Slow Life Research Articles

Testing a life history model of psychopathology: A replication and extension

The life history model of psychopathology provides an alternate framework for understanding the development and etiology of psychopathology; however, presently there is minimal empirical support for this perspective. The current study (N = 343) replicated and extended previous research, investigating the associations between life history traits, including demographic indicators, attachment, and psychopathology, in a mental health and general population sample. The study specifically aimed to explore whether life history traits were associated with a general factor of psychopathology or whether they could also predict specific symptom groups, with results suggesting that life history traits could predict both. Furthermore, results revealed that people who expressed faster life history traits reported elevated general psychopathology; however, symptoms were in fact associated with traits of both slow and fast life history strategies. Specifically, interpersonal sensitivity and depression were experienced at higher rates for people who express higher levels of traits reflective of a faster life history strategy; whereas, somatization and anxiety were experienced at higher rates for people who express more traits typical of a slower strategy. Interestingly, paranoid ideation was experienced at higher rates for males who express faster life history traits. This research has several theoretical and practical implications, in replicating and extending previous studies, providing insight into psychopathological symptomatology, including variation in individuals’ risks for developing a range of mental disorders.

Decolonizing Luxury Fashion in Japan

Japan went from consuming more foreign luxury fashion brands than the rest of the world combined in the late 1980s to a complete rethinking of both the concept and practice of luxury after the bursting of its economic bubble. One key sensibility that arose was that of surōraifu, a Japanese word after the English “slow life.” This esthetic, expressing the slowing down of time, was part of rising cultural nationalism but also represented a delinking of Japanese fashion from modernity/coloniality’s horizon of expectations which positioned Europe as the font of desirable luxury consumption and European luxury fashion as a central symbol of civilization. This paper argues that in consumer culture Japan’s modernity was colonial in defining the most valuable things as the goods from a foreign culture and that perspective changing crises are able to question the values and change the tastes of consumers in line with a decolonial delinking.

Fast and Slow Life Strategies in Entrepreneurial Career Paths

Individuals find their way to entrepreneurship either via early entrepreneurial career activities or a transitional phase in employment. Drawing on the theory of planned behavior and life history theory, our study explains how beliefs relevant to behavior and social origins influence individual career paths to entrepreneurship. Results are based on a nationwide survey involving 1003 individuals in a critical career decision phase and show that individuals growing up in rather uncertain environments (i.e., those from lower social classes) are more likely to postpone their entrepreneurial career intentions.

Age structure changes indicate direct and indirect population impacts in illegally harvested black rhino.

Overharvesting affects the size and growth of wildlife populations and can impact population trajectories. Overharvesting can also severely alter population structure and may result in changes in spatial organisation, social dynamics and recruitment. Understanding the relationship between overharvesting and population growth is therefore crucial for the recovery of exploited species. The black rhinoceros (Diceros bicornis; black rhino) is a long-lived megaherbivore native to sub-Saharan Africa, listed as Critically Endangered on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Since 2009, the targeted illegal killing of rhino for their horns has escalated dramatically in South Africa. Given their slow life trajectories, spatial structure and social dynamics, black rhino may be susceptible to both direct and indirect impacts of overharvesting. Our study compared black rhino demography before and during extensive poaching to understand the impact of illegal killing. The population exhibited significant changes in age structure after four years of heavy poaching; these changes were primarily explained by a decrease in the proportion of calves over time. Population projections incorporating both direct poaching removals and decreased fecundity/recruitment were most similar to the observed demographic profile in 2018, suggesting that indirect impacts are also contributing to the observed population trajectory. These indirect impacts are likely a result of decreased density, through processes such as reduced mate-finding, population disturbance and/or increased calf predation. This study illustrates the combined effect of direct and indirect impacts on an endangered species, providing a more comprehensive approach by which to evaluate exploited populations.

