Fear in grasslands: the effect of Eurasian kestrels on skylark abundances

Predation has received considerable theoretical and empirical support in population regulation. The effect of predators, however, could be achieved in direct (killing) or indirect effects (such as displacement). In this paper, we explored the relationship between Eurasian kestrels Falco tinnunculus and skylarks Alauda arvensis in Mediterranean grasslands. First, we analysed the presence of skylarks in the kestrel diet over 9 years. We also compared a grassland area of experimentally increased kestrel density and a second grassland as control area to evaluate the direct or indirect effect on skylark abundance. We also considered two different habitats, grazed and ungrazed plots. If skylark abundance decreased as the kestrel breeding season progressed in high-density kestrel area compared with the control area, it would suggest a direct effect (predator hypothesis). If skylark abundance remains constant in both areas of contrasting kestrel density, it would suggest that skylarks avoid kestrels (avoidance hypothesis). We found that skylark abundance decreased in the kestrel area from the beginning of kestrel nest-box installation to recent years. The rate of skylark consumption decreased in a 9-year period as kestrel abundance increased, although the total amount skylark consumption did not show a decreasing trend. In addition, skylarks were more abundant in the kestrel-free area than in the kestrel area. Finally, we found that skylark abundance did not change through the kestrel breeding period in relation to grazing. We suggest that an increased breeding density of kestrels during their breeding period may force the skylarks to breed in other areas, which may explain the decline of their abundance.     

Bayesian model-based cluster analysis for predicting macrofaunal communities

To predict macrofaunal community composition from environmental data a two-step approach is often followed: (1) the water samples are clustered into groups on the basis of the macrofauna data and (2) the groups are related to the environmental data, e.g. by discriminant analysis. For the cluster analysis in step 1 many hard, seemingly arbitrary choices have to be made that nevertheless influence the solution (similarity measure, clustering strategy, number of clusters). The stability of the solution is often of concern, e.g. in clustering by the program. In the discriminant analysis of step 2 it can occur that a water sample is misclassified on the basis of the environmental data but on further inspection happens to be a borderline case in the cluster analysis. One would then rather reclassify such a sample and iterate the two steps. Bayesian latent class analysis is a flexible, extendable model-based cluster analysis approach that recently has gained popularity in the statistical literature and that has the potential to address these problems. It allows the macrofauna and environmental data to be modelled and analyzed in a single integrated analysis. An exciting extension is to incorporate in the analysis prior information on the habitat preferences of the macrofauna taxa such as is available in lists of indicator values. The output of the analysis is not a hard assignment of water samples to clusters but a probabilistic (fuzzy) assignment. The number of clusters is determined on the basis of the Bayes factor. A standard feature of the Bayesian method is to make predictions and to assess their uncertainty. We applied this approach to a data set consisting of 70 water samples, 484 macrofauna taxa and four environmental variables for which previously a five cluster solution had been proposed. The standard for Bayesian estimation, the Gibbs sampler, worked fine on a subset with only 12 selected taxa but did not converge on the full set with 484 taxa. This is due to many configurations in which the assignment probabilities are all very close to either 0 or 1. This convergence problem is comparable with the local optima problem in classical cluster optimization algorithms, including the EM algorithm used in Latent Gold, a Windows program for latent class analysis. The convergence problem needs to be solved before the benefits of Bayesian latent class analysis can come to fruition in this application. We discuss possible solutions.     

