut clearance period recommended in conjunction with sediment bioaccumulation tests with L. variegatus has potential to result in an under-estimation of bioaccumulation of some chemicals.     

Effective Regulations with Little Effect? The Antecedents of the Perceptions of Environmental Officials on Enforcement Effectiveness in China

Enforcement gaps are an especially vexing problem in China due to pervasive "pro-growth" local government priorities, the weak administrative capacity of environmental agencies themselves, and relatively weak levels of societal support for a cleaner environment. This study seeks to examine this problem from the perspective of the local enforcement officials by empirically examining the relationships between these and other influences on their perceptions of enforcement effectiveness. Using samples of enforcement officials from the fast-growing cities of Chengdu, Dalian, and Guangzhou, this study finds that many of the more commonly cited problems related to regulatory enforcement were not as influential in accounting for variations in perceptions of enforcement effectiveness than the current literature might suggest. Moreover, this study also finds that the pattern of influences varies greatly across jurisdictions, with only the officials' belief in the legitimacy of the governments' policies being significant in all three samples. Strong influences on perceptions of enforcement effectiveness in two of the three samples include the environmental values of enforcement officials, their perceptions of organizational capacity for enforcement, and their assessment of government support for environmental protection. Although government support was found to be a strong predictor of enforcement effectiveness in two of the three samples, the influence of societal support had a somewhat mixed and more complicated effect. In addition, this study suggests that further improvements in enforcement effectiveness may be possible by cultivating or selecting enforcement officials with strong environmental values and beliefs in the legitimacy of the government's environmental policy to take charge of enforcement. Because it is generally accepted that local environmental protection bureaus are generally upgrading their organizational capacity for improvement as the result of increasing central government support for environmental protection and institutional restructuring, and because environmental awareness in China is growing, this study suggests that some incremental progress is likely in China's efforts to close the enforcement gap. Unfortunately, such improvements are likely to be masked by the steep trajectory of economic growth, the narrow scope of regulatory control (i.e., with scant attention paid to nonindustrial sources), and the migration of industrial pollution to rural areas.     

利用哺乳动物测试系统识别非哺乳类群中雌激素化学物质的科学基础评估

美国环境保护部负责评估超过10 000种化学物质的内分泌活动,而合理的实现评估不能仅仅利用体内化验。因此,使用以特定的内分泌系统为目标测定的体外高通量(HTP)数据提出了化学物质体内化验优先原则。最近聚焦于潜在雌激素化学物质—特别是关于能够激活雌激素受体α(ERα)的化学物质的研究工作大致证实了该方法的可行性。然而,该方法存在一个主要的不确定性,那就是基于哺乳动物(主要是人类)的HTP ER化验的优先级是否能够准确地反映chemical-ERα在非哺乳类物种中潜在的相互作用。这里我们对以下几方面进行了全面分析,包括基于ERs结构属性、体外绑定和ERα反式激活数据的相关信息研究chemical-ERα交互作用的跨物种相似性,以及一系列化学物质对体内雌激素信号通路的影响。总的来说,这种综合分析表明,在哺乳动物系统中具有中度到高度雌激素效能的化学物质在非哺乳类脊椎动物中同样是优先级的化学物质。然而,由于缺乏对可能的ERαorthologues的生物作用的了解,优先级方法在多大程度上能够适用于无脊椎动物是不确定的。进一步比较分析鱼类和爬行动物的体外数据表明基于哺乳类的试验可能不会有效地获取在所有脊椎动物门类中ERα与低亲和力的化学物质的交互作用。
精选自Gerald T. Ankley, Carlie A. LaLone, L. Earl Gray, Daniel L. Villeneuve, Michael W. Hornung. Evaluation of the Scientific Underpinnings for Identifying Estrogenic Chemicals in Non-Mammalian Taxa using Mammalian Test Systems. Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry: Volume 35, Issue 11, pages 2806–2816, November 2016. DOI: 10.1002/etc.3456
详情请见http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/etc.3456/full
     

The vertical integration of Lisbon and sustainable development strategies across the EU: How different governance architectures shape the European coherence of policy documents