Clinal variation in investment into reproduction versus maintenance suggests a \u2018pace-of-life\u2019 syndrome in a widespread butterfly

Extreme weather events such as heat waves are predicted to increase in the course of anthropogenic climate change. Widespread species are exposed to a variety of environmental conditions throughout their distribution range, often resulting in local adaptation. Consequently, populations from different regions may vary in their capacity to deal with challenging conditions such as thermal stress. In this study, we investigated clinal variation in body size, fecundity, and oxidative markers along a pan-European latitudinal gradient in the green-veined white butterfly Pieris napi, and additionally gene expression in German individuals. We exposed butterflies from replicated Italian, German, and Swedish populations to cold, control, or hot temperatures for 24 h. Under hot conditions, molecular chaperones were up-regulated, while oxidative damage remained unaffected and levels of the antioxidant glutathione (GSH) were reduced under cold and hot conditions. Thus, the short-term exposure to heat stress did not substantially affect oxidative balance. Moreover, we found decreased body size and fecundity in cooler compared with warmer regions. Interestingly, oxidative damage was lowest in Swedish animals exhibiting (1) high levels of GSH, (2) low early fecundity, and (3) low larval growth rates. These results suggest that Swedish butterflies have a slower life style and invest more strongly into maintenance, while those from warmer regions show the opposite pattern, which may reflect a ‘pace-of-life’ syndrome.

Phenotypic evolution in stochastic environments: The contribution of frequency- and density-dependent selection.

Understanding how environmental variation affects phenotypic evolution requires models based on ecologically realistic assumptions that include variation in population size and specific mechanisms by which environmental fluctuations affect selection. Here we generalize quantitative genetic theory for environmentally induced stochastic selection to include general forms of frequency- and density-dependent selection. We show how the relevant fitness measure under stochastic selection relates to Fisher's fundamental theorem of natural selection, and present a general class of models in which density regulation acts through total use of resources rather than just population size. In this model, there is a constant adaptive topography for expected evolution, and the function maximized in the long run is the expected factor restricting population growth. This allows us to generalize several previous results and to explain why apparently " -selected" species with slow life histories often have low carrying capacities. Our joint analysis of density- and frequency-dependent selection reveals more clearly the relationship between population dynamics and phenotypic evolution, enabling a broader range of eco-evolutionary analyses of some of the most interesting problems in evolution in the face of environmentalvariation.

Avian developmental rates are constrained by latitude and migratoriness – A global analysis

AbstractAimIt has long been recognized that tropical bird species demonstrate a wide range of traits characteristic for slow life histories, as indicated by lower investment in reproduction, slower senescence or slower physiological pace of life. Nevertheless, evidence for latitudinal variation in avian developmental rates has, so far, been inconclusive and based on limited geographic or phylogenetic sampling. The aim of this study was to test for global associations of avian developmental rates with latitude and migratoriness.LocationGlobal.TaxonBirds.MethodsWe compiled data on developmental (incubation and fledging) periods of 3,500 passerine and non‐passerine bird species distributed worldwide, which represented nearly all extant avian orders and families. Associations of developmental periods with latitude and migratoriness were analysed with phylogenetically informed comparative models that controlled for major sources of variation in developmental rates (body mass, clutch size, and developmental mode across altricial‐precocial spectrum).ResultsOur analyses provided support for a negative latitudinal gradient in the duration of fledging, but not incubation period. After controlling for latitude, we also found that migratory birds showed faster developmental rates than resident species. Finally, we found that developmental rates were nonlinearly associated with clutch size (fastest developmental rates at intermediate clutch size) and that duration of fledging period had higher evolutionary lability than incubation period.Main conclusionsOur global comparative analysis provided convincing and phylogenetically robust evidence for a long‐held hypothesis on latitudinal variation in avian developmental rates, although the pattern was apparent only at the post‐embryonic stage of development (fledging period). This challenges a common belief on longer incubation periods in tropics and indicates that incubation and fledging periods may differently respond to external environmental factors, which can possibly be driven by their different evolutionary lability. The results may contribute to our understanding of biogeographic variation in species diversity.

Integrating Mortality Risk and the Adaptiveness of Hibernation.