双酚A类似物雌激素干扰效应的定量结构-活性关系模型

由于双酚A(BPA)具有内分泌干扰等毒性效应,有些国家已经开始限制其在部分工业品生产中使用。一些双酚A类似物因用于替代BPA而被大量使用。因其与双酚A具有相似的分子结构,双酚A类似物是否也具有内分泌干扰等毒性效应受到越来越多的关注。采用逐步多元线性回归(MLR)方法,构建了可预测双酚A类似物雌激素效应的定量结构-活性关系模型。模型的决定系数R~2=0.899,去一法交叉验证系数Q_(LOO)~2=0.868,Bootstrapping验证系数Q_(BOOT)~2=0.755,均方根误差RMSE=0.339,表明模型具有较好的拟合优度、稳健性;验证集决定系数Q_(EXT)~2=0.921,外部验证系数Q_(EXT)~2=0.810,均方根误差RMSE=0.638,表明模型具有较好的预测能力。采用欧几里德距离方法和Wil iams图表征了模型应用域,依据分子描述符对模型进行了机理解释,并用所建模型,填补了22种其他双酚A类似物缺失的雌激素干扰效应数据。     

有机污染物的被动采样材料-水分配系数的QSAR研究

污染物的被动采样材料-水分配系数(K_(PW))是衡量被动采样器性能和进行优化的一个重要指标,由于实验方法难以逐个测定众多污染物的K_(PW)值,有必要发展其KP W预测方法。本研究选取聚乙烯(PE)、聚丙烯酸酯(PA)和硅橡胶(SR)3类常用的被动采样材料共7种,采用多元线性回归分析方法构建可用于K_(PW)预测的定量构效关系(QSAR)模型。所构建的QSAR模型具有良好的拟合优度(R2a dj介于0.806~0.989)、稳健性(Q2L O O和Q2B O O T分别介于0.786~0.988和0.773~0.801)和预测能力(R_(ext)~2和Q_(ext)~2分别介于0.769~0.989和0.757~0.982),可以用于预测烷烃、烯烃、芳香类、醇类、酮类、酯类、醚类等多种有机污染物的log KP W值。有机污染物的log KP W与分子Mc Gowan体积(Vx)、氯原子个数(n Cl)、环周长(Rperim)、多重键个数(n BM)、N,O极性贡献的拓扑极性表面积(TPSA(NO))、[-N(=)=]结构个数(Ndds N)和羟基个数(nROH)等参数有关。     

乙腈溶剂中单壁碳纳米管与常见有机化合物的相互作用

以单壁碳纳米管(SWCNTs)为固定相,采用高压匀浆法,制备HPLC色谱柱.测定乙腈相中18种有机化合物在SWCNTs色谱柱上的保留因子,研究SWCNTs与化合物的相互作用.结果表明,有机化合物取代基的种类和个数、杂原子的个数影响乙腈相中有机化合物与SWCNTs的相互作用.采用线性溶解能关系(LSER)定量表征SWCNTs与有机化合物的相互作用,所构建的LSER模型具有较强的拟合能力(R2=0.844)和稳健性(Q2LOO=0.768),发现π-/n-电子对作用和空穴/弥散作用是控制SWCNTs与有机化合物相互作用的主要因素.     

Is using work–life interface benefits a career‐limiting move? An examination of women,men, lone parents,and parents with partners

Using a large national sample based on Workplace and Employee Survey data collected by Statistics Canada in 2001 and 2002, we examined the effects of employee usage of seven organizational work–life interface benefits on promotions. Analysis predicted promotions in 2002 when number of promotions received by 2001 were controlled. The main effect of using work–life interface benefits on promotions was positive, indicating that using these benefits is not a career‐limiting move. Gender, presence of young children, and marital status interacted with the use of work–life interface benefits. Single parents benefitted less than other employees from using work–life interface options. Altogether, these findings suggest that the ongoing positive effects of conservation of time and energy resources for employees outweigh the initial short‐term negative effects of signaling and stigmatization. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

三峡库区城市化与生态环境耦合关系定量辨识

受人文社会规律支配的城市化过程与受自然规律制约的生态环境演化过程之间,通过种种复杂的胁迫与约束机制,具有双指数倒U型曲线的耦合演化规律性。如果以区域内不同城镇构成的空间样本来测算城市化与生态环境之间的耦合关系,其耦合曲线通常有以下5种型式：下降、正U、上升、倒U和再下降。该演化序列符合否定之否定的发展规律。通过相关分析、主成分分析和层次分析等方法,对三峡库区15个区县的城市化水平和生态环境状况作了综合评价,并在综合和分组两个层面对二者耦合关系进行了定量辨识。结果表明：通过空间样本反映的重庆库区城市化与生态环境耦合关系曲线为正U型,揭示出库区城市化与生态环境耦合演化的二元性;城市化与生态环境沿长江自西向东具有基本一致的变化趋势,说明现阶段库区城市化对生态环境的依赖性大于其破坏性。     

