“Selfish worker policing” controls reproduction in a Temnothorax ant

Animal societies, including those of humans, are under constant threat by selfish individuals, who attempt to enforce their own interests at the cost of the group. In the societies of bees, wasps, and ants, such individual selfishness can be prevented by “policing,” whereby workers or queens impede the reproduction of other individuals by aggression, immobilization, or egg eating. In this study, we report on a particular kind of reproduction control in the ant Temnothorax unifasciatus, which can be considered as a selfish act itself. We experimentally induced workers to lay eggs by dividing several colonies into two halves, one with and one without a queen. In queenless colonies, workers established rank orders by aggression and several top-ranking workers started to reproduce. Upon reunification, egg-laying workers mostly stopped behaving aggressively. They were neither attacked by the queen nor by random workers, but instead received infrequent, nondestructive, targeted aggression from a few workers, most of which became fertile when the queen was later removed. The introduction of differentially stained worker-laid and queen-laid eggs in queenright fragments did not lead to a selective removal of worker-laid eggs. Hence, there appears to be no collective worker policing in T. unifasciatus. Instead, reproduction appears to be controlled mostly through a few attacks from high-ranking workers, which, in this way, might attempt to selfishly increase their chances of future reproduction.     

德国《环境责任法》的基本内容和特色介评

简要论述了德国《环境责任法》的主要内容和特色 ,包括因果关系推定、无过失责任原则、受害人的咨询请求权制度以及责任保险、财务担保制度等。     

CONFLICT ANALYSIS OF THE SHOAL LAKE SUBDWISION1

ABSTRACT: The techniques of conflict analysis derived from game theory were applied to the Shoal Lake water supply conflict in southeastern Manitoba, Canada. The issue of conflict is the desire of an Indian Band in the area to build cottage lots near the intake for water supply for the City of Winnipeg. The City of Winnipeg contends that such a development would seriously affect the quality of water supplied to the City, thereby increasing its treatment costs significantly. The four major players defined for the conflict are the City of Winnipeg, Indian Band No. 40, the Province of Manitoba, and the Federal Department of Indian and Northern Affairs. The results of the conflict analysis suggest that the introduction of the provincial and federal government into the conifict will not assist significantly in its resolution and that further progress on the resolution is unlikely until the results of Federal Environment Assessment Review office hearing become available.     

基于BIM的装配式建筑并行施工作业空间冲突识别

为识别装配式建筑施工并行作业之间的空间冲突,分析装配式建筑施工项目现场各类作业空间占用需求,利用BIM技术模拟作业空间占用,引入混合轴向包围盒（AABB）与有向包围盒（OBB）算法,建立施工现场并行作业空间冲突检测模型。结果表明:所建立的模型可有效预测施工现场并行作业之间的空间冲突,为进一步的空间资源优化与项目安全管理提供支撑。     

Animal agency in wildlife conservation and management

Wildlife conservation and management (WCM) practices have been historically drawn from a wide variety of academic fields, yet practitioners have been slow to engage with emerging conversations about animals as complex beings, whose individuality and sociality influence their relationships with humans. We propose an explicit acknowledgement of wild, nonhuman animals as active participants in WCM. We examined 190 studies of WCM interventions and outcomes to highlight 3 common assumptions that underpin many present approaches to WCM: animal behaviors are rigid and homogeneous; wildlife exhibit idealized wild behavior and prefer pristine habitats; and human–wildlife relationships are of marginal or secondary importance relative to nonhuman interactions. We found that these management interventions insufficiently considered animal learning, decision-making, individuality, sociality, and relationships with humans and led to unanticipated detrimental outcomes. To address these shortcomings, we synthesized theoretical advances in animal behavioral sciences, animal geographies, and animal legal theory that may help conservation professionals reconceptualize animals and their relationships with humans. Based on advances in these fields, we constructed the concept of animal agency, which we define as the ability of animals to actively influence conservation and management outcomes through their adaptive, context-specific, and complex behaviors that are predicated on their sentience, individuality, lived experiences, cognition, sociality, and cultures in ways that shape and reshape shared human–wildlife cultures, spaces, and histories. Conservation practices, such as compassionate conservation, convivial conservation, and ecological justice, incorporate facets of animal agency. Animal agency can be incorporated in conservation problem-solving by assessing the ways in which agency contributes to species’ survival and by encouraging more adaptive and collaborative decision-making among human and nonhuman stakeholders.     