Low mortality rate is often associated with slow life history, and so far, has mainly been assessed through examinations of specific adaptations and lifestyles that limit mortality risk. However, the organization of activity time budgets also needs to be considered, since some activities and the time afforded for performing them may expose animals to higher mortality risks such as increased predation and/or increased metabolic stress. We examined the extent of activity time budgets contribution to explaining variation in life history traits in mammals. We specifically focused on hibernating species because of their marked seasonal cycle of activity/inactivity associated with very different mortality risks. Hibernation is considered a seasonal adaptation to prolonged periods of food shortage and cold. This inactivity period may also reduce both extrinsic and intrinsic mortality risks, by decreasing exposure to predators and drastically reducing metabolic rate. In turn, reduction in mortality may explain why hibernators have slower life history traits than non-hibernators of the same size. Using phylogenetically controlled models, we tested the hypothesis that longevity was positively correlated with the hibernation season duration (the time spent between immergence and emergence from the hibernaculum or den) across 82 different mammalian species. We found that longevity increased significantly with hibernation season duration, an effect that was particularly strong in small hibernators (<1.5 kg) especially for bats. These results confirm that hibernation not only allows mammals to survive periods of energy scarcity, but further suggest that activity time budgets may be selected to reduce mortality risks according to life history pace.

Nudging health: Scarcity cues boost healthy consumption among fast rather than slow strategists (and abundance cues do the opposite)

We examine the effectiveness of specific nudges in the choice environment to foster healthy choice and consumption among consumers with fast vs. slow life history strategies (LHS)––short-term, impulsive, reward-sensitive (fast) vs. long-term, reflective, controlled (slow) foci––associated with low and high socio-economic status (SES), respectively. The results of two experiments, conducted in a field and an online setting, show that consumers with a fast, rather than slow, life-history strategy are more susceptible to scarcity cues, boosting choice and actual consumption of healthy foods when these cues are associated with the healthy option. Conversely, for slow LHS consumers, the evidence suggests that scarcity cues are less influential, and instead abundance cues tend to foster healthy choice. Finally, in line with the LHS logic, acute food craving mediates the impact of scarcity vs. abundance cues for fast, but not slow, strategists, while perceptions of socially validated trust in the food source fulfill this role for slow, but not fast, strategists.

Priorities of Muslim youth with regards to spending spare time in modern Germany

This article analyzes how the young ethnic Muslims of 2nd and 3rd generations who were born in Germany, as well as Muslim students studying in Germany, spend their spare time. The author used such methods as field ethnographic observation and unstructured interview with the respondents. The pool of respondents was formed via snowball sampling. Studying the pastime of Muslim youth, the author was able to trace the degree of their integration into German society. Since multiple sociocultural needs are usually fulfilled during the spare time, examination of the leisure of youth allows determining moral and spiritual image of a person. This article is first to analyze leisure time of ethnic Muslims residing in Germany based on the field material acquired by the author, which defines the scientific novelty of this research. The conclusion is made that usually ethnic Muslims of 2nd and 3rd generations (young people without higher education) spend their spare time on the Internet, doing sport or entertaining activities. Young Muslims studying in the universities prefer intellectual leisure activities: reading, visiting museums and exhibitions. The priorities of young Muslims of the 2nd and 3rd generation resemble a slow paced level life, keeping it easy, with no ambition in getting higher education. For Muslim students or Muslims who already received higher education, the priority in pastime include spiritual and cultural development, accumulation of investments and landing a highly-skilled job with decent salary.

Predation and disease limit population recovery following 15 years of headstarting an endangered freshwater turtle