Food site residence time and female competitive relationships in wild gray-cheeked mangabeys (<Emphasis Type="Italic">Lophocebus albigena</Emphasis>)

Authors of socioecological models propose that food distribution affects female social relationships in that clumped food resources, such as fruit, result in strong dominance hierarchies and favor coalition formation with female relatives. A number of Old World monkey species have been used to test predictions of the socioecological models. However, arboreal forest-living Old World monkeys have been understudied in this regard, and it is legitimate to ask whether predominantly arboreal primates living in tropical forests exhibit similar or different patterns of behavior. Therefore, the goal of our study was to investigate female dominance relationships in relation to food in gray-cheeked mangabeys (Lophocebus albigena). Since gray-cheeked mangabeys are largely frugivorous, we predicted that females would have linear dominance hierarchies and form coalitions. In addition, recent studies suggest that long food site residence time is another important factor in eliciting competitive interactions. Therefore, we also predicted that when foods had long site residence times, higher-ranking females would be able to spend longer at the resource than lower-ranking females. Analyses showed that coalitions were rare relative to some other Old World primate species, but females had linear dominance hierarchies. We found that, contrary to expectation, fruit was not associated with more agonism and did not involve long site residence times. However, bark, a food with a long site residence time and potentially high resource value, was associated with more agonism, and higher-ranking females were able to spend more time feeding on it than lower-ranking females. These results suggest that higher-ranking females may benefit from higher food and energy intake rates when food site residence times are long. These findings also add to accumulating evidence that food site residence time is a behavioral contributor to female dominance hierarchies in group-living species.     

Leader self‐awareness: An examination and implications of women's under‐prediction

Self‐awareness represents an important aspect of leadership. However, past research on leader self‐awareness has focused on one component of self‐awareness, self versus others' ratings, leaving the second component, the ability to anticipate the views of others, largely neglected. We examined this second component of self‐awareness by focusing on women leaders who have been found to under‐predict how others rate them. In two studies, we measured how women leaders anticipate the views of their bosses in regard to their leadership. In Study 1, 194 leaders rated their leadership, were rated by their bosses, and then predicted how their bosses rated their leadership. While we found that women under‐predict their boss ratings compared with men, we did not find that boss gender or feedback played a role in this under‐prediction. In Study 2, 76 female leaders identified (via open‐ended questions) possible reasons and consequences of under‐prediction for women in organizations. Results from Study 2 reveal the following: (1) the reasons for women's under‐prediction include a lack of self‐confidence, differences in feedback needs, learned gender roles, and self‐sexism; and (2) the perceived consequences of under‐prediction are negative for both women and the organization. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Distribution of mercury in some organs of the Kani Barazan wetland common coot (Fulica atra)

We document mercury distribution in the tissues (kidney, liver, breast feathers and pectoral muscle) of a waterbird, the common coot (Fulica atra) from the Kani Barazan wetlands in north-western Iran. Bird samples were collected between November 2011 and January 2012, and mercury was assayed by using a Varian 220 atomic absorption spectrophotometer. Mean levels of mercury in kidney, liver, breast feathers and pectoral muscle were 0.13, 0.22, 0.20 and 0.09 μg/g, respectively. Mercury concentrations in tissues of F. atra were in the following order: liver>feather>kidney>pectoral muscle. The mercury level was significantly (one-way ANOVA, p<0.05) different between kidneys, livers, pectoral muscles and feathers in F. atra. Although mercury concentrations were higher for all tissues in female birds compared with males, significant (p<0.05) differences were observed in muscle only.