Theory Of Community Structure Research Articles

US Nationwide Multi-City Media Coverage of COVID-19 Responses: Community Structure Theory, Belief System, and a “Violated Way of Life”

Community structure analysis compared city characteristics and newspaper coverage of state/local government responses to COVID-19 in 25 major U.S. cities, sampling all 250+ word articles from 4/4/20 to 7/6/20. The resulting 588 articles were coded for “prominence” and “direction” (favorable/unfavorable/balanced-neutral coverage), then combined into each newspaper’s composite “Media Vector” (range=0.3552 to −0.5197, or 0.8749). Twenty-one of 25 newspapers (84%) displayed unfavorable coverage of local COVID-19 responses. Pearson correlations and regression analysis confirmed a muscular “violated way of life” pattern, when a community perceives itself as threatened by a “biological threat or a threat to a cherished way of life.” Political and belief system polarization (in particular percent Evangelical and percent voting Republican) were strongly associated with unfavorable coverage of local pandemic responses, compared to more favorable responses linked to percent voting Democratic or percent Catholic. Vulnerability (percent uninsured) was also linked to negative coverage. Conversely, two different measures of access to healthcare (percent municipal spending on health and welfare, and physicians/100,000) were significantly linked to favorable coverage of the same local government efforts. Community structure theory’s grass roots “bottom up” expectations linking community demographics to variations in reporting on critical issues were robustly confirmed.

Ecology theory disentangles microbial dichotomies.

Microbes are often discussed in terms of dichotomies such as copiotrophic/oligotrophic and fast/slow-growing microbes, defined using the characterisation of microbial growth in isolated cultures. The dichotomies are usually qualitative and/or study-specific, sometimes precluding clear-cut results interpretation. We can unravel microbial dichotomies as life history strategies by combining ecology theory with Monod curves, a laboratory mathematical tool of bacterial physiology that relates the specific growth rate of a microbe with the concentration of a limiting nutrient. Fitting of Monod curves provides quantities that directly correspond to key parameters in ecological theories addressing species coexistence and diversity, such as r/K selection theory, resource competition and community structure theory and the CSR triangle of life strategies. The resulting model allows us to reconcile the copiotrophic/oligotrophic and fast/slow-growing dichotomies as different subsamples of a life history strategy triangle that also includes r/K strategists. We also used the number of known carbon sources together with community structure theory to partially explain the diversity of heterotrophic microbes observed in metagenomics experiments. In sum, we propose a theoretical framework for the study of natural microbial communities that unifies several existing proposals. Its application would require the integration of metagenomics, metametabolomics, Monod curves and carbon source data.

US Nationwide Coronavirus Newspaper Coverage of Federal/National Government Responses: Community Structure Theory and a “Violated Buffer”

Community structure analysis (Pollock, 2007, 2013a, 2015) compared city characteristics and newspaper coverage of federal/Trump administration coro­navirus responses in 18 major US cities, sampling all 250+ word articles from 01/28/20 to 04/03/20. The resulting 123 articles were coded for “promi­nence” and “direction” (favorable/un­favorable/balanced-neutral coverage), then combined into each newspaper’s composite “Media Vector” (range= 0.3850 to -0.6433, or 1.033). Fifteen of 18 newspapers (83%) displayed negative coverage of federal COVID-19 responses. Pearson correlations and regression analysis confirmed a robust “violated buffer” pattern (higher proportions of economically/socially “buffered” privi­leged groups are associated with neg­ative coverage of “biological threats or threats to a cherished way of life”: Pollock, 2007: 101), manifest in polit­ical and religious polarization and links between health access or generational privilege and negative coverage of feder­al COVID-19 actions. Higher proportions voting Democratic or Catholic member­ship in cities were associated strongly with negative coverage of federal efforts, while voting Republican and Evangelical membership accompanied positive feder­al coverage, evoking nationwide partisan “tribalism”. Privileged healthcare access (physicians/100,000, municipal health­care spending) and economically “privi­leged” age groups 45-64 and 65+ were all connected to negative coverage of federal COVID-19 responses, illuminat­ing overall “violated” expectations that the national government is responsible for nationwide disaster protection. Keywords: COVID-19, community struc­ture theory, newspapers, government, media.

