Fates Of Individuals Research Articles

Measuring selective mortality from otoliths and similar structures: a practical guide for describing multivariate selection from cross-sectional data

Selective mortality is an important process influencing both the dynamics of marine populations and the evolution of their life histories. Despite a large and growing interest in measuring selective mortality, studies of marine species can face some serious methodological and analytical challenges. In particular, many studies of selection in marine environments use a cross- sectional approach in which fates of individuals are unknown but the distributions of trait values before and after a period of selective mortality may be compared. This approach is often used because many marine species have morphological structures (e.g. otoliths in fishes, statoliths in some invertebrates) that contain a permanent record of trait values. Although these structures often contain information on multiple, related traits, interpretation of selection measures has been limited because most studies of selection based on cross-sectional data consider selection 1 trait at a time, despite known problems with trait correlations. Here, we detail how cross-sectional data can be analyzed within a multivariate framework and provide a practical guide for conducting these types of analyses. We illustrate these methods by applying them to empirical studies of selective mortality on early life history traits in 2 species of reef fish. These examples demonstrate that analyzing selective mortality in a multivariate framework can vastly improve estimates of selection and yield new insight into how combinations of traits can interact to influence survival. Accompanying the paper are 2 R scripts that can be used to perform the calculations described here and assist with visualizing selection on multiple traits.

An Anarchist History

According to James C. Scott, in The Art of Not Being Governed, the resistance of Southeast Asian “hill peoples” to state subordination manifested itself in their deliberate abandonment of both sedentary agriculture and literacy. He argues that “tribality” (group-generated state evasion) is the polar opposite of “peasantry” (state-controlled agriculture). The hill peoples’ foraging and swiddening were thus political choices. Scott’s anthropological and geographical approach to these historical studies is admirable, but, despite his book’s subtitle (An Anarchist History of Upland Southeast Asia), it lacks any reflection on the history of anarchism beyond the observation that tens of millions of persons wanted to avoid being bossed and taxed by the state. There is in the book, moreover, an absence of reflection on the oppressive nature of society: the state, Scott claims, is always repressive, whereas societies without a state are freer. This essay review asks whether the author shares with states, despite his criticism of them, a paucity of concern for the fates of individuals.

Carlo Lizzani's Il gobbo (1960): A cinematic exploration of socially 'engaged' post-war criminality

This article traces Carlo Lizzani's depiction of the changing nature of Italian society from the Second World War to the post-war era, his film Il gobbo/The Hunchback of Rome highlighting the different fates of individuals who attempt to integrate themselves within the evolving social structure. It will be argued that the director uses a range of emotional and intellectual strategies in the film, in particular the action and visual sensationalism that were typical of contemporary American cinema, to compel viewers into vividly experiencing the destiny of these individuals and to appreciate the socio-political implications of Lizzani's often disturbing cinematic representation of this historical context. Of importance in this regard are the techniques that the director uses to elicit identification and empathy on the part of viewers with the film's characters: this study will discuss Murray Smith's concepts of viewer alignment and allegiance in the context of criminal characters such as the Hunchback, the film's protagonist.

Estimating survival of thrushes: Statistical model of capture-recapture probabilities