In Europe, sustainable development (SD) is pursued with not one but two overarching strategies, i.e., the so-called Lisbon and SD strategies. While the Lisbon Strategy is a genuinely European response to global economic and social pressures, SD strategies are national efforts corresponding with international (mainly United Nations) guidance to better coordinate and integrate economic, social and, in particular, environmental policies. The present paper explores the vertical coordination and coherence of the two pan-European strategies. After reviewing the international background of SD strategies and the EU origins of the Lisbon strategy, the paper characterizes and compares the governance architectures of the two strategies. With a solid background on how vertical policy integration functions in the two processes, the paper then shows how this affects the coherence of respective strategy structures and monitoring indicators. Based on an extensive empirical stocktaking study of the objectives and indicators in Lisbon and SD strategies across Europe it is shown that, despite the stronger European coordination through the Open Method of Coordination, the Lisbon process entailed only slightly more coherent national strategies than international guidance did in the context of SD strategies. Thus, the paper concludes that the influence international organizations such as the UN and the OECD have on national policy-making must not be underestimated.     

Human Influences on Water Quality in Great Lakes Coastal Wetlands

A better understanding of relationships between human activities and water chemistry is needed to identify and manage sources of anthropogenic stress in Great Lakes coastal wetlands. The objective of the study described in this article was to characterize relationships between water chemistry and multiple classes of human activity (agriculture, population and development, point source pollution, and atmospheric deposition). We also evaluated the influence of geomorphology and biogeographic factors on stressor-water quality relationships. We collected water chemistry data from 98 coastal wetlands distributed along the United States shoreline of the Laurentian Great Lakes and GIS-based stressor data from the associated drainage basin to examine stressor-water quality relationships. The sampling captured broad ranges (1.5–2 orders of magnitude) in total phosphorus (TP), total nitrogen (TN), dissolved inorganic nitrogen (DIN), total suspended solids (TSS), chlorophyll a (Chl a), and chloride; concentrations were strongly correlated with stressor metrics. Hierarchical partitioning and all-subsets regression analyses were used to evaluate the independent influence of different stressor classes on water quality and to identify best predictive models. Results showed that all categories of stress influenced water quality and that the relative influence of different classes of disturbance varied among water quality parameters. Chloride exhibited the strongest relationships with stressors followed in order by TN, Chl a, TP, TSS, and DIN. In general, coarse scale classification of wetlands by morphology (three wetland classes: riverine, protected, open coastal) and biogeography (two ecoprovinces: Eastern Broadleaf Forest [EBF] and Laurentian Mixed Forest [LMF]) did not improve predictive models. This study provides strong evidence of the link between water chemistry and human stress in Great Lakes coastal wetlands and can be used to inform management efforts to improve water quality in Great Lakes coastal ecosystems.     

Economic water management decisions: trade-offs between conflicting objectives in the sub-middle region of the São Francisco watershed

Hydro-economic models can measure the economic effects of different reservoir operating rules, environmental restrictions, maintenance of ecosystems, technical constraints, institutional constraints, land use change, and climate change. To determine the optimal economic water allocation, for its main uses in the sub-middle of the São Francisco River Basin, a hydro-economic optimization model was developed and applied. Demand curves were used rather than fixed requirements for water resources. The results show that operation rules of reservoirs and institutional constraints, such as priorities for human consumption, have high impacts on costs and benefits of the principal economic uses in the study area. Especially, costs of environmental demands, like minimum ecological river flow, have high impacts on the water resource management. Scarcity costs of irrigation users associated with maintaining ecosystems and environmental constraints are particularly significant. The results from this study provide a better understanding of the water trade-offs for future policymaking and efficient water management. Policymaking for the water resources should consider the food-water-energy-environment nexus at a regional scale to minimize environmental and economic cost under water scarcity and land use change.     

Disaster risk,social vulnerability,and economic development

This paper examines the extent to which economic development decreases a country's risk of experiencing climate‐related disasters as well as the societal impacts of those events. The paper proceeds from the underlying assumption that disasters are not inherently natural, but arise from the intersection of naturally‐occurring hazards within fragile environments. It uses data from the International Disaster Database (EM‐DAT), 1 representing country‐year‐level observations over the period 1980–2007. The study finds that low‐income countries are significantly more at risk of climate‐related disasters, even after controlling for exposure to climate hazards and other factors that may confound disaster reporting. Following the occurrence of a disaster, higher income generally diminishes a country's social vulnerability to such happenings, resulting in lower levels of mortality and morbidity. This implies that continued economic development may be a powerful tool for lessening social vulnerability to climate change.