How media empower the vulnerable: Using community structure theory to analyze relationships between demographics and health reporting

Instead of studying the impact of media on society, the traditional “top down” orientation of most communication studies scholars, this keynote presentation adopted the opposite perspective, exploring the “bottom-up” impact of “society” on “media”. Unlike conventional “agenda-setting theory”, which suggests that nationally prominent news media set issue “agendas” for other news media and public opinion, and also unlike the “guard dog” view that media essentially protect the interests of political and economic elites, the “community structure theory” explores links between different community (typically city or nation-state) demographics and variations in reporting on critical health concerns. Summarizing his scholarship on health communication presented and published over decades, the speaker outlined community structure theory’s illumination of two overall patterns in US and cross-national coverage of health communication issues. In US coverage, broad measures of economically “buffered” privilege (educational, income, or occupational advantage) are linked to “favorable” or “government responsibility” coverage of health issues, and specific measures of “health” privilege (physicians, hospitals) are connected to “favorable” or “government responsibility” coverage promoting selected health issues. In cross-national coverage, specific measures of national “health vulnerability” (such as percent without improved water access, infant mortality rate) are linked to “government” responsibility coverage for selected health issues (human trafficking, water handling/contamination). In addition, broad measures of “macro” vulnerability conditions (agricultural dependence, political instability) are associated with “government” responsibility coverage for a wide range of health issues (genetically modified foods, drug trafficking, condom promotion, and food security). Overall, community structure theory’s “bottom up” perspective reveals how the vulnerable are empowered by their demographic alignment with variations in health communication.

Nationwide Newspaper Coverage of Rape and Rape Culture on College Campuses: Testing Community Structure Theory

Nationwide Newspaper Coverage of Rape and Rape Culture on College Campuses: Testing Community Structure Theory

Be aware of superbugs: Newspaper coverage of NDM-1 in India, UK, and the USA

ABSTRACTMarrying the psychometric paradigm with the community structure theory, this paper examines the coverage of a superbug (NDM-1) in newspapers in India, the UK, and the USA. It identifies several community structure characteristics: level of vested economic interest, level of health care available, and size of health care stakeholders as factors influencing how risks of NDM-1 are portrayed in terms of the level of dread, controllability, familiarity, and uncertainty. The finding provides baseline data for the scientific community and public health professionals in creating more effective messages to inform the public about the risks of superbugs.

Measuring robustness of community structure in complex networks

The theory of community structure is a powerful tool for real networks, which can simplify their topological and functional analysis considerably. However, since community detection methods have random factors and real social networks derived from complex systems always contain error edges, evaluating the robustness of community structure is an urgent and important task. In this letter, we employ the critical threshold of resolution parameter in Hamiltonian function, , to measure the robustness of a network. According to spectral theory, a rigorous proof shows that the index we proposed is inversely proportional to robustness of community structure. Furthermore, by utilizing the co-evolution model, we provides a new efficient method for computing the value of . The research can be applied to broad clustering problems in network analysis and data mining due to its solid mathematical basis and experimental effects.

The Neutral—Niche Debate: A Philosophical Perspective

Ecological communities around the world are under threat while a consensus theory of community structure remains elusive. In the last decade ecologists have struggled with two seemingly opposing theories: niche-based theory that explains diversity with species’ differences and the neutral theory of biodiversity that claims that much of the diversity we observe can be explained without explicitly invoking species’ differences. Although ecologists are increasingly attempting to reconcile these two theories, there is still much resistance against the neutral theory of biodiversity. Here we argue that the dispute between the two theories is a classic example of the dichotomy between philosophical perspectives, realism and instrumentalism. Realism is associated with specific, small-scale and detailed explanations, whereas instrumentalism is linked to general, large-scale, but less precise accounts. Recognizing this will help ecologists get both niche-based and neutral theories in perspective as useful tools for understanding biodiversity patterns.

Is there a general theory of community ecology?