Astochastic modeling technique provides for the correct partition of the “return rate” of marked animals into survival probability (φ) and capture probability (p). Application of this method is enhanced by the program MARK, available free of charge through the Internet (Cooch and White, 2009). The input data for the program are the capture histories of marked animals: strings of ones and zeros indicating the presence or absence of an individual among captures (or sightings) during subsequent recapture seasons. The probability of any history is a product of binomial probabilities φ, p, or their complements (1 − φ) and (1 − p) for each year of observing the individual. Assigning certain values to the parameters φ and p, it is possible to predict the combination of histories of all marked individuals and to assess the prediction probability. The survival parameters for different years and cohorts of individuals can be set either identical or different, and the recapture parameters can be set in different ways. It is possible to constrain the parameters according to a tested hypothesis in the form of a specific model. Within the specified constraints, the program searches for parameter values that describe the observed composition of histories with the maximum likelihood. The program computes the estimates for each parameter, their confidence limits, and the overall model probability. A set of tools is provided for testing model goodness-of-fit under the assumption of independent fates of individuals and their equiprobable survival. Other tools aid in the proper selection of the model that provides for the best parity between detail and precision in describing reality. The method was applied to determine survival probabilities using 20-year capture, marking, and sighting data series for populations of four thrush species (genera Turdus and Zoothera) breeding in the middle taiga subzone of the Enisei River floodplain. The capture probabilities were almost independent of capture efforts but significantly differed among the species and sexes. The estimates for survival probabilities of Siberian migratory thrush populations were lower than those for the resident species from both the tropics and midlatitudes with a marine climate (data by Ricklefs, 1997). Two factors—the average annual temperature, which influences birds during their migrations, and climatic seasonality (temperature difference between summer and winter) in the breeding area—best fit the latitudinal pattern of survival (R 2 = 0.90). The final survival of migrants reflects an adaptive life cycle tradeoff of using superabundant summer resources in the breeding area at the cost of avoidance of severe winter conditions.

Introduction to Judit Mészáros' “Progress and Persecution in the Psychoanalytic Heartland: Antisemitism, Communism, and the Fate of Hungarian Psychoanalysis”

In this introduction, a rationale is developed for why these accounts of the historical movements and catastrophes in psychoanalytic institutional histories are so important. I argue that we need to contextualize theory and practice in political and historical terms, seeing that historical forces shape institutions, the fates of individuals, and the evolution of theory and practice. In particular, I consider the impact of the events in Hungary over nearly 50 years as crucial elements in the eclipse of Ferenczi and his school. I argue that we need to rethink our too-narrow focus on comparative theory and imagine the role of history in the fate of ideas. The impact of fascism and of Stalinism on psychoanalytic work and practitioners is seen here as a necessary element in our understanding of where we are now and from what cultural and historical experiences we have emerged.

Growth and survival patterns of Cardiocrinum cordatum var. glehnii (Liliaceae) based on a 13-year monitoring study: Life history characteristics of a monocarpic perennial herb

Based on 13 years of monitoring, the fates of individuals and contributions of size and age to demography through the life-history from seedling to flower were investigated in a monocarpic perennial herb, Cardiocrinum cordatum (Thunb.) Makino var. glehnii (F. Schmidt) H. Hara. Of 6155 seedlings, 5264 (85.5%) and 852 (13.8%) plants died at the seedling and one-leaf stage during the 13 years, respectively. Twelve individuals (0.40%) at the three- to seven-leaf stage reproduced after vegetative growth for 7–11 years, and all of them always showed constant positive growth patterns. Significant differences of sizes were detected between surviving and non-surviving individuals in earlier years at the one- and two-leaf stages. Logistic regression models showed that the survival and stage-increase probabilities increased until 5-years-old but decreased over 6-years-old, suggesting the significance of aging effects. At the four-leaf stage, the flowering probability increased with size, while it increased with leaf-stage but not size at greater stages. Individual growth models then suggested that many plants grew moderately: not only slow-growing but also rapidly-growing individuals tended to die within 7 years. Our study clarified three aspects of the life-history of C. cordatum: longevity of about a decade, constantly positive growth to flowering, and aging effects on growth and survival.