Recovery strategies for endangered species vary in scope and scale, and uncertainties regarding their effectiveness make it necessary to implement evidence-based methods to ensure best management practices and the most efficient use of limited conservation dollars. Assessing recovery actions for species with slow life histories requires decades of study. We quantitatively assessed the putative recovery of two populations (PopA, PopB) of globally endangered Wood Turtles (Glyptemys insculpta) after 30 years of mark-recapture study and 15 years of headstarting implemented in response to a 57% reduction in population size attributed to poaching. We modeled population-specific demographic parameters to evaluate recovery efforts to date, and determine the next phase of management. Both populations showed limited recovery despite the release of 490 headstarted turtles. Recovery has been hindered by lower than expected 1-year post-release survivorship of headstarts (36%, 52% in each population, respectively), and only moderate (for turtles) adult survivorship (89%, 93%). Six headstarted turtles have, however, reproduced suggesting both populations may eventually become self-sustaining. From 2015 to 2018, subsidized predators killed 11 adult turtles, and we detected three diseases (mycotic shell disease, ranavirus, Glyptemys herpesvirus 2) in the headstarts. Our population viability analysis projected that both populations would recover if a predator-management strategy were implemented. Headstarting alone is not enough to save at-risk populations from local extinction when they face multi-faceted problems, including the cascading effects of landscape-scale habitat modification, for which management is challenging.

Home range establishment and the mechanisms of philopatry among female Bornean orangutans (Pongo pygmaeus wurmbii) at Tuanan

Female orangutans exhibit natal philopatry, living in stable home ranges that overlap with those of their maternal relatives. Using data collected from 2003 to 2017 at Tuanan in Central Kalimantan, Indonesia, we take a longitudinal approach to better understand the mechanisms of female philopatry and the factors that influence the home range establishment process of young female orangutans (Pongo pygmaeus wurmbii). Data on movement and sociality were collected during nest-to-nest focal follows of individual orangutans; four young nulli/primiparous females, their three multiparous mothers, and seven other unrelated adult females living in the same area. Our results show that a young female goes through an ‘exploration phase’, beginning when she is an independent immature and lasting through her adolescence, characterized by an increase in home range size and distance travelled each day. This exploration is facilitated by high resource availability and association with adult males. A young female maintains a high degree of overlap with her natal range but gradually decrease the degree of overlap with her mother’s concurrent range. By the time she is a sexually active adolescent, a young female and her mother share as much overlap as a young female does with other related adult females, although she continues to associate more with her mother than with them, even after the birth of her first offspring. Our findings indicate that the high habitat productivity and high orangutan population density of Tuanan lead to a high degree of life-time site fidelity and overlap among maternal kin. The mechanisms of philopatry and the process of home range establishment among solitary animals with slow life histories are difficult to study and poorly understood for most species. We investigated this process among female Bornean orangutans, using a unique long-term data set comprising 15 years of social and spatial data. We analysed changes in the ranging and association patterns of young female orangutans as they developed, matured and became mothers. We found that females went through a post-dependence phase of exploration characterized by an increase in range size and day journey length, and then settled into home ranges that overlapped highly with their mothers and other female kin, though they associated preferentially with their mothers. Our results illuminate the extreme long-term site fidelity of these female orangutans and emphasize the ecological and social importance of female philopatry among orangutans.

Population position along the fast-slow life-history continuum predicts intraspecific variation in actuarial senescence.

Patterns of actuarial senescence can be highly variable among species. Previous comparative analyses revealed that both age at the onset of senescence and rates of senescence are linked to position of a species along the fast-slow life-history continuum. As there are few long-term datasets of wild populations with known-age individuals, intraspecific (i.e. between-population) variation in senescence is understudied and limited to comparisons of wild and captive populations of the same species, mostly birds and mammals. In this paper, we examined how population position along the fast-slow life-history continuum affects intraspecific variation in senescence in an amphibian, Bombina variegata. We used capture-recapture data collected in four populations with contrasting life-history strategies. Senescence trajectories were analysed using Bayesian capture-recapture models. We show that in populationswith fast life histories the onset of actuarial senescence was earlier and individuals aged at a faster rate than individuals in populationswith slow life histories. Our study provides one of the few empirical examples of among-population variation in actuarial senescence patterns in the wild and confirms that the fast-slow life-history gradient is associated with both macroevolutionary and microevolutionary patterns of actuarial senescence.