Community ecology entered the 1970s with the belief that niche theory would supply a general theory of community structure. The lack of wide-spread empirical support for niche theory led to a focus on models specific to classes of communities such as lakes, intertidal communities, and forests. Today, the needs of conservation biology for metrics of “ecological health” that can be applied across types of communities prompts a renewed interest in the possibility of general theory for community ecology. Disputes about the existence of general patterns in community structure trace at least to the 1920s and continue today almost unchanged in concept, although now expressed through mathematical modeling. Yet, a new framework emerged in the 1980s from findings that community composition and structure depend as much on the processes that bring species to the boundaries of a community as by processes internal to a community, such as species interactions and co-evolution. This perspective, termed “supply-side ecology”, argued that community ecology was to be viewed as an “organic earth science” more than as a biological science. The absence of a general theory of the earth would then imply a corresponding absence of any general theory for the communities on the earth, and imply that the logical structure of theoretical community ecology would consist of an atlas of models special to place and geologic time. Nonetheless, a general theory of community ecology is possible similar in form to the general theory for evolution if the processes that bring species to the boundary of a community are analogized to mutation, and the processes that act on the species that arrive at a community are analogized to selection. All communities then share some version of this common narrative, permitting general theorems to be developed pertaining to all ecological communities. Still, the desirability of a general theory of community ecology is debatable because the existence of a general theory suppresses diversity of thought even as it allows generalizations to be derived. The pros and cons of a general theory need further discussion.

Multifractal analysis of the species structure of small-mammal communities of the Volga-Ural paleobiocenosis

The late Quaternary evolution of the Volga‐Ural paleobiocenosis has been used as an example to demonstrate the possibility of applying multifractal analysis to the species structure of fossil small-mammal communities. No logical contradictions have been found between the ecological specificities of small-mammal communities, as considered in temporal terms, determined by traditional methods and by means of multifractal formalism. The results have demonstrated that multifractal formalism methodologically based on the self-similarity principle may be regarded as an effective tool of paleoactualism in analysis of paleoecological data. Earlier, we demonstrated [3, 4, 7] that the species structure of biotic communities of modern organisms forming terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems, including zooplankton, zoobenthos, insects, and small mammals, may be satisfactorily described in terms of fractal geometry [9, 11]. The notion of self-similarity as an immanent characteristic of a biocenosis is the methodological basis of the fractal theory of community structure that we are developing. Indeed, biological systems are open, strongly nonequilibrium systems whose existence and evolution are determined by a flow of energy resources from the environment. The resultant systems exhibit spatiotemporal scaling (or self-similarity) within a wide range of parameters. This is one of fundamental types of symmetry of the physical world and a morphogenetic factor of the Universe. All of this applies to biotic communities as well. We have demonstrated that multifractal formalism can be adapted to describe the species structure of recent communities, and the multifractal singularity spectrum of the species structure of a community is an adequate generalize geometric image of the community, which cannot be

Emergent neutrality

Community ecology is in a current state of creative ferment, stimulated by the development of neutral models of community organization. Here, I reflect on recent papers by Scheffer and van Nes, and by Gravel et al., which illuminate how neutrality can emerge from ecological and evolutionary processes, thus suggesting ways to unify neutral and niche perspectives.

Towards a really unified theory for metacommunities

Traditionally, community ecologists assumed that spe-cies differ in some aspects of their traits or responsesto the environment (i.e. their niches), which allow themto coexist in the same habitat (Hutchinson 1957, 1959).Recently, Hubbell (2001) and others (e.g. Bell 2001,2003) have suggested that this view is inadequate toexplain the diversity often observed in speciose systems.For example, hundreds to thousands of tree species livein tropical forests, which only have a handful of limitingresources such as water, light, and a variety of macro- andmicronutrients. Such high diversity, with so few resources,they argue, cannot be explained by niche theory.As an alternative to the traditional niche theory,Hubbell (2001) developed a neutral theory of commu-nity structure (see also Caswell 1976; Hubbell 1979;Hubbell & Foster 1986; Bell 2000, 2001, 2003; Chave L Chave 2004). In the neutral theory, pat-terns of species diversity, relative abundance, andcomposition are primarily a function of the size of themetacommunity, the dispersal rate of organisms withinthe metacommunity, and the rates of generation (spe-ciation) of new species (Bell 2001; Hubbell 2001; Chave2004). Because species are assumed to be identicalecologically, Hubbell termed his a ‘neutral theory’, bydirect analogy to neutral genes in population genetics.Hubbell further termed his theory ‘unified’ in that it issimultaneously able to predict diversity and relativeabundance of organisms in a locality, as well as bioge-ographic patterns of species composition.In this essay, I overview the key assumptions (inputs)required and the insights (outputs) that can be gainedfrom each framework. While a complete discussion ofall of the assumptions and predictions of these modelsis beyond the scope of this essay (but see Chase

Species Assemblages of Larval Black Flies (Diptera:Simuliidae): Random or Predictable?