Garnering Support for Advance Care Planning

THE RECENT TRANSFIGURATION IN THE POPULAR press of a proposal to provide Medicare reimbursement to physicians for advance care planning (ACP) into the creation of “death panels,” which would decide the fates of older and disabled individuals, can be seen as more than a political maneuver to discredit health care reform efforts. It provides valuable insights into how the notion of ACP is perceived by the general public and a lesson for the medical community about how to promote ACP. As originally presented in America’s Affordable Health Choices Act HR 3200, section 1233 entitled Advance Care Planning Consultation described reimbursement for a clinician visit in which a practitioner explained advance care planning, living wills, the role of a health care proxy, and orders regarding life-sustaining treatments. This section of the bill was distorted by many politicians and commentators into a mandate by which older and disabled individuals would be forced to forgo life-sustaining treatments. Advance care planning, widely viewed by the medical community as an underused means of improving end-of-life care by allowing patients to exert their fundamental right to self-determination over future events and to ensure that they receive care at the end of life consistent with their values, was thereby transformed into a means for the government to deny individuals the care they desire. How could this have happened? The answer lies both in the history of and prevailing attitudes toward ACP. Although ACP had been a part of medical care and local legislation for a decade, it became a nationally sanctioned method by which individuals could forgo medical care with the Patient Self-Determination Act of 1990 and the Supreme Court decision Cruzan v Director, Missouri Department of Health in the same year. In the latter, the court affirmed the right for individuals to refuse unwanted therapies if they became incapable of making decisions. The Patient Self-Determination Act required that all agencies receiving Medicare or Medicaid funds ask all patients about the existence of advance planning documents and offer to help them complete such documents if desired. Thus, the focus of ACP became the documentation of directives regarding the care that individuals would not receive at the end of life. Based on the recognition that seriously ill patients are at risk for receiving highly burdensome care with limited benefit, the medical community caring for seriously ill patients generally assumes there is a pent-up demand among individuals to participate in ACP and to put a limit on the technologically invasive care they will receive at the end of life. Undoubtedly, many individuals may want the opportunity to state their desire to forgo medical interventions in advanced illness. However, the recent media experience with America’s Affordable Health Choices Act provided the opportunity for expressions of support for ACP. The fact that this support did not occur reflects what may be in part due to a pervasive concern in the general public—not that they will receive too much care but rather, that they will receive too little. Although there has been little direct empirical study of the phenomenon, indirect evidence supports this assertion. Even patients with advanced illness often desire technologically aggressive and potentially burdensome care for illness exacerbations. One commentator attributed this willingness to undergo continued interventions to the “widespread and deeply held desire not to be dead.” Although individuals may want to limit their care under conditions when death is inevitable, medicine can rarely provide this level of prognostic certainty, and accustomed to hearing about the miracles of modern medicine, patients may worry that the physician will give up too soon. Moreover, increasing evidence suggests that substantial proportions of patients may not want to plan for their endof-life care, based on the beliefs in the need to take things one day at a time, the impossibility of being able to plan for the future, or the difficulty in contemplating serious illness and death. Underlying these attitudes is the societal phenomenon in modern western cultures of the denial of death, which is fueled by the ever-increasing ability of modern medicine to postpone the inevitable. Advance care planning may best be considered a part of medical care similar to counseling about exercise, smoking

Stage, age and individual stochasticity in demography

Demography is the study of the population consequences of the fates of individuals. Individuals are differentiated on the basis of age or, in general, life cycle stages. The movement of an individual through its life cycle is a random process, and although the eventual destination (death) is certain, the pathways taken to that destination are stochastic and will differ even between identical individuals; this is individual stochasticity. A stage‐classified demographic model contains implicit age‐specific information, which can be analyzed using Markov chain methods. The living stages in the life cycles are transient states in an absorbing Markov chain; death is an absorbing state. This paper presents Markov chain methods for computing the mean and variance of the lifetime number of visits to any transient state, the mean and variance of longevity, the net reproductive rate R0, and the cohort generation time. It presents the matrix calculus methods needed to calculate the sensitivity and elasticity of all these indices to any life history parameters. These sensitivities have many uses, including calculation of selection gradients. It is shown that the use of R0 as a measure of fitness or an invasion exponent gives erroneous results except when R0=λ=1. The Markov chain approach is then generalized to variable environments (deterministic environmental sequences, periodic environments, iid random environments, Markovian environments). Variable environments are analyzed using the vec‐permutation method to create a model that classifies individuals jointly by the stage and environmental condition. Throughout, examples are presented using the North Atlantic right whale (Eubaleana glacialis) and an endangered prairie plant (Lomatium bradshawii) in a stochastic fire environment.