Habitat size thresholds for predators: Why damselflies only occur in large bromeliads

AbstractPredators are often more sensitive to habitat size than their prey and frequently occur in only the largest habitats. Four explanations have been proposed for this pattern: (a) Small habitats do not have enough energy to support higher trophic levels; (b) small habitats are less likely to contain particular prey required by specialist predators; (c) small habitats are risky for predators with slow life histories or large body sizes; and (d) small habitats are numerically unlikely to be colonized by regionally rare species, such as predators. We critically examine these four hypotheses in relation to the predatory damselfly larva, Mecistogaster modesta Selys. (Pseudostigmatidae), which occurs almost exclusively in bromeliads &gt; 100ml in capacity. We synthesize multiple years of survey data and three manipulative experiments from the Área de Conservación Guanacaste, Costa Rica, to conclude that damselflies do not occur in small bromeliads due to their higher risk of desiccation—not because of energetic limitation, trophic specialization, risk of terrestrial predation, or pure numerical effects. These results suggest that recent and predicted declines in precipitation in northwestern Costa Rica may further restrict bromeliad occupancy by damselflies, with cascading consequences for the rest of the aquatic food web.Abstract in Spanish is available with online material.

The effect of temporal environmental autocorrelation on eco‐evolutionary dynamics across life histories

AbstractOne of the largest causes of fluctuations in the size and structure of populations is changes in the environment. In nature, these changes are often temporally autocorrelated and the strength and direction of the autocorrelation can affect population dynamics. These effects are mediated by complex, simultaneously occurring ecological and evolutionary processes, such as phenotypic plasticity and selection. Determining how these processes interact to affect responses of different life histories to autocorrelated environmental fluctuations is of paramount importance to infer which taxa are likely to go extinct or become invasive under global change. Here, we assessed the effect of autocorrelation in environmental states on the trait and population dynamics of different life histories using an evolutionary explicit individual‐based modeling approach. We found that, in general, higher positive temporal autocorrelation caused more variation in population size. Fast life histories were more affected than slow ones as they were able to adapt more quickly to varying environmental optima and therefore experienced larger initial decreases in population size when optima changed. Including adaptive phenotypic plasticity buffered the effects of autocorrelation on population dynamics while nonadaptive plasticity amplified them, especially for slow life histories, which recovered less from maladaptation. This study highlights that integration of phenotypic plasticity, selection, and population dynamics is important to improve our understanding of how different life histories deal with autocorrelated climate variability.

Life history trade‐offs are more pronounced for a noninvasive, native butterfly compared to its invasive, exotic congener

AbstractLife history trade‐offs are ubiquitous in nature. Life history theory posits that these trade‐offs arise from individuals having limited resources to allocate toward all vital functions, such as survival, growth and reproduction. These trade‐offs position most species along a slow‐fast life history continuum, where individuals with slow life histories often have higher survival at the cost of delayed reproduction and individuals with fast life histories often live faster and die younger. However, these trade‐offs are sometimes less obvious for invasive species. Here, we constructed age‐based population models to compare life history strategies and trade‐offs between the noninvasive, native mustard white and invasive, exotic cabbage white (Pieris spp.) butterflies. We found that the cabbage white has faster larval growth and higher fecundity at younger ages, suggesting it has a fast life history compared to the mustard white. However, cabbage white also has higher adult survival at younger ages, suggesting that it experiences weaker trade‐offs among vital rates than its native counterpart. Our study illustrates the importance of demographic studies in evaluating life history strategies among congener species with different population histories, and emphasizes the many advantages experienced by invasive species in their novel environments.

The influence of instrumentality in trusting Dark Triad members

This study examined whether the association between the Dark Triad and a Fast Life History strategy illuminates how Dark Triad members with poor reputations gain trust from others. Undergraduate participants (N = 121) viewed vignettes of high or low Dark Triad (dark/light) actors proposing Fast Life History or Slow Life History (fast/slow) strategies to obtain desirable outcomes. They rated how successful the actor would be (perceived instrumentality) and how inclined they were to trust the actor. Participants were significantly less trusting of dark actors, an effect that is compounded when the actors proposed to enact fast strategies. Interestingly, dark actors proposing slow strategies were trusted significantly more than light actors proposing fast strategies. Across vignettes, instrumentality was significantly positively related to trust. An exploratory analysis found that psychopathy and Machiavellianism were associated with trusting Dark Triad actors, and that psychopathy was associated with perceiving Fast Life strategies as effective. Our results provide evidence for a complex relationship between the Dark Triad and Life History, the importance of perceived instrumentality in trusting behaviours, and the unique characteristics of narcissism within the Dark Triad.