The pattern of assemblages for species of black flies (Diptera:Simuliidae) among 18 small (mean width <3.25 m) streams in Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming, was analyzed using Monte Carlo simulations. Of specific interest was the amount of species co-occurrence among physically similar streams located in a small geographic area. Results indicate that black fly assemblages among similar streams were largely unpredictable in terms of species co-occurrence. There were no significant correlations between Jaccard's coefficient of similarity and distance between pairs of stream sites, indicating that faunal similarity among sites was not a function of the distance between them. Results are consistent with non-equilibrium community-structure theory. We also suggest that success at predicting black fly species assemblages in other studies is the result of correctly identifying different species pools associated with different stream types.

A Functional Analysis of New Zealand Alpine Vegetation: Variation in Canopy Roughness and Functional Diversity in Response to an Experimental Wind Barrier

There is an increasing interest in describing species assemblages in terms of function or texture, as an alternative to floristics. However, the use of objective criteria for evaluating plant function remains uncommon. A procedure for determining plant fractal dimensions was applied to the measurement of canopy roughness of alpine plants, as a major functional character in high-alpine cushionfield vegetation in southern New Zealand. The study was carried out within a 50 x 30 m area located around an experimental snow fence. The snow fence was erected on an originally uniform site 32 years prior to this study. Since its construction it has caused visible changes in snow lie and in the composition of vegetation on its leeward side, apparently because of its ameliorating effect on microenvironmental parameters. Floristic patterns across the study area, revealed by a DCA ordination of species frequency data, showed a strong association with snow depth, corresponding to the sheltering effect of the snow fence. Vegetation canopy roughness increased along a gradient of increasing snow depth, consistent with the expectation that plants growing in the most exposed alpine environments would possess smooth canopies that promote laminar air flow over their surface and thus enhance plant/air temperature differentials. Functional diversity in terms of canopy roughness similarly increased with increasing snow depth, consistent with expectations of community structure theory. Species richness and Shannon-Wiener species diversity showed similar relations. It is concluded that plant canopy roughness, measured by means of fractal dimensions of canopy profiles, has value for predicting the physiognomy of alpine vegetation from the microenvironment. It is also practical to measure. It should be considered for future studies examining vegetation texture in the alpine zone.

Reply to Sanderson

Braudel, Fernand 1972 The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II, 2 vol. New York: Harper & Row. 1980 Bahia, Brazil: The present explains the past. In Fernand Braudel, On History (1959*). Sarah Matthews, tr. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 1981 The Structures of Everyday Life. Civilization and Capitalism, 15th18th Century, Vol. 1. New York: Harper & Row. 1982 The Wheels of Commerce. Civilization and Capitalism, 15th18th Century, Vol. 2. New York: Harper & Row. 1984 The Perspective of the World. Civilization and Capitalism, 15th-18th Century, Vol. 3. New York: Harper & Row. Harris, Marvin 1974 Cows, Pigs, Wars, and Witches: The Riddles of Culture. New York: Random House. 1977 Cannibals and Kings: The Origins of Cultures. New York: Random House. 1985 Good to Eat: Riddles of Food and Culture. New York: Simon and Schuster. Hawley, Amos H. 1950 Human Ecology: A Theory of Community Structure. New York: Ronald Press. Hudson, James R. 1987 Braudel's ecological perspective. Sociological Forum 2:146-165. Steward, Julian H. 1955 Theory of Culture Change. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.

14: Korea and East Asia: Premigration Factors and U.S. Immigration Policy

14: Korea and East Asia: Premigration Factors and U.S. Immigration Policy

Comment les peuplements de plantes et d’insectes phytophages se façonnent mutuellement : la théorie coévolutive de la structure des peuplements

