Longitudinal Analysis of Attitudes Toward Wolves

Understanding individual attitudes and how these predict overt opposition to predator conservation or direct, covert action against predators will help to recover and maintain them. Studies of attitudes toward wild animals rely primarily on samples of individuals at a single time point. We examined longitudinal change in individuals’ attitudes toward gray wolves (Canis lupus). In the contiguous United States, amidst persistent controversy and opposition, abundances of gray wolves are at their highest in 60 years. We used mailed surveys to sample 1892 residents of Wisconsin in 2001 or 2004 and then resampled 656 of these individuals who resided in wolf range in 2009. Our study spanned a period of policy shifts and increasing wolf abundance. Over time, the 656 respondents increased agreement with statements reflecting fear of wolves, the belief that wolves compete with hunters for deer (Odocoileus virginianus), and inclination to poach a wolf. Endorsement of lethal control of wolves by the state and public hunting of wolves also increased. Neither the time span over which respondents reported exposure to wolves locally nor self‐reported losses of domestic animals to wolves correlated with changes in attitude. We predict future increases in legal and illegal killing of wolves that may reduce their abundance in Wisconsin unless interventions are implemented to improve attitudes and behavior toward wolves. To assess whether interventions change attitudes, longitudinal studies like ours are needed. Análisis Longitudinal de las Actitudes Hacia Lobos     

Incentivizing Monitoring and Compliance in Trophy Hunting

Conservation scientists are increasingly focusing on the drivers of human behavior and on the implications of various sources of uncertainty for management decision making. Trophy hunting has been suggested as a conservation tool because it gives economic value to wildlife, but recent examples show that overharvesting is a substantial problem and that data limitations are rife. We use a case study of trophy hunting of an endangered antelope, the mountain nyala (Tragelaphus buxtoni), to explore how uncertainties generated by population monitoring and poaching interact with decision making by 2 key stakeholders: the safari companies and the government. We built a management strategy evaluation model that encompasses the population dynamics of mountain nyala, a monitoring model, and a company decision making model. We investigated scenarios of investment into antipoaching and monitoring by governments and safari companies. Harvest strategy was robust to the uncertainty in the population estimates obtained from monitoring, but poaching had a much stronger effect on quota and sustainability. Hence, reducing poaching is in the interests of companies wishing to increase the profitability of their enterprises, for example by engaging community members as game scouts. There is a threshold level of uncertainty in the population estimates beyond which the year‐to‐year variation in the trophy quota prevented planning by the safari companies. This suggests a role for government in ensuring that a baseline level of population monitoring is carried out such that this level is not exceeded. Our results illustrate the importance of considering the incentives of multiple stakeholders when designing frameworks for resource use and when designing management frameworks to address the particular sources of uncertainty that affect system sustainability most heavily. Incentivando el Monitoreo y el Cumplimiento en la Caza de Trofeos     

Phenotypic manipulation reveals sexual conflict over precopula duration

Sexual conflict is common in nature, but detailed behavioral studies on the role female resistance behavior plays in shaping mating patterns are rare. I manipulated female resistance to examine its effects on pairing dynamics in two ecologically different freshwater amphipods. I found evidence for female behavior playing a role in both the outcome of pre-pairing interactions and the initiation of pairing in both species. In these species, the male optimum pairing duration is greater than the value preferred by females or compromised pairing durations observed under natural conditions, thus indicating sexual conflict. Furthermore, the proportion of male–female encounters producing male grasping was greater and the duration of such interactions was longer when female resistance was reduced. Thus, sexual conflict over pairing duration may select simultaneously for female resistance and for male persistence both of which mediate the outcome of pre-pairing interactions in Hyalella. Contact precopulatory mate guarding and the interactions that precede it are common components of crustacean and insect mating systems, suggesting that such conflicts may play an important role in the evolution of mating traits in many taxa.     

Colony specificity of Dufour gland secretions in a functionally monogynous ant

Summary. Queens in colonies of the small myrmicine ant, Leptothorax gredleri Mayr 1855 (Hymenoptera, Formicidae) engage in dominance interactions and form social hierarchies, in which typically only the top-ranking queen lays eggs. Occasionally, queen antagonism escalates to violent mandible fighting, during which the sting is used to apply Dufour gland secretions onto the cuticle of the opponent. Contaminated queens often are attacked by nestmate workers. Here we show that the chemical composition of the Dufour gland is colony-specific and that workers can discriminate between secretions from their own and other colonies. Our findings suggest that Dufour gland secretions are involved in the establishment of hierarchies within a colony. When invading an alien colony the queen presumably employs the secretions during the expulsion of the resident queen. Apparently, Dufour gland secretions play a role in intraspecific queen competition similar to that in slave-making and inquiline formicoxenine ants, where they function as "propaganda substances" in an interspecific context. Received 7 July 1998; accepted 15 September 1998.     