Decades of Road Mortality Cause Severe Decline in a Common Snapping Turtle (Chelydra serpentina) Population from an Urbanized Wetland

Road networks threaten biodiversity and particularly herpetofauna, including common snapping turtles (Chelydra serpentina), which have an especially slow life history that prevents rapid recovery of populations subjected to road mortality. Cootes Drive is a 2.5-km 4-lane highway that bisects wetland habitat used for nesting and overwintering by snapping turtles. We hypothesized that turtle mortality from collisions with vehicles on Cootes Drive has caused a male bias and a decline in the population as turtles attempt to access habitat on both sides of the road. Capture–mark–recapture studies confirmed a dramatic decline in the turtle population from 941 individuals in 1985 to 177 individuals in 2002, a loss of 764 individuals in only 17 yrs. Using the same data, we also determined that the population has been significantly male-biased since 1985. Using 2009–2016 road mortality data obtained from the Dundas Turtle Watch (a citizen-science program), we completed a population viability analysis using the 2002 population size estimate to isolate the impact of road mortality. We found that this population is at risk of extirpation due to road mortality. The population range overlapped with the Cootes Drive and 7 of the 10 tracked turtles had individual home ranges that overlapped with the road. Our findings support the hypothesis that road mortality has contributed to the dramatic decline in the snapping turtle population in Cootes Paradise Marsh. This population is in jeopardy of extirpation; therefore, exclusion fencing must be installed for an extended distance along both sides of surrounding roads to prevent turtles from crossing the road and to promote their use of existing aquatic culverts.

The neglected complexities of shark fisheries, and priorities for holistic risk-based management

Sharks and their cartilaginous relatives (Class Chondrichthyes, herein ‘sharks’) are one of the world's most threatened species groups. Their slow life history traits and vulnerability to capture make them particularly susceptible to overfishing, and they are widely caught in both target and by-catch fisheries. Fisheries management measures that can effectively reduce shark fishing mortality are urgently required to halt population declines and species extinctions. We provide an overview of typical measures for understanding and managing risks to sharks, and highlight critical gaps relating to incorporating socio-economic factors in to research and management. We argue that neglecting these factors hinders effective shark conservation, and has negative consequences for people. We emphasise the importance of a holistic approach, which explicitly considers socio-economic factors in decision-making. Based on this, we propose the first framework for assessing feasibility in a shark management context, which could be integrated with traditional fisheries risk assessments in order to bridge this gap. This framework considers key dimensions of the costs, benefits and overall enabling environment for shark management in a given fishery. Overall, managers and policy makers must consider socio-economic factors in shark conservation efforts to deliver better outcomes for sharks and people. Our simple feasibility framework can support this by enabling costs, benefits and context to be explicitly considered in planning and policy-making, alongside the typical biological and technical risks to sharks in fisheries.

Energetics suggest cause for even further conservation concern for Temminck’s ground pangolin

AbstractConservation of rare and declining species requires reliable information about life‐history traits and population growth characteristics. Unfortunately, long‐term studies necessary to obtain such data are often difficult or impossible for species of concern. In such cases, data that can be collected during limited capture events can serve as valuable proxies. We measured metabolic characteristics of Temminck’s ground pangolin Smutsia temminckii because metabolic traits provide clues about relative gestation length, reproductive output and population growth, all of which were largely unknown for this species. As expected, both basal and field metabolic rates are considerably lower than would be predicted from body mass alone, suggesting pangolins are likely to have slow life histories and low intrinsic population growth. Such characteristics suggest Temminck’s ground pangolins (and likely all pangolins) are less able to persist under heavy poaching and trafficking than other similarly sized mammals and will likely recover slowly even if poaching and trafficking are stopped. While physiological data cannot be used to directly calculate population growth rates, we believe they may provide a tangible data source to inform management decisions for critically endangered, difficult‐to‐study species.