Disentangling complex fine‐scale ecological patterns by path modelling using GLMM and GIS

AbstractQuestion: How can statistical modelling tools (GLMM) and GIS be used as an aid in understanding complex ecological patterns? This general question was approached by using bryophyte demography data as an example. More specifically, we asked what is the contribution of terrain shape to explaining the performance and fate of plant individuals, controlling for all other known relationships?Location: Norway.Methods: Information on demography was obtained for 140 populations of the perennial clonal bryophyte Hylocomium splendens in Norway spruce forests during an 11‐year period (1992‐2002). Performance (size and branching pattern) was recorded for mature segments and fate was recorded for growing points. Positions of each of the more than 30 000 recorded bryophyte ramets were coupled with (micro‐) topographic characteristics (slope and convexity) derived from fine‐scale digital elevation models in a GIS framework. Carefully planned sequences of generalised linear mixed models (GLMM) were performed to test predictions from a conceptual path model.Results: We demonstrate strong dependence of size on branching, fate and on vertical position in the bryophyte carpet, and an effect of vertical position on branching pattern. Micro‐topography contributed to explaining plant performance by four different mechanisms: (1) a direct effect of slope on the segment's vertical position in the carpet; (2‐3) direct effects of both slope and convexity on fates of individuals via controls on risk of burial; and (4) an indirect effect of convexity on branching pattern via a direct effect on size. No indication of a direct effect of terrain on branching was found.Conclusions: Our study exemplifies the usefulness of GLMM for disentangling complex ecological relationships. Specifically, we recognise micro‐topography as a potentially important factor for plant demography in general and for performance and fate of individuals in particular.

Measuring the functional responses of farmland birds: an example for a declining seed‐feeding bunting

1. Many farmland bird species have undergone significant declines. It is important to predict the effect of agricultural change on these birds and their response to conservation measures. This requirement could be met by mechanistic models that predict population size from the optimal foraging behaviour and fates of individuals within populations. A key component of these models is the functional response, the relationship between food and competitor density and feeding rate. 2. This paper describes a method for measuring functional responses of farmland birds, and applies this method to a declining farmland bird, the corn bunting Miliaria calandra L. We derive five alternative models to predict the functional responses of farmland birds and parameterize these for corn bunting. We also assess the minimum sample sizes required to predict accurately the functional response. 3. We show that the functional response of corn bunting can be predicted accurately from a few behavioural parameters (searching rate, handling time, vigilance time) that are straightforward to measure in the field. These parameters can be measured more quickly than the alternative of measuring the functional response directly. 4. While corn bunting violated some of the assumptions of Holling's disk equation (model 1 in our study), it still provided the most accurate fit to the observed feeding rates while remaining the most statistically simple model tested. Our other models may be more applicable to other species, or corn bunting feeding in other locations. 5. Although further tests are required, our study shows how functional responses can be predicted, simplifying the development of mechanistic models of farmland bird populations.

Are indirect genetic benefits associated with polyandry? Testing predictions in a natural population of lemon sharks

Multiple mating has clear fitness benefits for males, but uncertain benefits and costs for females. We tested for indirect genetic benefits of polyandry in a natural population, by using data from a long-term genetic and demographic study of lemon sharks (Negaprion brevirostris) at Bimini, Bahamas. To do so, we followed the fates of individuals from six cohorts (450 age-0 and 254 age-1 fish) in relation to their individual level of genetic variation, and whether they were from polyandrous or monoandrous litters. We find that offspring from polyandrous litters did not have a greater genetic diversity or greater survival than did the offspring of monoandrous litters. We also find no evidence of positive associations between individual offspring genetic diversity metrics and our surrogate measure of fitness (i.e. survival). In fact, age-1 individuals with fewer heterozygous microsatellite loci and more genetically similar parents were more likely to survive to age-2. Thus, polyandry in female lemon sharks does not appear to be adaptive from the perspective of indirect genetic benefits to offspring. It may instead be the result of convenience polyandry, whereby females mate multiply to avoid harassment by males. Our inability to find indirect genetic benefits of polyandry despite detailed pedigree and survival information suggests the need for similar assessments in other natural populations.