从委托代理理论谈中国的环境影响评价制度

根据委托代理理论,分析了中国环境影响评价制度中存在的问题,立足于绿色招商的理念,理顺建设项目环评委托代理关系,明确了建设单位、环评单位、招商部门、环保部门等相互之间的关系和职责,以使中国的环境影响评价制度更适应新型工业化道路发展的要求。     

Independence, not conflict, characterizes dart-shooting and sperm exchange in a hermaphroditic snail

Although the sexes are united in hermaphrodites, conflict can still occur because the male and female functions have separate interests. We examined the evidence for conflict in the mating system of the terrestrial snail Cantareus aspersus (formerly Helix aspersa) where sharp, calcareous darts are ‘shot’ during courtship. We predicted that the use of the dart would either reflect or create conflict and this would be evident in either the courtship behavior or the transference of sperm. Previous studies demonstrated that the dart functions after sperm transfer to increase sperm survival. Using detailed observations of mating snails, we examined the factors that determine dart shooting order, the behavioral responses after being hit by a dart, the accuracy of dart shooting, and the allocation of sperm resources. We found that each dart was shot independently, and each animal appeared to be interested only in getting off the best possible shot, probably one that penetrates deeply near the genital pore. There is no evidence of mating conflict. Every snail transfers sperm to its partner, and the size of the donation does not depend on the success or failure of either snail’s dart shot. Although the receipt of a dart does not appear to cause harm, it may produce indirect costs due to the partial loss of control over fertilization. We conclude that mating in C. aspersus is a partnership in which independent actors demonstrate unconditional reciprocity during courtship and sperm transfer.     

Embryonic and parental preferences for incubation temperature in herring gulls: implications for parent-offspring conflict

According to Trivers (1974), parent-offspring (P-O) conflict arises because offspring are selected to solicit more care than parents are selected to provide. However, should benefits fail to increase with increasing care, the offspring optimum can be reduced to the point where predicted P-O conflict vanishes. We examined offspring demand and parental care in such a benefit-limited system in herring gulls (Larus argentatus). In this species, parents typically neglect their lasthatched (C-) egg during the final hours of hatching (pipped-egg stage), allowing mean temperature to drop by about 4°C, to near 33°C. Other studies indicate that no increased offspring benefit arises from increasing pipped egg incubation temperature above that level, but embryo damage occurs if temperature drops lower. In such a system, P-O conflict over preferred incubation temperature is predicted to be minimal or absent. We assessed phenotypic manifestations of conflict by determining incubation temperature preferences of parent and offspring independently. Temperature provided solely by parental initiative was 33.9°C (artificial eggs, corrected for embryonic heat production). Preferred incubation temperature of pipped embryos was measured by exposing them to moderate chilling (20°C) punctuated by 4-min periods of rewarming when they called. Temperature of vocally thermoregulating embryos stabilized around a mean of 32.9–33.4°C, about 0.5–1.0°C below parental preference. Acting independently, parents and embryos each maintained egg temperature at or near minimum developmentally safe levels. Results provided no evidence for phenotypic conflict, as predicted by a benefit-limited version of Trivers' P-O conflict model. Benefit limitation may also be relevant to P-O conflict in other contexts such as feeding of newly-hatched young.     

基于LEI和MSPA的南昌市城市扩张类型与生态景观类型变化关联分析

中国正处于城市化快速发展阶段,城市扩张导致大量生态景观日益破碎,分析城市扩张类型与生态景观类型的变化及其关联机制能为改善生态环境提供指导。以南昌市为研究区,采用景观扩张指数（LEI）和形态学空间格局分析法（MSPA）识别南昌市的城市扩张类型和生态用地景观类型,并通过建立缓冲区带分析城市扩张类型与生态景观类型变化的关联特征。结果表明：（1）南昌市城市扩张主要以边缘型扩张为主,生态用地以“核心”形态为主;（2）不同圈层的城市扩张类型和生态景观类型的关系在不同发展阶段差异显著;（3）在城市扩张过程中,总体上生态景观越加破碎,边缘型扩张会加速大型绿色斑块的减小,飞地型扩张促进绿色景观单元的破碎化,填充型扩张则有弱化这一过程的作用。研究结果可为控制城市无序扩张提供可靠的理论参考,并为研究区的城市有序扩张和生态环境保护提供决策依据。     

经济与环境发展关系研究进展与述评

经济与环境发展关系一直备受关注。国内外关于经济与环境关系的研究多年来有不同程度的发展。文章对经济与环境协调发展研究的基本特征、研究形式进行了探讨。在经济与环境关系的实证研究方面,主要3种表现形式:①对投入产出模型、非线性的扩展型生产函数及新古典经济模型等经典模型进行了应用研究;②以协调发展指标、环境承载力对区域经济与环境的协调发展进行评判;③以环境库兹涅茨曲线来表现区域经济与环境的关系。未来对于经济与环境关系的研究应该注意:通过采用时间序列和横截面相结合的方法来减少环境数据欠缺的限制;注重经济发展与环境建设的相互作用的研究;注重探究经济与环境背后作用机制;通过拓宽环境指标、模型改进、改变内生缺陷等方式来完善环境库兹涅茨曲线研究。