Settlement patterns of female barn swallows Hirundo rustica across different group sizes: access to colorful males or favored nests?

In most avian species, individuals are faced with two critical decisions at the start of a breeding season: choosing a breeding site and a mate. An analysis of these decisions in light of population-level patterns, such as group size variation in social breeders, can illuminate the causes and patterns of habitat selection behavior. Group sizes are variable in barn swallows; however, no clear and consistent benefits of group breeding have been found in this species, and it is puzzling as to why individuals breed socially. Previous analyses demonstrated that individuals aggregate to gain access to nests that were constructed during previous seasons; however extra-pair matings are also prevalent in this species, raising questions about the mate-selection strategies of females across different group sizes. In this paper, I address the question of how females make their first site-selection decisions in terms of two features known to be causally related to seasonal reproductive success: (1) colorful males or (2) old nests. Using experimental and observational data, I tested, but found no support for, the hypotheses that propose female settlement decisions are a function of (1) the prevalence of colorful males or (2) the increased opportunity for extra-pair matings at group sites. Instead, it is apparent that female settlement patterns are strongly tied to the availability of old nests at a site. Extra-pair fertilizations are equally common across all group sizes in this population, suggesting that females do not face a trade-off between old nests and the possibility of extra-pair mating decisions when making settlement decisions.     

浙东隆起带与西南日本黑濑川构造带地质演化之比较

浙东、闽北陈蔡群和建瓯群所构成的浙东隆起带,东延过东海后,与西南日本黑濑川构造带的寺野、肥后变质岩类连接,属“华夏—日本南方大陆”的北部残留地块,是受控于江山-绍兴-御荷(?)古断裂带而抬升暴露的.     

Pesticide and PCB levels in fish from Alberta (Canada)

Pesticide and PCB analyses were completed on fat and muscle samples of 750 fish collected from 11 major lakes and rivers in Alberta. Although phenoxy and organophosphate residues were always below detectable limits, traces of chlorinated pesticides and their derivatives, particularly DDE, DDD and chlordane, were detected in most fat samples. Methoxychlor was frequently found in goldeye from the North Saskatchewan River but not recorded in fish from any other lake or river. Its presence in goldeye, a highly migratory species, was probably a result of biting-fly control programs in the Saskatchewan part of the river. PCB levels exceeded 25 mg/kg in the fat of several species from the North Saskatchewan River but were generally lower in the other systems. Analysis of 160 sediment samples from the North Saskatchewan River revealed no point source of PCB contamination, with residues always <0.01 mg/kg dry weight.     

Greater spear-nosed bats give group-distinctive calls

Individually distinctive vocalizations are ubiquitous; however, group distinctive calls have rarely been demonstrated. Under some conditions, selection should favor calls indicating social group membership in animals that forage in groups. Greater spear-nosed bats (Phyllostomus hastatus) give calls that appear to facilitate recognition of social group mates who are unrelated. Females give loud broadband (4–18 kHz) vocalizations termed screech calls when departing on foraging trips and at foraging sites. Screech calls help to establish foraging groups among social group members, and to maintain contact over the long distances they travel while foraging. I test two hypotheses about how screech calls may be structured to convey caller identity. Individual calls may be distinct and group members may learn to recognize each individual's calls and to associate the individual with the social group. Alternatively, groups may give distinct calls and individuals within groups may share call characteristics. To test these hypotheses I conducted multivariate acoustic analysis of multiple calls from 28 bats from three social groups. Although the ubiquity of individually distinctive calls in other taxa makes this result more likely, the results reveal that group calls are highly distinctive. Individual bats within groups are statistically indistinguishable. Calls appear to decrease slightly in frequency as bats age. Call convergence among unrelated group mates implies vocal learning in this species. Received: 28 March 1996 / Accepted after revision: 6 October 1996     

Spatial organization and behaviour of badgers <Emphasis Type="Italic">(Meles meles)</Emphasis> in a moderate-density population

Badgers are carnivores that show considerable variation in their social and spatial organization. At the westernmost part of their range, in Britain and Ireland, variation in spatial organization appears to be determined by the availability of resources. However, the majority of studies has focussed at one end of the social/spatial spectrum, where population densities are high and adjacent territories are contiguous and non-overlapping. To examine whether the same limiting factors appear to apply across a wider range of badger densities, we established a study site in a predominantly coniferous habitat within an upland area of northeast England, where population densities were predicted to be low. Seasonal home ranges of individual badgers were largest in autumn, followed by summer and spring, then winter. This pattern is reflective of the likely seasonal changes in food availability within the area, as opposed to being related to breeding patterns. There were also significant correlations between territory size and the number of grassland patches (positive) and the proportion of grassland (negative), which are consistent with predictions from the Resource Dispersion Hypothesis. Although badgers at the site were living at low to moderate densities relative to many other studied populations in Britain, they showed patterns of spatial organization that were close to those of high-density populations. The nature of the relationship between resource availability and abundance patterns is likely to have important consequences for the conservation and management of badgers and other species that show flexible spatial organization.     