Going wild: what a global small-animal tracking system could do for experimental biologists

Tracking animals over large temporal and spatial scales has revealed invaluable and spectacular biological information, particularly when the paths and fates of individuals can be monitored on a global scale. However, only large animals (greater than approximately 300 g) currently can be followed globally because of power and size constraints on the tracking devices. And yet the vast majority of animals is small. Tracking small animals is important because they are often part of evolutionary and ecological experiments, they provide important ecosystem services and they are of conservation concern or pose harm to human health. Here, we propose a small-animal satellite tracking system that would enable the global monitoring of animals down to the size of the smallest birds, mammals (bats), marine life and eventually large insects. To create the scientific framework necessary for such a global project, we formed the ICARUS initiative (www.IcarusInitiative.org), the International Cooperation for Animal Research Using Space. ICARUS also highlights how small-animal tracking could address some of the ;Grand Challenges in Environmental Sciences' identified by the US National Academy of Sciences, such as the spread of infectious diseases or the relationship between biological diversity and ecosystem functioning. Small-animal tracking would allow the quantitative assessment of dispersal and migration in natural populations and thus help solve enigmas regarding population dynamics, extinctions and invasions. Experimental biologists may find a global small-animal tracking system helpful in testing, validating and expanding laboratory-derived discoveries in wild, natural populations. We suggest that the relatively modest investment into a global small-animal tracking system will pay off by providing unprecedented insights into both basic and applied nature. Tracking small animals over large spatial and temporal scales could prove to be one of the most powerful techniques of the early 21st century, offering potential solutions to a wide range of biological and societal questions that date back two millennia to the Greek philosopher Aristotle's enigma about songbird migration. Several of the more recent Grand Challenges in Environmental Sciences, such as the regulation and functional consequences of biological diversity or the surveillance of the population ecology of zoonotic hosts, pathogens or vectors, could also be addressed by a global small-animal tracking system. Our discussion is intended to contribute to an emerging groundswell of scientific support to make such a new technological system happen.

Radiotelemetry Survival Estimates of Lesser Prairie-Chickens in Kansas: Are There Transmitter Biases?

Radiotelemetry has provided wildlife biologists with a tool to estimate survival where fates of individuals likely are known. Analyses of known-fate data can yield accurate survival estimates if 5 assumptions are met. Two of these assumptions are rarely tested: that transmitters have no effect on survival of study animals and that right-censoring (i.e., any animal not located is as likely to be alive as dead) is random with respect to the survival of study animals. Using joint-models originally developed for live-encounter and dead-recovery data, we examined the potential for bias in survival estimates of radiomarked male lesser prairie-chickens (Tympanuchus pallidicinctus) in a 3-year study in southwestern Kansas, USA. Additionally, we examined the potential bias of right-censoring by comparing the return rates of known-fate and right-censored individuals. We captured 216 male lesser prairie-chickens and marked them with a combination of leg bands and a radio (n = 72) or leg bands only (n = 144). We applied joint-models to capture histories based on live-capture and telemetry data. The model best supported by the data indicated that 6-month survival was constant (Šc = 0.679, SE = 0.050) across radiomarked and banded birds. Eight of 16 (50%, SE = 12.5%) right-censored birds not detected because of radio failure were subsequently recaptured, which was not different from the return rates for known-fate birds (23 of 59; 39%, SE = 6.3%). Survival estimates of male lesser prairie-chickens in this study were not measurably biased by radiomarking, as their survival was greater than or equal to those of banded birds, and right-censored birds had similar return rates to those of known-fate individuals. Our results are encouraging because they indicate that 2 critical assumptions underlying analyses of known-fate data can be met with radiotransmitters and attachment techniques currently used in field studies of wild populations of lesser prairie-chickens.

