Colony Failure Research Articles

EARLY SURVIVAL OF POLISTES APACHUS (HYMENOPTERA: VESPIDAE) COLONIES IN CALIFORNIA: A FIELD STUDY OF AN INTRODUCED SPECIES

AbstractA local population of P. apachus in California was studied to determine population structure and colony survival during the first 3 months of colony development. Only 24.2% of the colonies survived to the end of July. Bird predation on colonies (60.6%) and loss of foundresses (12.1%) were the main causes of colony failure. Bird attacks occurred approximately 2 weeks prior to the emergence of workers and the scrub jay, Aphelocoma coerulescens, was identified as one of the avain predators. All colonies that survived this initial period persisted until observations were discontinued in late July.

Judicial Politics in Nineteenth-Century Brazil

RAZIL'S adoption of a monarchical form of government after Independence gave that country a distinctive political identity in nineteenth-century Latin America and continues to dominate our knowledge of the empire. Where nineteenth-century Brazilian history is seen to diverge from the pattern of the Spanish American republics, the constitutional monarchy is generally held responsible for the difference. Accordingly, the Portuguese colony's failure to fragment into its component regional parts is explained by the monarch's legitimizing and unifying presence; and Brazil's apparently greater political stability under the empire is taken as a reflection of the inherent stability of a hereditary executive.Yet this causative invocation of the monarch is not an adequate explanation in either case and may even amount to begging the question. Certainly it is unclear that the emperor was personally responsible for sparing Brazil a divisive and bloody struggle against the mother country, and it is likewise difficult to show that the monarch was particularly instrumental in unifying and integrating the political system that emerged. Brazil was subject to severe regional tensions, political instability, and even uprisings until the 1840s; and, at least during the reign of Pedro 1 (1822-1831), the emperor seems to have been more an irritant than a pacifying influence. Nor did the accession of his son, Pedro II, in 1840 spell an immediate end to political unrest. Stereotypes extrapolated from our knowledge of the forms of Latin American governments break down in this way because we know very little of their substance. What were the practical mechanisms of nineteenth-century political systems? How successful were these