机掘工作面粉尘防护设施影响因子及其隶属度函数的确定

阐述了筛选机掘工作面粉尘防护设施影响因子过程并确定了二级因子,结合相关技术资料和现场调研数据,针对每个因子采用数学建模的方法建立了隶属度函数,有助于进一步量化评价的实施。     

孟州地下水水质现状评价

文章以孟州为研究对象,分析了运用F值法和模糊综合评判法在评价地下水水质中所存在的主要问题,提出了以模糊综合评价法为主,结合F值法对地下水水质进行现状评价的方法。依据相关的地下水质量标准对研究区采集的不同监测井的地下水样品进行了评价。孟州地下水达到Ⅲ类水质量标准的监测点位有16个,占总监测点位的42％。水质评价分析表明,远离重污染区或是井深较深的监测点位水质较好,而接近重污染区、靠近污染程度较重的河道以及井深较浅的监测点位水质较差。并且分析了地下水的污染原因。     

Individual and collective foraging decisions: a field study of worker recruitment in the gypsy ant <Emphasis Type="Italic">Aphaenogaster senilis</Emphasis>

In social insects, the decision to exploit a food source is made both at the individual (e.g., a worker collecting a food item) and colony level (e.g., several workers communicating the existence of a food patch). In group recruitment, the recruiter lays a temporary chemical trail while returning from the food source to the nest and returns to the food guiding a small group of nestmates. We studied how food characteristics influence the decision-making process of workers changing from individual retrieving to group recruitment in the gypsy ant Aphaenogaster senilis. We offered field colonies three types of prey: crickets (cooperatively transportable), shrimps (non-transportable), and different quantities of sesame seeds (individually transportable). Colonies used group recruitment to collect crickets and shrimps, as well as seeds when they were available in large piles, while small seed piles rarely led to recruitment. Foragers were able to “measure” food characteristics (quality, quantity, transportability), deciding whether or not to recruit, accordingly. Social integration of individual information about food emerged as a colony decision to initiate or to continue recruitment when the food patch was rich. In addition, group recruitment allowed a fast colony response over a wide thermal range (up to 45°C ground temperature). Therefore, by combining both advantages of social foraging (group recruitment) and thermal tolerance, A. senilis accurately exploited different types of food sources which procured an advantage against mass-recruiting and behaviorally dominant species such as Tapinoma nigerrimum and Lasius niger.     

Vigilance behaviour and fitness consequences: comparing a solitary foraging and an obligate group-foraging mammal

Vigilance behaviour in gregarious species has been studied extensively, especially the relationship between individual vigilance and group size, which is often negative. Relatively little is known about the effect of conspecifics on vigilance in non-obligate social species or the influence of sociality itself on antipredator tactics. We investigated predator avoidance behaviour in the yellow mongoose, Cynictis penicillata, a group-living solitary forager, and compared it with a sympatric group-living, group-foraging herpestid, the meerkat, Suricata suricatta. In yellow mongooses, the presence of conspecifics during foraging—an infrequent occurrence—reduced their foraging time and success and increased individual vigilance, contrary to the classical group-size effect. Comparing the two herpestids, sociality did not appear to affect overt vigilance or survival rates but influenced general patterns of predator avoidance. Whereas meerkats relied on communal vigilance, costly vigilance postures, and auditory warnings against danger, yellow mongooses avoided predator detection by remaining close to safe refuges and increasing “low-cost” vigilance, which did not interfere with foraging. We suggest that foraging group size in herpestids is constrained by species-distinct vigilance patterns, in addition to habitat and prey preference.     

Does sex affect both individual and collective vigilance in social mammalian herbivores: the case of the eastern grey kangaroo?

In several vertebrate taxa, males and females differ in the proportions of time they individually devote to vigilance, commonly attributed to sex differences in intra-specific competition or in absolute energy requirements. However, an effect of sex on collective vigilance is less often studied (and therefore rarely predicted), despite being relevant to any consideration of the adaptiveness of mixed- vs single-sex grouping. Controlling for group size, we studied the effect of sex on vigilance in the sexually dimorphic eastern grey kangaroo Macropus giganteus, analysing vigilance at two structural levels: individual vigilance and the group’s collective vigilance. Knowing that group members in this species tend to synchronise their bouts of vigilance, we tested (for the first time) whether sex affects the degree of synchrony between group members. We found that females were individually more vigilant than males and that their vigilance rate was unaffected by the presence of males. Collective vigilance did not differ between female-only and mixed-sex groups of the same size. Vigilance in mixed-sex groups was neither more nor less synchronous than in single-sex groups of females, and the presence of males seemed not to affect the degree of synchrony between females. Sixty-six percent of vigilant acts were unique (performed when no other kangaroo was alert), and only about one unique vigilant act in every three induced a collective wave of vigilance. The proportions of vigilant acts that were unique were 60% for females but only 46% for males. However, the sexes differed little in the rates at which their unique vigilant acts were copied. This limited study shows that the differences in vigilance between male and female kangaroos had no discernible effect upon collective vigilance.