PROJECTION MATRIX ANALYSIS OF THE DEMOGRAPHY OF AN INVASIVE, NONNATIVE SHRUB (ARDISIA ELLIPTICA)

Despite recent advances in the study of invasive, nonnative species, we still understand very little about the variability of their population dynamics over space and time, and the processes that contribute to their demographic success. The goal of this study was to quantify the population dynamics of the invasive, subtropical shrub, Ardisia elliptica (Myrsinaceae), growing in a disturbed area of Everglades National Park, Florida, USA. We used bootstrap sampling and randomization tests to test hypotheses about spatial and tem- poral variation in population dynamics. Five populations spanning a range of habitats were studied for three years. Significant spatial and temporal variation in fruit production, relative growth, fates of vegetative individuals, and population growth rates were detected; however, spatial variation among populations had an overall stronger effect than temporal variation. Population growth rates were greater than 1 or not different from 1, implying that popu- lations are on average increasing in size. Similar to most other shrubs, prospective analysis showed that stasis of large stage classes had the highest elasticities. However, a retrospective analysis indicated that it was variation in growth to larger stage classes that contributed the most to observed variation in population growth rates. Simulations suggest that his- torically higher population growth rates of A. elliptica were necessary to produce current population sizes in Everglades National Park.

Group Violence and Group Vengeance: Toward a Retributivist Theory of International Criminal Law

International criminal law is frequently portrayed as the strong arm of the international human rights regime, an instrument designed to safeguard the dignity of each human person. There is an important truth to this characterization: international crimes involve many of the most grotesque violations of individual rights human beings inflict and endure. Yet the areas of international criminal law that are the subject of this Article apply to the doings and sufferings of individuals only indirectly. The law governing crimes against humanity and genocide frames the acts and fates of individuals against broader and darker patterns of group perpetration and group victimization. It is only within the context of group violence that international law attributes individual responsibility for wrongdoing and vindicates the rights of the individuals wronged. The conceptual mismatch between the moral individualism of human rights discourse and the collectivist structure of international criminal law requires theoretical resolution. The theory developed in Part II locates the legitimacy of institutional coercion within a structure of rights and duties linking authors of wrongs, victims of crime, and agents of punishment. As Part III explains, the need for international criminal law arises from the defective embodiment of this relational structure in social groups and failing states, defects which devolve retributive justice into cycles of escalating violence. The displacement of group vengeance by legal process is not the (broadly consequentialist) ground of the relational structure, but rather a reason for one set of social institutions rather than others to occupy a position of authority within that (broadly deontological) structure. Although the relational theory is intended as an independent contribution to the philosophy of criminal law, its cash value lies in its power to illuminate the role of group perpetration and group victimization in justifying the displacement of domestic law by international law and the intervention of international tribunals into internal armed conflict (Part IV); the relative gravity of genocide and crimes against humanity as well as the grouping of persecution and apartheid with crimes whose constituent acts cause greater physical destruction (Part V); and the roots of state resistance to international tribunals and the role of complementary jurisdiction in rationing the latter’s political capital (Part VI).The Article concludes by revisiting the grounds of the duties asserted, arguing that the duty to punish rests ultimately on the duty to protect, that invocation of the former implicitly admits failure to discharge the latter. The Article is intended as a contribution both to the growing literature surrounding the philosophical foundations of international criminal law and to traditional criminal law theory.

EXTINCTION RISK OF HETEROGENEOUS POPULATIONS

The extinction of small populations is a stochastic process, affected by both environmental variation and chance variation in the fates of individuals (demographic stochasticity). Here I examine how population extinction risk is affected by variation in the underlying individual phenotypes, using a branching-process approach. I define the long-term individual extinction risk as the chance of ultimately leaving no descendants, and the cumulative individual extinction risk as the chance of leaving no descendants by a specified time. I use these to show that if there is a phenotypic correlation between parents and their offspring, variation in these quantities always reduces both the long- and short-term population extinction risk. Such variation in individual extinction risk arises from individual variation in demographic parameters and may have both genetic and environmental causes. Using a well-known approximation of the difference between the log arithmetic and log geometric means, I derive expressions for the sensitivity and elasticity of the approximate log extinction risk to changes in the mean and variance of the individual extinction risk, and to changes in population size. One conclusion is that increasing the variance among individuals in extinction risk can sometimes be at least as important in reducing population extinction risk as increasing the population size itself. These analyses also point to reasons why changes in environmental factors (e.g., toxicants) or management practices may have either larger or smaller effects than would be anticipated by considering the change in the mean risk alone.