Women, Health and Humanitarian Aid in Conflict

The burden of political conflict on civilian populations has increased significantly over the last few decades. Increasingly, the provision of resources and services to these populations is coming under scrutiny; we highlight here the limited attention to gender in their provision. Women and men have different exposures to situations that affect health and access to health-care and have differential power to influence decisions regarding the provision of health services. We argue that the role of women in planning is central to the provision of effective, efficient and sensitive health-care to conflict-affected populations.     

Interrupting the balance: reconsidering the complexities of conflict in South Sudan

By the start of 2014, violent conflict had erupted across much of South Sudan following initial violence in Juba on 15 December 2013. The speed with which the fighting has spread raises questions regarding the impact of national‐level politics on violence at the local level. This article develops a framework in which violent conflict can be comprehended as a response to the interruption of the negotiation of the balance of power between groups; the negotiation is interrupted when that balance tips in favour of one group, such as through changes in the national political market or government reforms. The article provides two cases studies of attempts to strengthen the state that inadvertently interrupted local power relations between groups. In response, the groups engaged in violent conflict to reinstate a balance of power. Both examples involve conflict among Dinka groups from 2005 to 2008.     

基于演化博弈的流域生态补偿利益冲突分析

资源合理利用与环境保护是维护当今经济平稳、健康、较快发展的重要前提。生态补偿是缓解经济快速发展与环境污染、生态环境破坏之间利益矛盾冲突的重要手段。它是为了制止生态破坏而征收或补偿的费用,所以不同于一般排污费和资源补偿费。本文根据补偿的类型不同,将生态补偿分为资源型生态补偿和环境型生态补偿。本文以流域生态补偿为例,将流域上游政府的策略简化为保护或不保护河流,下游政府针对上游的情况,选择"自主型"或"接受型",运用演化博弈的方法,分析流域生态补偿的特点和结果。结果表明:流域生态补偿需要中央政府的适度干预,而且关键点是保证上游地方政府收益始终最大化;中央政府干预的程度是使上游政府群的收益在保护的情况下比不保护的收益要大,而干预的结果则是使流域上下游的(保护,补偿)策略成为演化博弈的长期稳定均衡。最后本文针对我国现行流域管理体制,为我国流域生态补偿提供了政策建议,以推广我国生态补偿政策。     

Returning home: resettlement of formerly abducted children in Northern Uganda

This exploratory qualitative study considers the subjective resettlement experiences of children forced into armed conflict in Northern Uganda from the perspectives of 11 former child combatants and 11 adult community members. A thematic analysis was performed on the narrative data. The bioecological model was used to provide a conceptual framework for key themes. Major findings included the overarching impact of ongoing armed conflict on returnees' lives, the important role of the family in supporting children's resettlement, the harassment of former child soldiers by community members, and the community's inability to support systematically the returning children in tangible ways. This study recommends that humanitarian services at all levels strengthen the capacity of families to care for the material and psychoemotional needs of former child soldiers within their communities.     

基于非对称演化博弈的应急疏散人员行为冲突研究

为了真实地描述紧急疏散过程中人员行为冲突的演化过程,提高疏散效率,基于非对称性演化博弈模型,首先,从生理角度出发,界定人员之间的非对称性;其次,基于非对称性“鹰鸽博弈”模型,探析各人员策略选择的规律,分析非对称性因子、冲突的成本收益对系统稳定与合作状态概率的影响;最后,在此基础上,探讨博弈双方的合作心理收益对系统演化的影响。研究结果表明：非对称性因子越大,冲突的单位成本越小,越有利于人员合作行为的演化;较大的合作心理收益促使双方开展合作。非对称性“鹰鸽博弈”模型揭示应急疏散情形下人员冲突行为的演化规律,为推动疏散人员开展合作,减少冲突,提高突发事件下的疏散效率提供参考。     

The political economy of complex emergency and recovery in northern Ethiopia

During the 1980s Ethiopia experienced the effects of conflict, drought and famine on a scale far greater than many CPEs elsewhere. In May 1991, after the decisive defeat of the military dictatorship of Mengistu Haile Mariam by the Ethiopian Peoples' Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) and after decades of civil war, drought and famine, Ethiopia faced the prospects of peace and of much needed development. This paper explores both Ethiopia's experience of conflict and humanitarian intervention in areas of Tigray held by the Tigray Peoples' Liberation Front (TPLF) during the 1980s, and its experience of post-conflict rehabilitation and reconstruction in the 1990s. It first deals with the roots of the conflicts within Ethiopia: political marginalisation, heavy state intervention and highly extractive relations between state and peasants, inappropriate and failed development policies, ethnic identity and the politicisation of ethnicity. The Mengistu regime's counter-insurgency measures are then contrasted with the policies and programmes of the TPLF, Ethiopia's most effective opposition movement and the leading element in the EPRDF, and its achievements in mobilising popular support: its establishment of democratically elected structures of local governance and its famine relief distribution programme.