A plant community may be considered as an assemblage of species whose chemical defenses against herbivores are more or less efficient. In the same way a community of phytophagous insects can be viewed as a group of consumers which are capable either of bypassing the plants’ chemical defenses, or of taking advantage of them. The inter-relations between the two communities result in an array of compromise solutions originating from the coevolution of plants and insects. The pros and cons of such a coevolutionary theory of community structure are discussed. Particular attention is given to the following points : the concept of community structure, the major categories of toxiche-micals and digestibility-reducing substances involved in the «arms race» between plant producers and animal consumers, the evolutionary mechanisms implied in coevolution, the costs and benefits of the alternative adaptive strategies adopted by insect consumers (with particular emphasis on their bioenergetic implications), and the dynamic aspect of coevolution. Whereas coevolution undoubtedly plays a role in plant-insect interactions, such a role should not be overemphasized. The well documented case of the moths living on various oak species highlights some obvious inconsistencies. Thus the coevolutionary theory of community structure should still be considered more as a useful working hypothesis rather than a well established fact.

Patterns of Limiting Similarity in Tropical Forest Tiger Beetles (Coleoptera: Cicindelidae)

Patterns of Limiting Similarity in Tropical Forest Tiger Beetles (Coleoptera: Cicindelidae)

Relationship of Attitudes and Behavior in Ecological Mobility

T n HE measuring of attitudes has been and is one of the most persistent endeavors of social scientists, particularly psychologists, social-psychologists, and sociologists. Presumably, attitudes are measured because it is assumed that if these anticipatory sets or predispositions to action can be ascertained, the behavior which they determine may be predicted. However, few empirical studies have been made where the relationship has been tested by quantification of overt behavior by means of a scale and the correlation of scores on the behavior scale with scores on a scale measuring attitudes related to the overt behavior. The problem of the relationship between attitudes and behavior also has relevance for the theory of ecology. The socio-cultural position in ecology-that volition and purpose must be considered as important and integral aspects of spatial adaptation and not merely inconsequential and adventitious features of the competitive process' assumes that attitudes and behavior are related. Firey, for example, in his study of Boston,2 demonstrates the relevance of values and attitudes by inference from such empirical data as economic and ecological indices. Hawley, however, leaning more toward the orthodox ecological position, questions the accuracy of these conclusions when he states, Firey's reasoning confuses motive with an external limiting factor.3 The present study attempts to determine the relationship between attitudes and behavior in ecological mobility. Methodologically it seeks to minimize problems of inferential reasoning and to diminish the spread between data and interpretation by applying both attitude and behavior scales to the same individuals and then correlating the scores. In order to determine possible effects of external limiting factors on the attitude-action relationship the scales were applied to nine different populations inhabiting three different cities in different regions of the United States and eight different areas within the cities. If external limiting factors do affect the relationship between attitudes and behavior in mobility behavior, the correlation between attitudes and behavior should be affected by changing external limiting factors. Attitude-behavior studies have produced mixed results. Research in race relations does not encourage the belief that attitudes and behavior are closely related.4 On the other hand, good results have been achieved by some surveys of public opinion in predicting voting behavior from a premeasurement of voting attitudes.5 It has been suggested that the explanation of why attitudes seem to be able to predict behavior in the latter cases, but not in the former, may be attributable to differences between the situations in which attitude tests are given and the situations in which attitudes are translated into action. The problem here would seem to be to determine if mobility is a type of activity wherein a high correlation between attitudes and behavior may be expected. The hypothesis to be tested may be stated in the following form: and behavior are not related in mobility behavior. *Presented at the annual meeting of the Ohio Valley Sociological Society, March 20, 1954. Much of the data on which this paper is based is from a study of urban decentralization in Columbus, Houston, and Seattle. The research was supported by a grant from the Highway Research Board, National Research Council, National Academy of Sciences, Washington, D. C. 1 Cf. Walter Firey, Land Use in Central Boston (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1947), p. 13. 2 Op. cit. 3 Amos H. Hawley, Human Ecology: A Theory of Community Structure (New York: The Ronald Press, 1950), p. 286. 4 Cf. Richard T. La Piere, Attitudes vs. Actions, Social Forces, 13 (December, 1934) pp. 230-37; also cf. Melvin Seeman, Prejudice and Personality: A Study in the Social Psychology of Attitudes. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Ohio State University, 1947, p. 136. 5 Cf. Paul F. Lazarsfeld, The People's Choice (New York: Columbia University Press, 1948).

Human Ecology--A Theory of Community Structure

(1950). Human Ecology—A Theory of Community Structure. Economic Geography: Vol. 26, No. 4, pp. 328-330.