Use of social science research on migration policy in the Czech Republic

This case study focuses on the research activities of the Department of Ethnic Studies of the Institute of Ethnology of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic and the application of research results in the decision-making sphere during a time of major institutional change. The discussion covers a series of studies on migration issues, covering both immigration and emigration from the Czech Republic, funded by grant agencies or directly by decision-making bodies. The article notes the difficulties in relating the requirements and logic of basic research to the needs of policy makers, and recounts the gradual and broadly successful emergence of “bridging” institutions (grant agencies, science boards, common committees, controlling bodies, etc.) that reflect the mutual needs of the research and policy communities and allow stimuli for work, knowledge, and social experience, as well as intellectual influence, to flow freely in both directions. The form of communication is also shown to be of great importance, since effective bridging requires that scientific knowledge should be as usable as possible in policy-making and that the questions raised by decision-makers should come in such a form that scientists are able to answer them. Within this general picture, the specific contribution of social anthropologists and ethnologists to the decision-making process is to humanise them, by taking as a basis specific situations in the field and the fates of specific individuals and groups; to provide decision-makers with a methodological stimulus to consider the reality they relate to in a more sophisticated way; to bring a different social experience to bear, given the narrow circles in which decision-makers tend to operate; and finally to make the knowledge produced in scientific networks directly available to decision-makers.

Use of social science research on migration policy in the Czech Republic

This case study focuses on the research activities of the Department of Ethnic Studies of the Institute of Ethnology of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic and the application of research results in the decision-making sphere during a time of major institutional change. The discussion covers a series of studies on migration issues, covering both immigration and emigration from the Czech Republic, funded by grant agencies or directly by decision-making bodies. The article notes the difficulties in relating the requirements and logic of basic research to the needs of policy makers, and recounts the gradual and broadly successful emergence of “bridging” institutions (grant agencies, science boards, common committees, controlling bodies, etc.) that reflect the mutual needs of the research and policy communities and allow stimuli for work, knowledge, and social experience, as well as intellectual influence, to flow freely in both directions. The form of communication is also shown to be of great importance, since effective bridging requires that scientific knowledge should be as usable as possible in policy-making and that the questions raised by decision-makers should come in such a form that scientists are able to answer them. Within this general picture, the specific contribution of social anthropologists and ethnologists to the decision-making process is to humanise them, by taking as a basis specific situations in the field and the fates of specific individuals and groups; to provide decision-makers with a methodological stimulus to consider the reality they relate to in a more sophisticated way; to bring a different social experience to bear, given the narrow circles in which decision-makers tend to operate; and finally to make the knowledge produced in scientific networks directly available to decision-makers.

Forced dispersal of juvenile guanacos ( Lama guanicoe ): causes, variation, and fates of individuals dispersing at different times

Forced dispersal of juvenile guanacos ( Lama guanicoe ): causes, variation, and fates of individuals dispersing at different times

The influence of prawn trawling on sessile benthic assemblages in Gulf St. Vincent, South Australia

Most experimental studies on the effects of trawling on the benthos use remote sampling techniques and are conducted in recently trawled areas. Thus it is difficult to determine the effects of trawling on previously unfished areas, and the fates of individual animals cannot be followed. In this study, I follow the fates of individuals of several sessile taxa when exposed to experimental trawling in areas that have not been trawled for some 15–20 years. Although there was a significant trawling by location effect for all multivariate analyses and most individual taxa, I found that trawling had an overall negative effect on the benthos. Epifauna at trawled sites decreased in abundance by 28% within 2 weeks of trawling and by another 8% in the following 2–3 months (compared with control sites). Seasonal seagrasses were also less likely to colonise trawled sites than untrawled sites. The persistence of most taxa declined significantly in trawled areas compared with untrawled areas. In contrast to this, the recruitment rates of several taxa into visible size classes increased after trawling, presumably because of a reduction in competition.